Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his latest estimate is of the number of people in England immune from covid-19 by reason of antibodies; and what the planned timescale is for making a covid-19 antibody test available for use by the general public.

Antibody testing is a key part of the Government’s testing programme and has a critical role to play in our response to the pandemic. We do not currently know how long an antibody response to the virus lasts, nor whether having antibodies means a person cannot transmit the virus to others. Our understanding of the virus will grow as new scientific evidence and studies emerge. There is currently limited scientific evidence to link the presence of antibodies to immunity.