The Foreign Secretary insisted the UK was “on track” to hit its target of 100,000 daily tests by Thursday.

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But he suggested the ultimate goal was to get up to 250,000 a day — and the process needed to be ramped up.

It also emerged that 50million new “immunity” kits are on hold amid concerns of their reliability.

The news came as fast food giant McDonald’s — currently closed — offered up one of its drive-thrus as a vital coronavirus testing centre for NHS workers.

Instead of Big Macs and fries, desperately needed Covid-19 checks for frontline medical workers were being served up at the Meridian Business Park in Leicester.

Staff from private medical firm DHU Healthcare were seen carrying out tests through car windows.

Mr Raab warned tonight that a significant increase in tests and a rigorous tracing of anyone who may be infected is the next stage of the pandemic battle.

The Government is facing a furious scramble to hit its target of 100,000 daily tests by Thursday, the last day of the month.

Just 29,058 were carried out on Saturday — the latest day for full testing figures. But Foreign Secretary Mr Raab insisted Britain was on target, and aiming higher.

TRACER APP

He told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One: “Well, certainly we want to get 100,000 daily tests by the end of the month.”

Asked if the 250,000 daily target — mentioned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month — was still the aim, he suggested it was.

He said: “Well, we’ve certainly got to get the daily testing right up to hundreds of thousands.”

Any ease in lockdown needed a hike in testing, tracking and tracing of cases, plus developing drugs to treat the virus, he said.

An NHS phone app is being developed which will tell people if they have come into contact with an infected patient.

An 18,000-strong army of human tracers will also help find and warn Brits at risk of infection.

Ministers believe that by rigorously finding, testing and quarantining anyone with the virus they can help keep it muzzled as the search for a vaccine continues.

Oxford University’s Professor Christophe Fraser, who is helping design the app, said up to around 60 per cent of Brits will need to download it — around 40million.

Prof Fraser told the BBC yesterday: “We found that, for this intervention alone to stop resurgence of the epidemic, about 60 per cent of the population would have to use the app.

“Now that number may be a bit smaller if there were other interventions going on which we hope there will be — social distancing, large community testing and indeed manual contract tracing.”

It came amid reports the Government had ordered production of up to 50million new antibody tests by late summer.

It is hoped the pinprick blood tests could tell if Brits have previously had the virus and have built up immunity to it. But health sources last night warned it is not yet known if it is reliable enough to be rolled out.

TESTING SLOTS RUN OUT

Ministers have bought millions of various types of these antibody kits in the hope one will work.

But so far chief medical officer Chris Whitty has warned they are not reliable enough to tell if individuals have immunity.

Meanwhile, testing slots for key workers ran out for the third day in a row — amid a warning from the British Medical Association.

More than 10million essential workers and their families are now eligible for free checks. But kits were listed as “unavailable” on the Government’s website yesterday — two hours after booking reopened.

After its launch on Friday, slots for home-testing and drive-through centres have been used up within the first few hours.

BMA council chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul said the online booking system “offered no practical help” to healthcare workers because it had insufficient capacity.

He said: “There is no point putting forward a proposal unless it’s matched with adequate capacity.”

He added: “If the Government wants healthcare workers to have access to the test, it has to be in the context of providing adequate capacity, not a ‘first come first served’ and closing within an hour.”

He added: “Our estimate is that there are about 90,000 health and care staff self-isolating based upon the Government figures of absence rates. With that in mind, if they all wanted to have a test, clearly capacity has to match that number on that assumption.”

The Department of Health said slots and kits are available daily at 8am, and others will get a staggered release throughout the day.

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The military is also to begin operating mobile coronavirus testing units at care homes, police stations and prisons.

They will test essential workers and vulnerable people where there is “significant” demand.

The mobile facilities can be set up in less than 20 minutes and test hundreds a day.

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