Fundamental principles of epidemic spread highlight the immediate need for large-scale serological surveys to assess the stage of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic

Jose Lourenco; Robert Paton; Mahan Ghafari; Moritz Kraemer; Craig Thompson; Peter Simmonds; Paul Klenerman; Sunetra Gupta

This relationship can be used to determine how many people will require hospitalisation (and possibly die) in the coming weeks if we are able to accurately determine current levels of herd immunity. There is thus an urgent need for investment in technologies such as virus (or viral pseudotype) neutralization assays and other robust assays which provide reliable read-outs of protective immunity, and for the provision of open access to valuable data sources such as blood banks and paired samples of acute and convalescent sera from confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 to validate these. Urgent development and assessment of such tests should be followed by rapid implementation at scale to provide real-time data. These data will be critical to the proper assessment of the effects of social distancing and other measures currently being adopted to slow down the case incidence and for informing future policy direction.