Hancock’s errors disguise inconvenient truths about the German situation. Though Roche has developed tests and manufactures equipment, it is laboratories at universities, hospitals and government agencies that have taken the lead in testing for Covid-19 in Germany. Private laboratories have played a crucial role in Germany’s testing regime, but big business has not; according to statistics compiled by Akkredierte Labore in der Medizin, a trade group for the medical diagnostics industry, the six largest private providers of Covid-19 tests together account for 36% of the laboratories currently testing in Germany. Indeed, the distributed nature of the German response can be seen in the rapid increase in the number of facilities doing testing. Between 2 and 8 March, 43 laboratories conducted 36,067 tests. Last week, 97 laboratories conducted 313,957 tests.