The coronavirus epidemic in the UK appears to be starting to slow down, a scientist who has been advising the Government on the outbreak has said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, said the slowing of the spread of Covid-19 was the result of the social distancing measures brought in by the Government.
“In the UK we can see some early signs of slowing in some indicators – less so deaths because deaths are lagged by a long time from when measures come in force,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
“But if we look at the numbers of new hospital admissions, that does appear to be slowing down a bit now.
“It has not yet plateaued, so still the numbers can be increasing each day but the rate of that increase has slowed.”
Professor Ferguson said the epidemic was spreading at different rates in different parts of the country.
“It is quite clear across the country, the epidemic is in different stages in different parts of the country,” he said.
“In central London it could be as many as 3% to 5% of the population has been infected – maybe more in individual hot spots. In the country as a whole in the UK, maybe 2% or 3%.”
He said antibody tests, currently in final stages of validation, would be “critical” to the understanding of the epidemic, adding they would “hopefully” be available in days.
