Covid UK: Professor says the UK ‘may be one of the first’ countries to come out of the pandemic

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Professor Heyman said high levels of protection meant it was increasingly turning into a disease that Brits could live with (Photo: Rex/PAwire/Getty)

One expert said the UK is the closest of any country in the northern hemisphere to “getting out of the Covid pandemic”.

Professor David Heyman, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said Britain’s very high levels of immunity appeared to ‘inhibit the virus’.

He said the disease was now operating “more like an epidemic” as he predicted it would soon stabilize to normal patterns of spread with other infections.

He told a Chatham House event: “Overall, now, the countries we know best in the Northern Hemisphere have different phases of the pandemic.

“And perhaps, in the UK, it is the closest of any country to getting out of the pandemic if it is not already out of the epidemic and has the endemic disease like the other four coronaviruses (which cause the common cold).

He said around 95% of people in England had antibodies from previous vaccines or infections.

About 95% of Britons now have antibodies to protect them from becoming seriously ill with Covid (Image: GETTY)

He said: “This means immunity against serious diseases and death after infection if one is vaccinated, or after re-infection if one has had the disease before, and it seems that the immunity of the population preserves the virus and its variants, and does not cause danger. Illness or death in countries with high population immunity.

I have looked at the latest ONS report on population immunity and they have 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 functions more like an endemic coronavirus than an epidemic.

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

More: Corona virus

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

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, which was assessing the risks … and passing it on to the people who are assessing their own risks. Either by doing a self-exam when they go to visit the elderly or some other means to try to prevent transmission to others.

However, he cautioned, there is still a long way to go before the global Covid pandemic is over.

Professor Heyman said the UK could be one of the first countries to emerge from the pandemic (Image: Reuters)

That won’t be announced “until all countries have completed what they need to do to make this virus more tame and become epidemic,” Professor Heymann said.

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.”

Government ministers have expressed hope that the UK will be among the first countries worldwide to ‘transmit’ from the coronavirus to an endemic pandemic.

A strategy on living with Covid is expected to be published within weeks, with lockdowns and mass testing likely to be called off.

But some scholars have questioned the optimism, saying the virus “is not endemic just because a government minister says it is.”

Cases of the virus decreased daily, as 120,821 were recorded yesterday.

But there have been 379 deaths – the highest daily number since last February.

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