Covid-19 Delta variant has wrecked hopes of UK herd immunity, warn scientists
There is quite an omission here.
I daresay the NZ media has only printed this because it comes from “somewhere else”.
They totally fail to understand what this actually means especially for their own rollout of the Pfizer mRNA “vaccine”.
Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the Delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.
11 August, 2021
The Delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity in Britain, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid-19.
Scientists said it was time to accept that there was no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the Delta variant could infect people who had been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach even with high vaccine uptake.
It comes as Angela Merkel became the first major world leader to announce the end of free testing, with the provision set to stop in Germany from October 11.
The Ministry of Health’s lead of the Primary Care Vaccination and Immunisation Programme Dr Joe Bourne says those over 55 are now able to get themselves a Covid-19 vaccine (from 6 August).
On Tuesday (UK time), the Department of Health confirmed that more than three quarters of Uk adults have now received both jabs, and calculated that 60,000 deaths and 66,900 hospitalisations had been prevented by vaccination. But experts said it would never be enough to stop Covid-19 from spreading.
Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on Covid-19, Pollard said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus.
“We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals.”
Until recently, it was hoped that increasing the number of Britons jabbed would create a ring of protection around the population.
As late as last week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said one of the reasons it had advised that 16 and 17-year-olds should be vaccinated was because it may help prevent a winter Covid-19 wave.
However, analysis by Public Health England has shown that when vaccinated people catch the virus they have a similar viral load to unvaccinated individuals and may be as infectious.
Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia and an expert in infectious diseases, told the committee: “The concept of herd immunity is unachievable because we know the infection will spread in unvaccinated populations and the latest data is suggesting that two doses is probably only 50 per cent protective against infection.”
Hunter, who advises the World Health Organisation on Covid-19, also said it was time to change the way the data was collected and recorded as the virus became endemic.
“We need to start moving away from just reporting infections, or just reporting positive cases admitted to hospital, to actually start reporting the number of people who are ill because of Covid,” he added.
“Otherwise we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden.”
On Tuesday, Sajid Javid, the UK’s Health Secretary, confirmed that third dose booster shots would be given from next month. However, Pollard argued that, if mass testing was not stopped, Britain could be in a situation of continually vaccinating the population.
“I think as we look at the adult population going forward, if we continue to chase community testing and are worried about those results, we’re going to end up in a situation where we’re constantly boosting to try and deal with something which is not manageable,” he said.
“It needs to be moving to clinically driven testing in which people are willing to get tested and treated and managed, rather than lots of community testing. If someone is unwell they should be tested, but for their contacts, if they’re not unwell then it makes sense for them to be in school and being educated.”
Dr Ruchi Sinha, consultant paediatrician at Imperial College Healthcare ANKHS Trust, told MPs and peers that choosing not to vaccinate children would be unlikely to cause problems in the health service.
“What matters is the burden of patient hospitalisation and critical care and actually there hasn’t been as much with this Delta variant,” she said. “They tend to be the children who have got their comorbidities, obesity, or severe neurological problems and those children are already considered for vaccination. Covid on its own in paediatrics is not the problem.
“Herd Immunity Is Not A Possibility”: Dr. Malone Vindicated After Oxford Prof Warns Over New Variants
12 August, 2021
In one of the most appalling examples of Big Tech silencing scientists who refuse to withhold their criticisms of the mRNA technology behind the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccines, Dr. Robert Malone, a pioneer who helped develop mRNA vaccine technology, saw the credit for his contribution to medicine effectively erased from the Internet by Wikipedia after he raised concerns about potential long-term autoimmune issues and other complications potentially arising from mRNA jabs.
He has also shared other medical heresies, including the possibility that ‘imperfect’ vaccines might actually help foster more virulent COVID variants due to a phenomenon called ‘ADE’ – antibody-dependent enhancement. Essentially, what doesn’t kill the virus makes it stronger. In retaliation for sharing these views, Dr. Malone was ridiculed by colleagues as a conspiracist and an “anti-vaxxer”.
Dr. Malone
But earlier this week, Dr. Malone saw his views subtly vindicated by an unexpected source: a British scientist and academic named Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who is the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group. During a briefing, Sir Pollard warned Parliament that the UK likely won’t ever achieve herd immunity, thanks to the delta variant.
In remarks that risked undermining the government’s vaccination campaign, Sir Pollard, a professor of pediatric infection and immunity, warned Parliament on Tuesday that achieving herd immunity is likely “not a possibility” thanks to variants like delta. Recently, a group of scientists estimated that the threshold for herd immunity might now be as high as 90% due to the delta variant. According to Pollard, we’re learning for the first time that herd immunity is magical thinking – and has always been magical thinking.
Since those who are vaccinated can still be infected by variants, “there is virtually nothing the UK can do” to eradicate COVID completely.
“We know very clearly with coronavirus that this current variant, the Delta variant, will still infect people who have been vaccinated, and that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus,” Pollard said.
He said it was unlikely that herd immunity will ever be reached, saying the next variant of the novel coronavirus will be “perhaps even better at transmitting in vaccinated populations.”
Pollard also shared what sounded like a subtle criticism of masks by saying that “We don’t have anything which will stop that transmission to other people.” As an example, he pointed to Israel, which saw new cases and hospitalizations nearly disappear before the new variant took hold, causing cases and hospitalizations to surge once again. Now, there have even been a handful of patients who have tested positive even after receiving their third dose of the Pfizer jab (which the US has only just approved for a third dose as well).
Dr. Malone, meanwhile, celebrated Sir Pollard’s comments as vindication.
For context, Dr. Malone tweeted back in June that herd immunity targets were effectively useless.
Even the White House is finally acknowledging that vaccines aren’t nearly as effective as they once believed, which is why the FDA has decided to approve the third dose. “I think everybody believes this wanes over time, the question is to what extent,” a senior Biden official told Axios. “Nobody wants to be behind the eight-ball here. We want to catch it before there’s an issue, and that’s why there is very intense scrutiny.”
Remember, not only can the vaccinated be sickened by “breakthrough” infections, but they can also pass the virus on to others (including others who are vaccinated). And the more the virus spreads, the more likely a vaccine-resistant variant is to emerge.
From a few weeks ago
Covid-19: New data suggests herd immunity unachievable in New Zealand
Herd immunity appears unachievable in New Zealand, with new modelling showing 97 per cent of the population needs to be vaccinated to stop the spread of new Covid-19 variants.
Border controls, contact tracing, community testing and other measures will likely need to remain in place for at least the duration of the entire vaccine rollout to avoid deaths and hospitalisations, experts say.
New modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini calculated, for the first time, New Zealand-specific theoretical estimates for how much of the population needed to be vaccinated to reach population immunity – or herd immunity – and create a safe environment with no public health measures in place.
It found that while the number of hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 would “massively reduce” once 75 to 80 per cent of the population was vaccinated, the threshold to reach herd immunity against the most infectious variants was much higher, at 97 per cent.
