Six days ago, I wrote a post on both my website and Facebook in which I pondered how many of us have Coronavirus/COVID-19 with mild symptoms or do not even realise we had it? I noted that Professor Sunetra Gupta (photograph), who leads an Oxford University team modelling the COVID-19 virus, had suggested that it was possible that up to half of the British population may have been infected and that the disease reached the UK by mid-January. I suggested too that we needed to know that answer but that a cross-section representative sample of the population should be tested to give it. Polling methodology could be used I pondered?
To determine exactly where we all stand, all of us may need to take so-called anti-body test. That will be useful both for Government assessments but it would also be rather useful for all of us to know exactly where we are individually in respect of the infection. Personally, I would like to know and I am sure most other people would like to know too.
Knowing just how many people have had Coronavirus or are naturally immune to it is vital in determining how we exit from our locked down state. Let me be clear there is no way we can actually do that until our infection rate as well as death rate diminishes greatly. Dominic Raab has confirmed that this will not happen soon and based on my very limited scientific/medical knowledge I get that. But at least we can look at the options and I am convinced that is exactly what is happening behind the scenes.
I am sure Sir Patrick Vallance, our Chief Scientific Officer, is very carefully examining the evidence. If a large percentage of the population had had Coronavirus – albeit lightly – or were naturally immune, as suggested by Professor Gupta, then there is clear light at the end of the lock-down tunnel.
Vallance has now said that there were signs we were beginning to get an answer to just how many of us have had Coronavirus asymptomatically. I gather that means you are immune or have recovered from Coronavirus and no longer have symptoms.
Under questioning last week about the overall rate of infection Sir Patrick Vallance said: “It's not likely that 90 per cent of people have had it (Coronavirus) asymptomatically – much more likely that it's lower than 50 per cent, it could be around 30 per cent but we don't know for sure. But in terms of the number of people who've had in every country, that's why the antibody test is so important.”
You bet it’s important. It’s more than that; it’s crucial. If a considerable proportion of us are actually asymptomatic, say well above 50 per cent, which Professor Gupta feels is possible, we can surely anticipate being freed from home detention much earlier, possibly sometime in May. If, on the other hand, that percentage is much lower, the strictures of lock-down and/or social distancing could be with us much longer. Obviously maximum Government effort must therefore be put into answering my initial question; how many of us have had Coronavirus even without noticing it and who is apparently immune?