The UK will achieve collective immunity from the coronavirus in the coming days-but under current security measures.
According to SkyNews, this was stated by scientists at University College London.
The real-time simulations they are running indicate that very soon on April 12-the percentage of people in Britain already protected from the virus through vaccination or a previous illness or innate immunity will reach 73.4%.
It is believed that this indicator is already sufficient for collective immunity, and the disease will begin to recede.
“It’s like a chain reaction. If the virus is not able to spread from one person to another, it simply “dies out”, — says Professor Carl Fryston.
However, according to him, it is still too early to relax vigilance and speed up the exit from quarantine at this stage.
“This is just another significant stage, a reflection of the fact that things are going as planned. And this suggests that it is unlikely that there will be an increase in the number of hospitalizations or deaths again after the summer or autumn, “ said Carl Fryston. “But this does not mean that we can suddenly change the approach to “opening up” the country and maintaining distance.”
He explained that the threshold of collective immunity depends, among other things, on the risk of spreading the virus, and the risks depend on security measures, such as maintaining a distance.
If people abruptly return to the life they were accustomed to before the pandemic, the risks of transmission of the virus will rise again and the threshold required for collective immunity will be higher.
“Therefore, it is necessary to remove the restrictions very gradually, depending on the situation… This is a process for weeks and months, “ the professor said.
In Britain, almost 32 million people have already received the first dose of the vaccine. This is more than half of the adult population of the country. 6 million people have already been vaccinated with both doses.
It is worth noting that while the next” wave “ of the epidemic began in all European countries in early spring, in Britain, after the peak in January, the daily increase in infections is steadily decreasing.
In March, the country usually registered about 6,000 cases. Since the beginning of April, almost all indicators are less than 4 thousand.
