By Charlotte Webster-
The study suggested 6 per cent of England’s population had already been infected with Covid-19 by July 13th – far more than thought.
The results come from the world’s largest home testing programme to find antibodies for the coronavirus, a study involving more than 100,000 volunteers and carried out by Imperial College London.
It was conducted with the use of a simple finger-prick home test said to be easy and accurate enough for mass surveillance studies, the programme suggested 6 per cent of England’s population had already been infected with Covid-19 by July 13th.
The figure is significantly higher than that posted by Johns Hopkins University, putting the Uk’s total case numbers at 315,546 as of Thursday morning.
The study is said to have tracked the spread of the virus across England after the pandemic’s first peak, with volunteers testing themselves at home between June 20th and July 13th.
It also explores the probability of the infection spreading, giving known facts about it. It states that people living in London were most likely to have been infected, along with those working in care homes and health care.
People from black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups, and people living in larger households were also likely to have been infected.
The programme suggested a total of 13 per cent of people living in London had Covid-19 antibodies, compared with less than 3 per cent in the southwest of England. Covid-19 as been the cause of a global lockdown this year for nearly 2 months.
Over 40,000 people are reported to have died from Covid-19 related causes, but the government revised the death count by 5,000 on Wednesday, saying the manner of the counting was flawed.