COVID-19: New study estimates 6% of United Kingdom has coronavirus antibodies

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent study has estimated that about 6 percent of the United Kingdom's population may have had the novel coronavirus infection at one point.

According to reports, a new study on home antibody testing has revealed that as many as 3.4 million people in the UK have had the novel coronavirus, with the virus being more common among minority ethnic communities such as black, Asian and etc.

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100 thousand participants

According to reports, in the large home testing study, dubbed as React-2, 100,000 people were tested from across 314 local authorities in the UK. With its large sample size of 100 thousand people, the study has provided researchers with invaluable data which can prove helpful when chalking guideline to ease lockdown restrictions as well as in preparing for a possible second wave of the virus.

As per reports, 3.4 million cases of COVID-19 infection as estimated in the study is significantly higher than the coronavirus tally indicted by the John Hopkins resource centre that states UK has 315,546 positive cases as of August 13.

The study has further shown a clear disparity in the rate of acquiring infection among different ethnicities. As per the study, infection rates appear to be at 17 percent for the Black community in the UK but only at 5 percent for people of White ethnicity.

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The coronavirus pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 20 million people worldwide with the global death toll reaching 751,033.

As per the John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre, the United States has reported a total of at least 5,223,131 positive virus cases and has a death toll of 166,483. The US currently has the highest number of reported cases in the world, making it the epicentre of the deadly virus.

(Image Credit AP)

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