Respiratory disease expert Professor Calum Semple has said it is likely to be summer before herd immunity is reached in Britain through a Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Prof Semple said: “Obviously there is an urgency about this and we know that it is difficult to vaccinate lots of people at the same time – we’ve got a population of just under 70 million people and we’re going to move through them in an orderly fashion vaccinating people most at risk.”
He added: “The people that have been vaccinated will be protected within a matter of weeks and that’s very important.
“On an individual basis these vaccines are so good that they will protect individuals, so we don’t have to wait for this nonsense about herd immunity developing through natural infection, we can start to protect the individuals.
“To get the wider community herd immunity from vaccination rather than through natural infection will take probably 70% to 80% of the population to be vaccinated, and that, I’m afraid, is going to take us right into the summer I expect.”
Prof Semple described the Oxford vaccine as a “game changer” if it is approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the coming days.
He said: “It can be stored at a more convenient temperature and it can therefore be moved around the country a lot more easily.”
“This vaccine is very important because not only does it generate the antibodies that protect you from being infected, it also generates these ‘hunter killer cells’ – the T cells – that actually deal with infection.
“They help people who have some degree of infection, if a little bit of virus escapes and starts causing infection it can actually treat that disease as well in the people that have been vaccinated, so it’s a very, very good vaccine.”
