The UK abandoned mass coronavirus testing because it didn't have enough capacity, a top medical advisor has admitted.
Jenny Harries, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England, accepted the nation would have taken a "different approach" if more tests were available.
The UK abandoned "community" testing and thorough contact tracing on March 12 after it became clear the virus was spreading beyond control.
Now that capacity has been ramped up, a "test, track and trace" approach will be brought back - this time with an NHS app - to try to contain a second peak.
At the time community testing was dropped, Dr Harries claimed it was "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward."
But today she accepted it was about resources.
Asked if she still thought it was "not appropriate" to test widely then, she told the Commons Health Committee: "The issue here is what capacity we have to undertake testing."
She added: "If we had unlimited capacity, and the ongoing support beyond that, then we perhaps would choose a slightly different approach.
“But with the resources that we had – and I mean that in a broad sense, because many of the specialists and expertise that you need to carry out additional contact tracing will also be supporting the other changes that have been very successful, for example ramping up NHS capacity.
“So there are clinicians working on the interface between public health and the NHS, and it’s appropriate that capacity is maximised to save lives, I think, as well as considering the spread of disease.”
She said her comments on March 26 were about "focusing" on the highest priorities. She added: “There is a balance point in this with resources that you have available.”
Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance accepted it "would have been beneficial" to have more testing capacity quicker.
Not even care home staff were being routinely tested until the last few weeks. Thousands of people have since died with Covid-19 in care homes.
"In the early phases, I think if we'd managed to ramp testing capacity quicker it would have been beneficial," he said. "For all sorts of reasons that didn't happen."
Sir Patrick said: "It's completely wrong to think of testing as the answer - it's just part of the system that you need to get right."
But he added: "In terms of what would I do in retrospect, if we knew then what we know now, I think that's something for the future to look at.
"And certainly there will be times when evidence didn't allow decisions to be made that you could make now, and there'll be times at which you look back and say that something might have been done differently, I've got no doubt about that."
The UK has overtaken Italy to report the highest official death toll from coronavirus in Europe with more than 32,000 deaths.
