Oxford Study: Half of UK Population May Already Have Been Infected With SARS-CoV-2 and Didn’t Feel a Thing

Only one in thousand infected may require hospitalization — this thing isn't even as bad as the flu

The rapidly spreading coronavirus may have already infected half the UK population — but that is encouraging news, according to a new study by the University of Oxford.

The modeling by researchers at Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates the COVID-19 virus reached the UK by mid-January at the latest, spreading undetected for more than a month before the first official case was reported in late February, the Financial Times reports.

But even though this suggests the spread is far worse than scientists previously estimated, it also implies that only one in a thousand people infected with COVID-19 requires hospitalization.

The researchers say this shows that herd immunity — the idea that the virus will stop spreading when enough of the population builds up resistance through becoming infected — can help fight the highly-contagious disease.

This view is in contrast to the Imperial College London modeling used by the UK government to develop policies to halt the crisis, including social distancing.

“I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study, told the Financial Times.

If the Oxford model is confirmed by testing, Professor Gupta believes this means current restrictions could be removed much sooner than the government has indicated, the Financial Times reports.

The group is now working with colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent to start antibody testing to figure out what stage the epidemic is in and to assess protective immunity, according to the outlet.

In the UK, 422 people have died from the illness while 135 have recovered. There have been 8,077 confirmed cases, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.

Source: New York Post


Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford, led the study and says the UK must ramp up antibody testing to discover the true stage of the pandemic in Britain. ‘We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,’ Gupta told the Financial Times.

Should the results of the study be found correct, it would suggest that just one in a thousand infected patients require hopsital treatment and it raises hopes that the UK’s ‘lockdown’ measures could be lifted earlier than planned.

Source: Metro

2 Comments
  1. JustPassingThrough says

    Br(e)aking News: Corona Virus causes Kosovo to rejoin Serbia

    https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-denies-pushing-plan-for-kosovo-serbia-land-swap/30512952.html

    1. Jozo Magoc says

      RadioFreeEurope-zionist propaganda from Fashington,District of Crimminals!

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