The Cabinet office minister revealed that Britain hit its target of 100,000 tests a day for two days running, but was unable to meet it yesterday.
Ministers scrambled to get up to 100,000 ahead of Friday’s deadline, and have promised to test the same number every day.
Mr Gove said today that 76,496 were done, a drop of around 25,000.
NHS Director Stephen Powis said that there had been a “little bit of a dip at the weekend” but stressed “we anticipate that testing capacity will continue to increase”.
On Friday Matt Hancock announced he had smashed his target 100,000 a day, which he set the country at the start of the month.
He has expanded the criteria meaning that 25million NHS staff, key workers and others who need to leave the house to go to their job can now get a test.
However, critics pointed out that the testing figure was not the total tests that had been done, but included thousands of home test kits had been sent out in the post.
Some of them may not yet have taken place, or the results have not yet been sent back.
Some accused the Government of fiddling the figures to hit the test target.
Home testing kits have been flying this week, with ministers releasing nearly 15,000 a day direct to doorsteps.
Testing is seen as being the first stage of a plan to end the lockdown.
More testing will be set up, followed by an extensive track and trace programme to target anyone who may have been in contact with the killer bug.
Boris Johnson tweeted this morning an appeal for Brits to stay on track and work together to beat the bug.
He said: “I can confirm that we are past the peak of this disease.
“We are past the peak and we are on the downward slope.
“And we have so many reasons to be hopeful for the long term.
“But we can only defeat coronavirus by our collective discipline and working together.”
