Testing only people with a cough, fever or loss of taste and smell, as per UK guidelines, may miss vast swathes of Covid-19 cases, a study has suggested.
The finding comes after an NHS boss said that routine testing of asymptomatic staff could become a priority.
The study by University College London found that 86 per cent of people who tested positive for coronavirus during lockdown did not have those three virus symptoms. With a wider range of symptoms, including fatigue or shortness of breath, 76.5 per cent were deemed asymptomatic.
Researchers used data from the Office for National Statistics Covid-19 surveillance study, which took swabs from a representative sample of 36,061 people between April 26 and June 27. Of those, 115 had a positive
