Conclusion
Different modelling approaches give different answers to the question of how many people in the UK and elsewhere have actually been infected by COVID-19, which all would agree in epidemiological terms is behaving very differently from other Coronaviruses that we have seen in the past. We have the ability through working collaboratively to build a scientific evidence base for tackling this and future pandemics.
We are learning more and more about this virus. National policy is changing rapidly, and COVID-19 antibody testing is increasingly being applied (7). This will facilitate better datasets from population-based studies. The picture will become clearer as more data accrues over time.