The coronavirus reached the UK by mid-January ‘at the latest’ according to the study (Picture: Getty)

Up to half of the UK population may have already contracted the coronavirus, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Oxford.

The study claims the disease reached the UK by mid-January ‘at the latest’ and appears to counter the modelling at Imperial College London, which the government has based its responsive measures on so far during the pandemic.

The research suggests that the disease may have already been prevalent in the UK as much two months earlier than the first case was officially diagnosed.

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.

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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.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Tuesday that 12,000 retired NHS staff had answered a call to return to the health service.

Mr Hancock was delivering the government’s first video press conference, where he also announced that a temporary hospital at London’s Excel Centre in east London will be opening soon.

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The UK lags behind the likes of China and South Korea in its testing numbers but the government has confirmed they have bought 3.5million antibody tests that will be able to determine if a patient has already contracted the disease.

The UK’s death toll increased by 87 on Monday, taking the total amount of deaths to 422.

As of Monday, 90,436 patients have been tested for the virus in the UK with 82,359 testing negative. and 8,077 testing positive.

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