Coronavirus: 3.5m antibody kits “not good enough” to work

The UK government’s new testing chief has admitted that none of the 3.5 million antibody tests ordered from China are fit for widespread use.

Professor John Newton, who was appointed by health secretary Matt Hancock to oversee testing, reportedly said the tests were only able to identify immunity in people who had been severely sick with coronavirus.

The tests did not pass the evaluation stage, and he was quoted by The Times as saying they were “not good enough to be worth rolling out in very large scale”.