One million people in Britain will have caught coronavirus by next week, according to Jeremy Hunt.
The former Health Secretary blasted the government's response to the crisis and said testing should be stepped up dramatically in order to bring the killer disease under control.
In Britain, testing is only carried out on patients who are so ill that the must be hospitalised.
Hunt's comments come after the PM announced a dramatic nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 with nearly 7,000 people testing postive.
He told the House of Commons: "All our public focus has on social distancing.
"But testing and contact tracing to break the chain of transmission is every bit as important if not more important.
"South Korea avoided national lockdown despite having a worse outbreak initially than us.
"Taiwan introduced temperature scanning in malls and office buildings but kept shops and restaurants open, they’ve had just two deaths.
"In Singapore restaurants remain open and schools reopening.
"But 10 days ago in this country we went in the opposite direction and stopped testing in the community.
Mr Hunt added: "How can we possibly suppress the virus if we don’t know where it is?"
Forty-six more people died in England alongside four in Scotland and four in Wales on Monday, taking the number who have died in British hospitals after testing positive to 335.
Those who have died in England range in age from 18 to 105.
Emergency legislation to tackle the outbreak cleared the House of Commons after MPs chose not to oppose the third reading of the Coronavirus Bill.
