This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
To learn more about our privacy policy Cliquez iciVaccines have been oversold as the pandemic exit strategy
Logistics permitting, about 15 million people in the UK will have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by some time in February.
Provided the second doses are delivered in a timely manner, this should keep the most vulnerable out of hospital.
This milestone will not, however, push the UK much further towards normality. We do not yet know if the vaccines curb transmission, though it is reasonable to hope they might. Most working-age people are unlikely to receive a first dose before summer.
Even if the elderly can savour a newfound freedom, it is unclear why unprotected individuals should be expected to head back to non-essential workplaces, especially amid concern about a deadlier variant.
Given that vaccines have been sold as the main exit strategy come spring, some serious expectation management is now required – together with an unrelenting focus on suppressing the virus.
VACCINATIONS INSUFFICIENT FOR HERD IMMUNITY
One source of gloom emerged at a briefing last week. Academic researchers warned vaccination alone might not induce sufficient herd immunity to stamp out the virus.
An unhappy combination of imperfect vaccine efficacy, suboptimal take-up and super-infectious variants could derail attempts to reach the herd immunity threshold, when R falls below one and the virus begins to dissipate. Modelling from the University of East Anglia corroborates this unpalatable possibility.
Another major worry is that countries with poorly controlled transmission might be acting as production lines for dangerous new variants. While current vaccines work against high-profile variants including B.1.1.7, now dominant in the UK, this good fortune might not last.
You can read the latest news here. : เล่นเกมกับ SLOTXO มีแต่ได้กับได้!