Coronavirus UK: Half population could be infected, says expert

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Coronavirus could have infected HALF of the British population and been spreading here since January say Oxford University experts as they challenge ‘unquestioning acceptance’ of official data

  • Half of the UK could be infected with coronavirus, say Oxford experts
  • Public in Kent, Cambridge and Oxford could be tested to support new theory 
  • Disease may have spread unrecognised throughout the country since January
  • Questions raised over whether the UK could already have herd immunity 
  • Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?

By Luke May For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

 The coronavirus may have infected as much as half of the population of the United Kingdom, according to researchers at the University of Oxford.

Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford, led a study into the infection rate of Covid-19 across the country.

Professor Gupta said the UK need to begin large scale antibody testing, in an interview with the Financial Times. 

London was viewed as Britain’s epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic. Experts suggest around half of the country’s population could already be infected with Covid-19 

Today the UK’s coronavirus death toll rose to 422. while there have been 8,077 British cases reported. 

Modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group suggests Covid-19 first reached the UK by mid-January, spreading invisibly before the first cases were recorded at the end of February. 

The research, which formed its basis by studying case numbers and deaths in the UK and Italy, still needs to be fully proven, but if true, it presents a different view to the modelling from Imperial College London, which has had some influence on government policy.

Prof Gupta told the FT: ‘I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model.’

The Oxford group is working with colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent to start antibody testing on the public as soon as this week. 

Results from those tests will be able to provide further evidence to contribute to Oxford’s theory.

The FT reports that, if proven, the University of Oxford’s findings may mean current restrictions could be lifted sooner than previously indicated.

Britain was put into lockdown on Monday, but research from the University of Oxford suggests measures may not need to be in place for as long as ministers originally predicted

Britain was put into lockdown on Monday, but research from the University of Oxford suggests measures may not need to be in place for as long as ministers originally predicted 

Oxford’s results would suggest the country has already acquired substantial herd immunity while the pandemic spread unrecognised between January and February.

Although some experts have shed doubt on the strength and length of the human immune response to the virus, Prof Gupta said the emerging evidence made her confident that humanity would build up herd immunity against Covid-19. 

WHAT IS HERD IMMUNITY?

Herd immunity is a situation in which a population of people is protected from a disease because so many of them are unaffected by it that it cannot spread. 

To cause an outbreak a disease-causing bacteria or virus must have a continuous supply of potential victims who are not immune to it.

Immunity is when your body knows exactly how to fight off a certain type of infection because it has encountered it before, either by having the illness in the past or through a vaccine.

When a virus or bacteria enters the body the immune system creates substances called antibodies, which are designed to destroy one specific type of bug.

When these have been created once, some of them remain in the body and the body also remembers how to make them again. This provides long-term protection, or immunity, against an illness.

If nobody is immune to an illness – as was the case at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak – it can spread like wildfire.

However, if, for example, half of people have developed immunity – from a past infection or a vaccine – there are only half as many people the illness can spread to.

As more and more people become immune the bug finds it harder and harder to spread until its pool of victims becomes so small it can no longer spread at all.

The threshold for herd immunity is different for various illnesses, depending on how contagious they are – for measles, around 95 per cent of people must be vaccinated to it spreading.

For polio, which is less contagious, the threshold is about 80-85 per cent, according to the Oxford Vaccine Group.