Germany has announced it will give 100,000 people coronavirus antibody tests in the next few weeks as part of a major trial to get millions of workers out of lockdown.
The mass study will allow officials to determine who has already caught the deadly infection and is therefore immune to being struck down again.
British health chiefs have still yet to approve coronavirus antibody tests, despite the promises that the DIY kits would be ready for use by mid-April.
Labour’s shadow health secretary last night urged Number 10 to follow Germany’s approach and roll-out antibody tests to get a grip on the outbreak.
Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘Germany appears to be leading the way in the testing and we have much to learn from their approach.’
Public Health England’s medical director last night said the 17.5million DIY antibody tests the Government had ordered were still being evaluated.
Her comments came after one manufacturer of a finger-prick kits warned it could take six weeks for them to have any antibody tests ready for Britons to use at home.
It comes as ministers today are facing fresh fury over the lack of mass coronavirus testing today amid claims the UK does have the lab capacity to match Germany.
Experts insisted ‘organisation’ rather than a shortage of facilities was to blame for slow rise in checks.
However, there are fears that a global chemical shortage could also be hampering efforts to scale up the regime.
Cologne’s city centre is deserted amid the lockdown in Germany to contain the coronavirus
BioSure, one of the firms in talks with the Government to make 17.5million home-kits, has been asked to get ready to ramp up production.
But no DIY antibody tests have been approved yet, meaning the company is holding off on mass-producing the kits in case stringent medical tests fail.
Brigette Bard, BioSure’s chief executive, warned the delay could mean it won’t have any kits ready for Britons to use in the comfort of their own home until mid-May.
Germany is also planning to bring in ‘immunity certificates’ as part of preparations for the country to cease its lockdown.
The team plans to test 100,000 people at a time from mid-April, issuing documents to those who have built up an immunity.
They will then use the information gleaned from the testing to assess how and when the lockdown should conclude.
Researchers will utilise the data as they advise the government on when schools will be re-opened and mass gatherings permitted once again.
Germany is also planning to test 200,000 people a day for the coronavirus, in hope of replicating South Korea’s success in slowing the outbreak.
It is already testing more than any other European country at a rate of up to 500,000 a week, but the latest plans would more than double that capacity.
Official figures in Germany show 60,000 people have been infected. Its death toll stands at nearly 600 – giving the nation a case-fatality ratio of less than 1 per cent.
In comparison, the death rate in the UK where only hospitalised patients are being swabbed is six times higher because officials are missing tens of thousands of mild cases.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected around 800,000 people worldwide, has secured a boost in poll ratings.
British health chiefs have said they could start giving out coronavirus ‘immunity’ certificates like Germany to allow millions of Britons out of lockdown.
Otherwise, there is no official way of keeping track of who has already battled the virus and has developed some form of immunity.
On Sunday night it was claimed that officials had finally agreed deals to purchase millions of home antibody tests to start being used in the UK by mid-April.
It comes as ministers yesterday faced a furious backlash after it emerged the UK is still not carrying out 10,000 tests a day – despite claims the level had been hit.
Ministers boasted on Sunday that they had reached a target of 10,000 tests a day of whether people currently have the virus, as the deadly outbreak spreads.
However, while the capacity has been apparently reached, the government has yet to carry out that number.
The latest figures from Public Health England were 8,278 in the 24 hours to 9am on Sunday, which was actually down from 9,114 the previous day.
Professor Yvonne Doyle, Public Health England’s medical director, said the millions of kits Number 10 had ordered in principle were ‘under investigation’
NHS staff get tested for the coronavirus at a facility specifically for health workers in Surrey
A testing station has been set up for NHS workers only in Chessington, Surrey. Healthcare staff are crying out for regular testing so they can be sure they are safe to work with patients
In last night’s Downing Street press conference, Professor Doyle said the tests would be point-of-care, meaning they could be done ‘in the home’.
She added: ‘This testing needs to be evaluated to make sure it is valid- in other words, that it does what it says and at scale.
‘This would be large numbers. We want to make sure we are doing something that is safe and is actually valid and correct when it is ready.’
Her comments echoed the concerns of England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, who last week warned that the only thing worse than no test was a bad test.
Britain has repeatedly been criticised for its controversial testing policy to only swab patients in hospital for the killer coronavirus.
It means the true size of the Britain’s outbreak is a mystery because officials have no idea who is actually infected.
A top Government adviser yesterday suggested up to 2million people may already have caught the deadly coronavirus.
And University of Oxford scientists last week claimed that up to half of the UK could have already caught the disease, called COVID-19.
But official figures show 22,000 patients have tested positive. The death toll currently stands at around 1,400.
The World Health Organization earlier this month warned the only way to get a grip on the escalating pandemic was to ‘test, test, test’.
Confusion has surrounded Britain’s plan to buy millions of antibody kits, which last week it was revealed would have to be sent off in the post.
Professor Doyle said samples would need to be sent to a lab and analysed by specialists – a process that could take as long as a day.
It is unclear who makes the antibody kits that would need to be posted – Number 10 has been tight-lipped regarding the whole testing regime.
But the Government is also still in talks with firms that produce home-testing kits, which can give results in 10 minutes.
