Antibody tests6 Nov 2020 06:58
He has argued the tests would still miss cases in the very early stages of infection - when people are most likely to pass on the disease.
Simon Clarke, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading, said the government was right to say that antibody tests cannot test for current infection.
"They are a poor diagnostic and that is why they are not used," he said. "They are used to look to see who has had the infection in the past."