Around one million of us could have contracted the coronavirus next week, but without testing we won't know who.
Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says the UK is on an inevitable path toward becoming just like Italy and around 300,000 of us could already be carrying the virus.
He is now urging for more testing to be done to contain its spread before it is too late.
Mr Hunt noted that if that figure is set to double every five days as experts suggest we are on a path to one million of us being carriers before too long, report The Sun.
It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his Cabinet the coronavirus pandemic is a "war" that must be won as he set out plans for a team to tackle the outbreak and economic chaos.
Speaking during a debate on emergency legislation in the Commons, Mr Hunt told MPs: "All our public focus has on social distancing.
"But testing and contact tracing to break the chain of transmission is every bit as important if not more important.
"South Korea avoided national lockdown despite having a worse outbreak initially than us.
"Taiwan introduced temperature scanning in malls and office buildings but kept shops and restaurants open, they’ve had just two deaths.
"In Singapore restaurants remain open and schools reopening.
"But ten days ago in this country we went in the opposite direction and stopped testing in the community."
Mr Hunt added: "How can we possibly suppress the virus if we don’t know where it is?"
The number of people to test positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Tuesday is 1,950, up from 1,543 on Monday, the Department of Health said.
On Tuesday, Mr Johnson told his Cabinet: "We are engaged in a war against the disease which we have to win."
He stressed that ministers must rise to the challenge of supporting businesses through the "hugely challenging times", according to Downing Street.
Earlier, scientists advising the Government said the UK had "no time to lose" in changing tactics on Monday in order to prevent thousands of deaths and the NHS being overwhelmed.
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The Imperial College Covid-19 response team – one of several scientific teams advising ministers – published a paper showing that 250,000 people could die if efforts were focused only on delaying and slowing down the spread of Covid-19.
The paper analysed the most up-to-date data from Italy and the UK and concluded that the only "viable strategy" was a Chinese-style policy of "suppression" of the virus.
Sir Patrick Vallance said it was a "semantic difference" to argue whether the UK had shifted from a process of delaying and mitigating the spread of Covid-19 to an attempt to suppress it.
He told MPs the approach had always been to "save lives and protect the vulnerable" by delaying and suppressing the peak of the outbreak, and shielding those most likely to be badly hit.
- Coronavirus
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