More than half the people in the UK probably have immunity against Covid-19, according to new figures.
A large scale Office for National Statistics testing survey released today found that around one in two people in the country have coronavirus antibodies.
According to the study just shy of 55 per cent of people in England are likely to have tested positive for the antibodies in the week to March 14, along with 50.5 per cent in Wales, 49.3 per cent in Northern Ireland and 42.6 per cent in Scotland.
The totals are likely to be even higher now, given that hundreds of thousands of people have had a coronavirus vaccine in the two weeks since.
The disease fighting proteins are found in someone's body either because of a jab or because they have caught the disease.
Their presence in blood typically means a person has at least some protection against a disease and won't fall ill.
Regional estimates in England range from 60 per cent for the North-West to 50.3 per cent for the South-East.
The figures are for people in private households and do not include settings such as hospitals and care homes.
It takes between two and three weeks after infection or vaccination for the human body to make enough antibodies to fight Covid-19.
The figures also show 86.0 per cent of people aged 80 and over in private households in England are likely to have Covid-19 antibodies.
Because care home residents were also among the priority groups for the vaccine, the true figure for antibodies among those aged 80 and over may be different, the ONS said.
In Wales, an estimated 79.2 per cent of people aged 80 and over were likely to have tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in the week to March 14, while in Scotland the estimate is 74.0 per cent.
In Northern Ireland, the ONS uses different age groups due to small sample sizes and estimates 76.4 per cent of people aged 70 and over were likely to have tested positive for antibodies in this period.
The high proportions of people who now have anti-bodies are due to the large number of coronavirus cases in the UK and the success of the vaccine rollout so far.
More than four million in the country have tested positive for the virus, the second highest total in Europe after France.
According to the Department of Health 30,444,829 Brits have had a first dose of the jab, by far the highest total of anywhere on the continent.
