Sign up here for our daily coronavirus newsletter on what you need to know and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and reviews.
Britain’s increased immunity to Covid-19 raises the prospects of moving from the worst pandemic, with some scientists saying the country could cross a key threshold as soon as Monday.
According to researchers at University College London, then the so-called immunity of the herd could be achieved in the UK Almost three quarters of the population will have antibodies against the virus, either through vaccination or previous infections, they estimate.
Britain has already seen a sinking in new cases and deaths, and the government will relax restrictions, including on the outdoor table, on Monday. These developments have fueled hopes that the nation will soon shake off Covid’s handcuffs.
Many other scientists believe that the UK is much further away from the herd’s immunity than the UCL model suggests. Some of them say they overestimate the power of vaccines and do not adequately consider declining immunity and new variants of the virus. No more than 40% of the country enjoys protection against Covid, according to estimates by Imperial College London.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about the duration of immunity, both vaccine immunity and natural immunity,” said Anne Cori, a lecturer at Imperial. “If your immunity drops, you may lose your herd immunity after you touch it.”
However, progress marks an important milestone for the European country most affected by the pandemic, with more than 127,000 victims, and for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been criticized for a slow response to the crisis.
Preparing for more
Daily cases in the UK are the lowest since September, before the blockade eased
Source: Bloomberg, the seven-day average of new cases
In the early days, his government’s chief scientific adviser suffered an adverse reaction after talking about the UK’s apparent ambition to “build a degree of immunity to the herd” – exposing part of the population to the virus – but has since insisted that never official policy and claims that it was misinterpreted.
Virologists describe herd immunity as the point at which a virus struggles to make inroads into a society because of high levels of immunity, either through vaccination or through previous exposure to the pathogen. If it is evasive for Britain, for most of the rest of the world it is still a distant dream. Experts agree that speeding up vaccinations is the safest way to control the virus, and in this regard, the UK is ahead of most other nations.
Nearly half of Britons have received at least one dose of vaccine, compared to just 14% in the European Union, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine tracking. However, after it became the epicenter of a new Covid growth, there are temporary signs that Western Europe is turning the corner.
People end up being vaccinated against Covid-19 at a vaccination center in Grenoble on April 9.
Photographer: Philippe Desmazes / AFP / Getty Images
Thursday, France reached the goal of giving a first blow to 10 million people a week before the program. Germany vaccinated 720,000 people that day, a record for the nation, and aims to comprehensively inoculate its population by mid-summer. As supplies grow, Europe’s largest economy could deliver 3.5 million doses a week, according to Health Minister Jens Spahn.
Europe finds some rare successes in its struggle to defeat Covid
Even so, European nations are likely to lag behind the UK in fully vaccinating 75% of their populations, according to an analysis by Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm. While the UK is expected to reach this level by early August, Germany will not arrive until September and France by October, according to the company’s current estimates.
Race at 75%
France and Germany could reach high immunity on Monday after Britain and the United States
Source: Airfinity
The European Commission is trying to ensure a steady supply of vaccines in the coming years, to avoid the shortage that has hampered mass immunization campaigns.
Medical staff are preparing vials of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine at a vaccination center in Messe, Erfurt, Germany, on April 8.
Photographer: Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
Shots may be needed for years to come, especially if the virus continues to move and circulate to lower levels, just like the flu.
“In the long run, it will be more like an epidemic where there are sometimes outbreaks and you have to manage them,” said Matt Linley, a senior analyst at Airfinity.
– With the assistance of Tim Loh, James Paton and Emily Ashton