Coronavirus: Scientists aim to fight impact with herd immunity plan

A medic takes a sample to test a patient possibly infected with coronavirus at the Na Bulovce hospital in Prague, Czech Republic where the government has declared a 30-day state of emergency. Picture: Getty

Sir Patrick Vallance said as much as 60 per cent of the population may need to contract the illness to protect the most vulnerable members of society, who are elderly or have an underlying health condition.

But following cross-party talks with health ministers, opposition leaders called on the government to publish the advice behind its decision not to follow other European countries in closing down schools, bars and restaurants, and banning public  gatherings.

Mr Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, said some of the social distancing measures put in place by the government, including self-isolating for seven days if symptoms develop, are “actually quite extreme”.

“If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time,” he said. “Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.”

The approach puts the UK at odds with other European governments, and with advice from the World Health Organisation, whose Director General Tedros Adhanom said yesterday that governments had to impose tougher social distancing measures and test all suspected cases of coronavirus. The UK has scaled up testing, but focused it on hospital patients.

“You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is,” Mr Adhanom said, warning that Europe had become the “epicentre” of the outbreak. “Find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of Covid-19 transmission. Every case we find and treat limits the expansion of the disease.”

France became one of the latest European countries to close all schools, universities and nurseries, while in the US, all major sport has been suspended and Broadway performances have been stopped for a month.

US president Donald Trump last night said he “may add” the UK to the list of European countries affected by the America travel ban.

On Thursday, Ireland announced the closure of all schools and childcare facilities and public spaces such as museums, while the Scottish Government has banned gatherings of more than 500 people. The UK Government said it would not move to close schools yet, although this will be kept under review.

Sir Patrick said school closures now would see educational establishments shut down for “many months, not just a few weeks”.

He told LBC: “Children, of course, aren’t going to separate for long periods, they are going to go and do other things together.

“And they may go and stay with grandma, one of those in the most vulnerable group.”

Sir Patrick said it was “eye-catching” to order the cancellation of mass gatherings and sporting events, but the chances of contracting the disease by attending such occasions were slim.

The peak of the outbreak is most likely still ten to 14 weeks away, England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said on Thursday.

Mr Whitty warned that people could become “fatigued” by more stringent measures if they were brought in too soon and therefore they would lose their maximum effect.

But experts warned the UK was still “a long way away” from the stage where enough people had recovered from coronavirus to create a buffer against the outbreak.

Dr Nicola Rose, of the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), said it was too early to predict whether the so-called herd immunity will have any immediate benefit.

Speaking at a media briefing in London, she said: “I think if the virus goes through a population, they may start to develop their own immunity, but it is too early to know what that looks like. We are a long way from what we would technically call herd  immunity.”

Dr Melanie Saville, of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) – a foundation that invests in independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging infectious disease – said the peak of the epidemic had to be delayed to buy time for a vaccine.

“We may indeed see waves and we really don’t know whether there will be herd immunity or not in the near future,” Dr Saville said. “We are trying to contain the outbreak as much as possible.”

Acting Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said opposition figures would have a follow-up meeting with ministers on Monday after being briefed yesterday. “We’ve been asking some tough questions. The  disappointing news is that we haven’t been getting good enough answers,” Mr  Davey said.