Research Priorities

I feel that research should focus on two core ideas: a reliable antibody test and a close examination into reinfection rates.

There have been thousands of test done, and thousands of positive results. Presumably those who are admitted into secondary care are retested regularly and records of these results maintained. Sharing these data (after anonymising) between regions of the UK, or better between countries, would provide valuable evidence of reinfection rates.

If there is a zero, or very low, rate of reinfection (though this would understandably be difficult to gauge during a lockdown) then a reliable cheap antibody test would be incredibly useful as an indication of who can safely be released from lockdown, presuming they are no longer an infection risk to others. Even a test with a documented failure rate could be repeated a prescribed number of times in order to give a result with a high degree of confidence.