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The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have continued to release the UK case numbers of COVID-19* on a daily basis.
Prof Rosalind Smyth, Director and Professor of Child Health, UCL Great Ormond St Institute of Child Health, said:
“I am at home, starting to recover, from an illness with classic clinical features of COVID-19. I have been self-isolating, since I first developed the cough, but I haven’t been tested, nor have I contacted my doctor. I am aware of many people in London in a similar position. Given the current availability of testing kits, I fully understand why otherwise healthy people, who do not need to go to hospital, like me, should not be tested.
“However, this means that we have really very little idea of the number of “cases”, and I am concerned that this figure is so misleading that it should not be used. On conservative estimates, the true figure is likely to be 5-10 times higher. It may heighten concern as people think the case fatality rate is much higher than it is, or provide false reassurance that the number of “cases” in a given area is much lower than it is.”
* https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public
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