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Antibody tests, early lockdown advice and European deaths

Are more people are dying of Covid-19 in the UK than all the EU countries put together? Can coronavirus antibody tests really be 100% accurate?

At the start of March the government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said that the UK’s coronavirus outbreak was four weeks behind the epidemic in Italy. This ability to watch other countries deal with the disease ahead of us potentially influenced the decisions we made about which actions to take and when, including lockdown. So was he right?

Is it true that more people are dying of Covid-19 in the UK than in the 27 countries of the EU put together? We investigate headlines reporting that antibody tests are 100% accurate. Plus, we catch up on how many coronavirus tests the government says it’s now carrying out.

Available now

28 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Wed 10 Jun 202009:00
  • Fri 12 Jun 202016:30
  • Sun 14 Jun 202020:00

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