Delta variant “makes herd immunity impossible, coronavirus is not like measles”

The Delta variant makes it impossible for now to achieve herd immunity because we are faced with a virus and a disease that is not like measles. This coronavirus changes, vaccines are not a total barrier, they are extremely effective barriers against the serious and very serious consequences of this coronavirus. This in summary what it says Andrew Pollard who chairs the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) in the UK. Pollard is an Oxford professor, director of the Vaccines Center at the University of Oxford and is among the researchers who helped develop the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca.

“It is not possible” to achieve herd immunity with the current Delta variant of the coronavirus, said Professor Andrew Pollard, stating that “this virus is not measles. If 95 percent of people have been vaccinated against measles, the virus cannot spread to the population, ”he said. But “the Delta variant will still infect people who have been vaccinated. And that means that anyone who is not yet vaccinated will encounter the virus at some point and we have nothing that can completely stop that transmission“, he added. The concept of herd immunity is based on the fact that the vast majority of a population that gains immunity provides, in turn, indirect protection from an infectious disease for the unvaccinated and those who have never been infected before. .

“Herd immunity is not a possibility” because the Delta variant “still infects vaccinated individuals”.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, says there is nothing “the UK can do to stop the emergence of new variants”. pic.twitter.com/eCq1zXxBWc

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) August 10, 2021

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Herd immunity from Covid at the moment “is not a possibility”, therefore reiterated Professor Pollard in a hearing before a parliamentary commission.

Pollard explained that the antidotes currently available they are revealing themselves effective to “slow down” the pandemic and contain its serious effects (deaths and hospitalizations), ma they cannot represent a total barrier against new mutations. Pollard then added that further, even more aggressive variants are not to be excluded, and he insisted that it is not possible at the moment to imagine the vaccination program as a path towards “a mythical herd immunity”.

On the same wavelength Professor Paul Hunter, virologist at the University of East Anglia, and the professor Devi Sridhar, director of the Department of Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, according to whom vaccines have “affected” the pandemic, but have not yet “solved” the problem of a disease destined to assume for now at least seasonal characteristics.

Here Professor Hunter talks about the immunization of 17-year-olds. He says the antibody data suggests that the vast majority of 17-year-olds have already had the infection and resolved it. And then he says that teenagers belonging to this age group still need to be vaccinated.

???? Prof Paul Hunter: Data on antibodies suggests the large majority of 17-year-olds have already had the infection and recovered.#APPGCoronavirushttps://t.co/WqUQwl7PtT

— APPG on Coronavirus (@AppgCoronavirus) August 10, 2021

Hunter evoked as “absolutely inevitable” the future emergence of new variants capable of escaping the protection of current vaccines, taking into account that some of the vaccinated still continue to infect the unvaccinated even if not seriously infected; and that even in the United Kingdom, where the average vaccination coverage of the adult population in the West is at record levels, almost a third of the inhabitants have not yet received a single dose.

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Herd immunity

Herd immunity relies on a large majority of a population gaining immunity – either through vaccination or previous infection – which then can provide indirect protection from an infectious disease for the unvaccinated and those who are not. never previously been infected. As for the coronavirus, it has been established that it is reached when at least 70% of the population receives two doses of the vaccine: in Italy it means at least 42 million people vaccinated (today as we write about 35 million Italians have completed the vaccination cycle).

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But beyond the concerns of scientists about the mutations of the virus, rapid and unfortunately, why is achieving community immunity so important?

One thing is certain: people who are not immunized increase the chance that they and others will get the disease. And you have to remember that there are people who must be able to rely on herd immunity rather than to the individual one to stop the disease. They don’t choose it, they have to. They are people without a fully functioning immune system (think of those with whole organs that are out of order, people undergoing chemotherapy treatment because of oncological diseases whose immune system is weakened, people with HIV, infants, the elderly and people hospitalized).

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What does the Delta variant do

A recent study conducted byImperial College from London (data from late May to early July 2021) reports that fully vaccinated people between the ages of 18 and 64 have about 49% less risk of being infected than unvaccinated people. The results also indicated that fully vaccinated people have circa three times less likely to test positive after coming into contact with someone who has Covid (3.84%, up from 7.23%). This is what we mean when we say that the vaccine is not a total barrier, but it is a fundamental barrier nonetheless.

The topic of discussion that the researchers of the Imperial College raise is this: in the United Kingdom there was a great success of the vaccination campaign, infections increased exponentially driven by the Delta variant, there is a high prevalence of infection among younger, unvaccinated, despite the double vaccination continuing to effectively reduce transmission . Although slower growth in infections or a decline in the curve can be observed during the summer in the Northern Hemisphere (school holidays, more time spent outdoors and reduced social interactions are mentioned), without further intervention – yes Law in the Imperial study – the increase in sociability during the autumn in the presence of the Delta variant can lead to a new growth of infections, even at high levels of vaccination.

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