UK ‘closest of any country in the northern hemisphere to exit from the pandemic’

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An expert said the UK is the closest of any country in the northern hemisphere to getting out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor David Heyman, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), suggested in an online briefing at Chatham House that the UK was seeing the disease become epidemic.

He said: “Overall, now, the countries we know best in the northern hemisphere have varying phases of the epidemic.

“And potentially, in the UK, it’s the closest of any country to getting out of the pandemic if it’s not already out of the pandemic and has endemic disease like the other four coronaviruses.”

He said that the immunity of the population was already high, adding: “This means immunity against serious diseases and death after infection if one is vaccinated, or after re-infection if the person has had the disease before, and the immunity of the population seems to maintain and fight the virus.” Variants in the bay, do not cause serious illness or death in countries with high population immunity.

“I looked at the latest ONS report on population immunity and they estimated that about 95% of the population in England and a little less than other parts of the UK have antibodies to infection either from vaccination or from a natural infection.

“And this antibody, as I said, blocks the virus. Now it acts more like an endemic coronavirus than an epidemic.”

If you look in intensive care units, you will unfortunately notice that the majority of these people have not been vaccinated

Professor David Heyman

Professor Heymann said many of the people who became seriously ill had no previous infection and had not acquired immunity from the vaccine.

“If you look at intensive care units, you will unfortunately notice that the majority of these people have not been vaccinated,” he said.

Asked if the Covid pandemic is over globally, Professor Heymann said that it would not be made public “until all countries have completed what they have to do to make this virus more tame and epidemic.”

He said the UK may be one of the countries with the highest levels of population immunity.

He added: “So some are already saying that it is endemic to the UK, and that the UK has succeeded in passing the risk assessment from the government that was assessing the risks … and passing on to people who are assessing their own risk either by doing the self-test when they go to visit Older adults or some other means to try to prevent transmission to others.”

The lead expert said there would be a resurgence of Covid in the future and more variables would emerge, although it was not clear what their severity would be.

“We are fortunate to have vaccines that can be modified very quickly, and to start production very quickly to deal with a fugitive,” he said.

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