FILE PHOTO: Contractors, members of 1 Royal Anglian Regiment and members of the Queen’s Gurkha Engineer Regiment help to build the new NHS Nightingale Hospital to fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, March 27, 2020. Picture taken March 27, 2020. Andrew Parsons/UK Ministry of Defence/Crown copyright 2013/Handout via REUTERS.
LONDON (Reuters) – The coronavirus epidemic in the United Kingdom is showing signs of slowing and antibody tests could be ready in days, Neil Ferguson, a professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, said on Monday.
“We think the epidemic is just about slowing in the UK right now,” Ferguson told BBC radio.
He said a third or even 40% of people do not get any symptoms. He said perhaps 2% to 3% of the United Kingdom’s population had been infected.
But Ferguson cautioned that the data was not good enough to make firm extrapolations.
He said antibody tests were in the final stage of validation right now and could be hopefully ready to use in “days rather than weeks”.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden