A large antibody test in England found that 3.4 million people, or 6% of the country’s population, had the coronavirus.
The study of more than 100,000 volunteers, which the government touted as the largest survey of its kind, indicated that the severity of the epidemic varies depending on demographics and other regions of the country.
London, with a population of nearly nine million, has been hit the hardest, with 13% of citizens having antibodies to the coronavirus. Fewer than 3 of the citizens of the South West region of England obtained the same results.
The study found the highest levels of antibodies in other people who worked in “elderly homes” (16%) and in the physical health sector (12%), while antibody levels among blacks (17%) and Asians (12%) were especially higher than those of whites (5%).
Antibody levels were also higher among people 18 to 34 years of age than among people 65 and older, and other people who lived in families of more than 6 or 7 people were more than twice as likely to have antibodies than people who lived or with another person.
Of those who tested positive for antibodies, 32% reported no symptoms of COVID-19.
The figures are the result of studies involving another 100,000 people who were tested at home for antibodies to the coronavirus from June 20 to July 13. The government has maintained that it has no evidence from the company that having antibodies affects immunity to COVID-19.
“There are still many unknowns with this new virus, which adds to the extent to which the presence of antibodies provides coverage against long-term infections,” said Graham Cooke of the UK’s National Institute for Health Research, adding that the effects “will have implications as decisions are made to alleviate blocking restrictions in England.”
More than 46,700 more people have died in the UK from the coronavirus.
The test will be replicated later this year and is expected to check another 200,000 people for antibodies.
“Large-scale antibody surveillance studies are very important to help us understand how the virus has spread across the country and whether there are urgent teams that are more vulnerable,” Health Minister Edward Argar said in a statement. to Bloomberg. “We don’t yet know if antibodies confer immunity to the coronavirus, however, the more data we can collect on this virus and the more we can make it less difficult for other people to participate in those studies, the more supplied we will be to answer them.”
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