By Ben Kerrigan-
The coronavirus outbreak in the UK appears to be “slowing”, a leading scientist and government adviser has said. Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, said there were “early signs” social distancing measures had started reducing the spread of COVID-19
But if we look at the numbers of new hospital admissions, that does appear to be slowing down a bit now.
“It has not yet plateaued, so still the numbers can be increasing each day but the rate of that increase has slowed.” We see similar patterns in a number of European countries.”Ferguson also said that “maybe a third, maybe 40%” of people do not get any symptoms but there was no evidence to back up claims that the vast majority of people are asymptomatic, he said. Britain’s leading professor suggested that about 2 or 3% of people in the Uk are likely to already be infected.
Professor Ferguson said the rate of infections varied in different parts of the country.”It is quite clear across the country, the epidemic is in different stages in different parts of the country,” he said.to build-up ‘herd immunity’ – warned deaths are still likely to rise sharply as they lag two or three weeks behind the new infections. Ferguson said the next crucial step was the antibody test that can tell whether people have already had the virus and is in the “final stages of validation”, with hopes that it could be operational within days.
Ferguson’s assessment provides some hope that the lockdown could work, but he acknowledged testing would need to be increased. He said antibody tests, currently in final stages of validation, would be ‘critical’ to the understanding of the epidemic. He added, they would “hopefully” be available in days.
Image:breakingnewstoday.co.uk