JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, March 17, 2025

UK experts say herd immunity may be unachievable

by

1293 days ago
20210901
Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds MP and Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh listen intently to questions from prisoner spokesmen during their visit to the Maximum Security Prison’s Rise Maximum Radio station in August. Both men also recently visited the prison to hear the concern prisoners had about accessing the COVID-19 vacicne.

Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds MP and Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh listen intently to questions from prisoner spokesmen during their visit to the Maximum Security Prison’s Rise Maximum Radio station in August. Both men also recently visited the prison to hear the concern prisoners had about accessing the COVID-19 vacicne.

COURTESY PRISON SERVICE

Tues­day’s word from some in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts on the glob­al COVID-19 chal­lenge - in­clud­ing that herd im­mu­ni­ty isn’t a pos­si­bil­i­ty or achiev­able - is a sober­ing mes­sage.

That’s Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s view on re­ports by ex­perts head­ed by Britain’s Dr John Campell’s in an Au­gust 31 COVID 19 video log head­lined “Im­por­tant An­nounce­ment.”

Camp­bell, an emer­gency nurse and tu­tor/lec­tur­er, has a glob­al fol­low­ing with health care and sci­ence-re­lat­ed vlogs on prin­ci­ples con­cern­ing COVID is­sues. The vlog sug­gest­ed herd im­mu­ni­ty may not be a reach­able goal.

Yes­ter­day, Deyals­ingh not­ed Camp­bell’s vlog and the in­for­ma­tion in it. Be­fore yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net re­treat, Deyals­ingh was asked by the T&T Guardian his view on it. He replied briefly, “Yes, it is very sober­ing.”

T&T’s been striv­ing for herd im­mu­ni­ty by vac­ci­na­tions, in­clud­ing the lat­est dri­ve tar­get­ing stu­dents and oth­ers from 12 to 18.

In Au­gust, Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed its tar­get­ted herd im­mu­ni­ty lev­el was60 per cent on the pop­u­la­tion. Up to yes­ter­day, out of T&T’s 1.4 mil­lion pop­u­la­tion, 400,054 peo­ple were ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and 510,548 had a first vac­ci­na­tion.

In his vlog, Camp­bell said a ma­jor par­a­digm shift has oc­curred in the way ex­perts – who are nor­mal­ly fol­lowed on the pan­dem­ic – were speak­ing of the virus now and there was rea­son­able ev­i­dence that every­one, whether in the UK, US, or wher­ev­er, will get the virus. This was due to the more high­ly trans­mis­si­ble Delta vari­ant and al­so as vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple can still trans­mit the virus.

Camp­bell said the idea that “we’re” not go­ing to reach herd im­mu­ni­ty was ba­si­cal­ly ac­cept­ed in the last few days. Herd im­mu­ni­ty was ini­tial­ly seen as 70-80 per cent of a pop­u­la­tion and then 90 due to the Delta pres­ence and many “break­through” cas­es – the lat­ter where even vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple get COVID and can spread it.

Camp­bell said all of those things had come to­geth­er and the think­ing had changed. He cit­ed the re­port of Sir An­drew Pol­lard of the Ox­ford vac­cine de­vel­op­ment team, who not­ed the Delta can in­fect those vac­ci­nat­ed, mak­ing herd im­mu­ni­ty im­pos­si­ble even with high vac­ci­na­tion in­takes.

He not­ed that Pol­lard felt there could be even more in­fec­tions and vari­ants – in­clud­ing po­ten­tial­ly more in­fec­tious ones – on the way.

Camp­bell al­so not­ed East An­glia Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Paul Hunter’s view that the con­cept of herd im­mu­ni­ty is un­achiev­able. Hunter al­so be­lieved coun­tries chas­ing con­tin­u­ous com­mu­ni­ty test­ing could end up in a sit­u­a­tion of con­stant­ly boost­ing vac­ci­na­tion shots. Hunter sug­gest­ed two vac­ci­na­tions were on­ly 50 per cent ef­fec­tive and lat­est da­ta sig­nalled it’s time to change the way da­ta is col­lect­ed as the virus be­comes en­dem­ic. This in­clud­ed stop­ping re­portage on pos­i­tive cas­es alone and fo­cus­ing test­ing on ill peo­ple and their con­tacts.

Camp­bell said ex­perts’ ma­jor con­sen­sus was agree­ment that every­one will be ex­posed to COVID and while an in­ter­est­ing change in the think­ing, for the un­vac­ci­nat­ed, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant warn­ing. He said any­one un­vac­ci­nat­ed will get the virus, as there’s noth­ing to stop trans­mis­sion cur­rent­ly.

Camp­bell, how­ev­er, not­ed that peo­ple with two vac­ci­na­tions have a much greater chance of pre­vent­ing se­vere ill­ness, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and even death. He said it was al­so be­lieved two vac­ci­na­tions, fol­lowed by a bout of COVID, could boost im­mu­ni­ty.

Dis­ap­point­ed on the herd im­mu­ni­ty is­sue, Camp­bell stressed the sit­u­a­tion made prepa­ra­tion with vac­ci­na­tion, health op­ti­mi­sa­tion and Vi­t­a­min D all the more im­por­tant. Coun­tries with win­ter have low­er strength sun­shine lev­els. Sun­light’s in­te­gral to the body’s Vi­t­a­min D pro­duc­tion.

Camp­bell not­ed that UK vac­ci­na­tions had pre­vent­ed 60,000 deaths and 67,000 hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions so far. But this hadn’t stopped the virus, which makes a win­ter wave of in­fec­tions in­evitable, as vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple can get COVID.

Yes­ter­day, lead­ing T&T phar­ma­cy own­ers said they’d al­so con­clud­ed the virus would be en­dem­ic and T&T has to ad­just on that.

Mean­while, as min­is­ters board­ed flights yes­ter­day morn­ing and re­port­ed for the Gov­ern­ment’s three-day re­treat in To­ba­go, there was no in­di­ca­tion whether the lat­est new in­for­ma­tion from in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts - on herd im­mu­ni­ty be­ing un­achiev­able - might be dis­cussed dur­ing the re­treat and if af­ter fur­ther re­view, what plans it might prompt.

The re­treat was ini­tial­ly de­signed to dis­cuss and craft di­rec­tions and de­ci­sions to move T&T ahead in the next fis­cal year, in­clud­ing via 2022 Bud­get plans. Re­treat out­comes are ex­pect­ed to be giv­en on Sat­ur­day.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored