LJ, quite. Almost 1 million tests are being performed daily at the moment, with a turn round time of about 12 hours for the 750k of those which require laboratory assessment. It's a staggering capability to have established, and yet is dismissed as being of "no benefit" by fools who don't make the slightest effort to understand what's beneath a headline.
Some idiots really do seem to think that £37bn was poured away on a failed smartphone app and bungs to Dido Harding's mates. I've seen the £37bn described as a 'zombie statistic', one which refuses to die despite being repeatedly explained in simple terms such as those you've set out. The lesson I take from that is that Harding should have followed Kate Bingham's example and spent a large amount on a top-notch
PR consultancy at the very beginning. This would have been decried as 'waste' at the time but might have increased the public's understanding, respect for and compliance with the scheme.