Number 10 originally claimed to have ordered 3.5million kits in principle. It is unclear whether these relate strictly to just the postal kits.
But ministers have now claimed to have ordered 17.5million kits, in principle. It is thought most of these will be home-tests, which will be available in batches – as and when they are ready.
The Department of Health and Social Care has identified a number of suppliers who can make the antibody tests, if they past medical checks.
Despite repeated requests from MailOnline, officials have refused to confirm which firms are in the running.
BioSure’s Ms Bard said it was ‘hugely optimistic’ for the Government to say it could get its tests out in three weeks, adding ‘six weeks is more likely’.
She warned that she cannot scale up any manufacturing until they are approved, in case the finger-prick kits fail stringent medical checks – which would be a great expense to the company.
BioSure already makes a home-testing kit for HIV, which looks for antibodies in the blood and gives a result in 15 minutes.
BioSure claims to have developed an at-home finger prick test that takes a quarter of an hour
It works exactly like the firm’s HIV self test, which requires the user to take a drop of blood using a safety lancet before using its pen device to scan the sample for COVID-19 antibodies
Its test, which is currently being evaluated, has just been recalibrated to look for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Other companies in discussion with the Government are likely to be in a similar position as Essex-based BioSure.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease specialist at the University of East Anglia agreed that the order of 17.5million kits by mid-April ‘does seem a stretch’.
He told MailOnline: ‘Certainly we need to get a substantial proportion of them distributed to people as soon as possible.’
Derby-based SureScreen is one company that has been approached by Number 10. It claims it can make 500,000 of its home-tests each week.
Ministers hope the antibody tests will identify contagion hotspots as well as people who are immune.
The tests would help get NHS staff back to work with screening of frontline workers, such as teachers and police officers, to follow.
The programme could see movement restrictions lifted earlier than the six months suggested by the Government’s scientific advisers yesterday.
‘The top priority is randomised testing to establish how far the disease has spread,’ a Whitehall source said.
A car drivers into the testing facility at the make-shift drive-through facility in Surrey
A worker wearing a face mask and apron stands waiting as a car approaches for a drive-through coronavirus in test
For weeks Britain has relied on swabs to test patients in hospital, a lengthy process which can take up to two days.
Officials finally announced on Friday that they would begin antigen testing on NHS frontline staff.
It comes after former health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced he believes testing is key to the relaxation of social distancing measures.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he asked: ‘Is it too far-fetched to aim to be the first country that tests every single member of the population at home?
‘Mass social distancing will help flatten the curve, but only testing will save us from months, maybe years, of anguish and economic paralysis.’
Iceland has already carried out a population-wide testing programme and Norway announced one yesterday.
It comes after the president of the Royal College of Physicians today said up to 30 per cent of its staff is currently off work.
Professor Andrew Goddard told BBC Breakfast coronavirus testing being rolled out to frontline NHS workers would make a ‘big difference’.
He said: ‘I have got lots of colleagues at the moment who are sitting at home with family members who have got symptoms.
‘They themselves don’t have symptoms and are champing at the bit to try to get back to work.
‘So, if we can get the tests and get those people back on the shop floor, then that would be brilliant.’
Scientists fear that lifting restrictions too early – before the virus is in retreat –could lead to a second spike in deaths.
Britain is currently conducting only ‘antigen’ testing – a swab that requires laboratory analysis. A drive through test facility is pictured above in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures, London
Professor Hunter said: ‘If you relax social distancing based on a levelling off of cases you could see a resurgence. So we have to be cautious about that because we just don’t know enough about what is going on.
‘But if we know, through mass antibody testing, that a large proportion of the population is immune, you could lift social distancing much earlier.’
Ministers decided earlier this month to reserve all Britain’s testing capacity for those in hospitals.
But that move has left officials ‘blindfolded’ in their response to the crisis, the World Health Organisation has warned. It has called on all countries to ‘test, test, test’.
The Government has been fiercely criticised for failing to prioritise testing, with the daily figures failing to yet hit 10,000. In Germany, by comparison, officials are testing more than 70,000 people a day.
Even front-line NHS staff were not being tested until this weekend, which meant 20 per cent were in self-isolation last week.
South Korea – initially one of the worst hit countries – managed to quickly control its outbreak by aggressively testing for the disease.
Germany yesterday announced plans for a testing programme that will see it issue 100,000 ‘immunity passports’ a month.
Professor Eleanor Riley, an infectious disease expert at the University of Edinburgh, said: ‘Mass antibody testing will give us a much better idea of how widely the virus has spread in the population.’
Medical equipment is pictured outside London’s Excel centre, which has been turned into NHS Nightingale Hospital. One in four Britons could be tested for coronavirus to try to shorten the lockdown
In a sign that ministers have finally accepted the urgency of mass testing, officials have agreed deals to buy 17.5million kits for use by mid-April. They hope to identify contagion hotspots as well as people who are immune. An NHS worker is pictured above being tested for the virus in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures in London
The Government has been fiercely criticised for failing to prioritise testing, with the daily figures failing to yet hit 10,000. In Germany, by comparison, officials are testing more than 70,000 people a day