And Dr Julia Patterson, a psychiatrist who runs doctors’ advocacy service EveryDoctor, has said a reliable test would go some way to redressing the balance and getting the country moving again. The pair were speaking as Professor Sharon Peacock, director of the National Infection Service at Public Health England (PHE), confirmed the Government had purchased 3.5 million tests, which will tell people whether they have had COVID-19 – although chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty later clarified it was unlikely these would be available to buy in shops for some time. Dr Bull, who served as a Brexit Party MEP, and who believes he himself caught the virus while in Brussels, told Express.co.uk: “At the moment what they are doing is testing for the virus.

“And they’re doing that by doing nasal swabs. And then you basically have a piece of the virus and you amplify it by something called polymerase chain reaction to see whether you have the actual virus.”

He added: “The gold standard, and what would be the game-changer, would be the antibody test.

“Currently, there is no gold standard test because you’ve got to remember this disease has pretty much appeared out of nowhere.

“Scientists are frantically working on this.

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“Now you can buy antibody tests on the internet by they have terrible what we call sensitivity and specificity.”

Dr Bull emphasised any test had to be totally accurate.

He said: “It’s a race against time – I happen to know that we are getting closer to that.

“The gold standard is antibody testing for healthcare workers.

“Then you would know who has had it and who hasn’t had it.

“That would then liberate them and then we won’t be putting people at risk.”

Dr Patterson likewise told Express.co.uk an antibodies test would be a massive boost in the fight against COVID-19.

She explained: “So it’s a two-pronged attack really.

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“First we are treating people who have the infection who are very unwell.

“And the other issue that is facing the government of the country at the moment is getting people back to work, and getting the country moving again.

“And if we had a way of checking people had already had the virus, and were extremely unlikely to have it again and pass it again then they could re-enter the workforce and start working again and doing all that normal things.

“Everything is going as fast as it can I think.

“The longer we are all at home, the longer we are not doing our normal jobs, the more damage it will do to ordinary people.”

Speaking today, Prof Peacock suggested the tests would be distributed through Amazon or places like Boots, and could be ready in a matter of days rather than weeks.

However, Prof Whitty later told the daily Downing Street press conference: “I do not think – I want to be clear – that this is something we will suddenly be ordering on the internet next week.

“We need to go through the evaluation, then the first critical uses, and then stretch it out from that point of view.

“We need to do that in a systematic way.

“The one thing that is worse than no test, is a bad test.”

Prof Whitty also said there was a “global bottle neck” on buying more coronavirus testing kits.

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