Testing For Virus / Antibody Testing

tiggerblue10 | 18:13 Sun 29th Mar 2020 | ChatterBank

4 Answers

I read that Germany are testing 500,000 people each week for the virus. I can't find a link but I've seen it mentioned somewhere.

Apparently we in the UK are only testing around 10,000 per day. nothing near the figure by Germany. Anyone know why this is?

Also, will the government procure more antibody testing kits for non-medical key workers and general public?

Apologies for fixating on this issue but I'm sure many people will be asking the same question.

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Peter Pedant

erm first of all there is no antibody test

the antigen - virus test is based on PCR
there is a concentration on testing which I dont understand
the english view is that you only get one if you have a few leading symptpms
which should make it more likely that the test is positive

currently we are running at 10% positive which would imply we are quite some way from Herd immunity and that therefore we can expect many more deaths - around 5000

jim360

UK Government not having the right testing strategy probably accounts for the first. For a long time the idea was to test only those who probably have the disease based on symptoms. Not wholly unreasonable, except that their own strategy required testing far wider to make sure they had found the people to "contain".

The second -- although there are no antibody testing kits available *now*, they will be shortly, pending quality checks.