Lockdown could be ended and up to 10 million people a day tested for Covid-19 tests if every laboratory in the country joined the effort, a leading epidemiologist has suggested.

Weekly testing for every member of the UK population is the only way to both save lives and prevent the destruction of the British economy, according to Professor Julian Peto from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, Professor Peto explained that by only putting households with a positive test into targeted lockdown, it would allow normal life to continue while controlling the spread of the disease.

He said, "You've got a choice, you can let the thing rip and there would be two or three hundred thousand deaths, or you can keep everyone locked up for two years until there is a vaccine, which will completely destroy the economy. Or you can control the epidemic and this is the only way of controlling the epidemic."

His suggestions come amid concern that compliance with the government's social distancing rules is faltering as the country approaches the end of its second week of lockdown.

Boris Johnson urged Britons not to leave their house 'unless absolutely necessary' after new data revealed that there had been an upturn in travel.

For the whole population to be tested on a weekly basis, the UK's testing capacity would need to be increased from 10,000 to 10 million tests a day.

The government’s current ambition is to increase testing to 25,000 a day, and eventually up to 250,000 a day at a later stage. By comparison, Germany is currently conducting half a million tests per week: