A senior minister claims the UK has effectively reached coronavirus herd immunity, though experts say the country is still a long way off or may never get there.
The more contagious Delta variant has raised the threshold for herd immunity and some experts believe as much as 98 per cent of Britons would need to be vaccinated for it to be achieved.
Others have estimated that between 70-90% of the population would need to be protected for herd immunity to be achieved.
The number of new Covid-19 cases reported each day has fallen for seven days in a row, raising hopes the UK's third wave of the disease has peaked.
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Amid the biggest vaccination campaign in British history, Covid hospital admissions and deaths have remained low compared with previous waves that led to national lockdowns.
It appears there is now speculation within the Government that the UK has reached herd immunity, 16 months on from the first lockdown in March last year.
A senior minister, who wasn't named, told the Daily Mail that the vaccination programme and more than 5.7 million infections meant the virus was struggling to find new hosts and herd immunity had effectively been reached.
The minister said: "It is all over bar the shouting, but no one has noticed.
"Of course we have to guard against the emergence of some terrible new variant. But otherwise Covid is on the point of becoming something you live with.
"It drops into the background, but it does not change anything terribly – maybe you have to take a test once in a while."
What is herd immunity?
Herd immunity is when enough people become resistant to a disease – through vaccination or previous exposure – that it can no longer significantly spread among the rest of the population.
If the reproduction (R) number falls below 1, the virus goes into decline.
The latest R rate for England is 1.2 to 1.4 and the growth rate of +4% to +6%
An R value between 1.2 and 1.4 means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 12 and 14 other people.
A growth rate of between 4% and 6% means that the number of new infections is growing by between 4% and 6% every day.
What is the threshold?
Experts say it is very difficult to know precisely what the herd immunity threshold is for the UK because many factors, including variants and human behaviour, influence it.
Recent estimates have suggested between 80% and almost 100% of the population, including children, will need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, given the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant.
However, some experts have warned that herd immunity may never be achieved.
In the UK, Covid vaccines have so far only been offered to adults, though thousands of children aged 12-17 who are at increased risk of Covid-19 are to be offered jabs soon.
Dr Kit Yates, a senior lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath, said the herd immunity threshold (HIT) could be as high as 98%.
He wrote in a recent blog post for the British Medical Journal: "In reality many factors will influence the HIT. One consideration is the degree of immunity conferred.
"Vaccines, for example, are not 100% effective at stopping people from transmitting the virus. Immunity from natural infection is thought to be even worse.
"Even if vaccination reduces the degree of onwards transmission by as much as 85%, this would increase the HIT to 98%.
"The potential for immunity to wane also means we will need to up the numbers of people vaccinated and think about delivering booster vaccinations."
About 85% of transmission needs to be blocked to drive the Delta epidemic down, and that target could still be some way off, the Guardian reported.
Days before the first lockdown in March last year, Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientific adviser, told Sky News that around 60% of the UK population would need to become infected with coronavirus in order for society to have herd immunity from future outbreaks.
We knew very little about the virus at that time, however, and the estimate was before more transmissible variants emerged and vaccines were rolled out.
Will it ever be achieved?
Some experts have predicted the UK will never reach herd immunity.
Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the UK will not need to reach herd immunity due to the protection offered by vaccines.
He told the Mirror: "Herd immunity will never be reached for Covid for one very good reason.
"Immunity post-infection or post-vaccine doesn't last.
"But that is not a problem unless you have not yet had vaccine or a natural infection.
"Each of us can expect to be infected multiple times during our lives, but because of existing immunity it will be asymptomatic or another common cold for the vast majority."
Scotland may already be well on the way to achieving herd immunity through vaccination, experts there have said.
Jason Leitch, Scotland's national clinical director, said Covid would recede as herd immunity built but was unlikely to disappear.
He added: "Scientists seem to suggest somewhere between 70-80% of your whole population, including children, is where you would reach what they would describe as population immunity."
A UK Government spokesperson said: "As the Prime Minister has recognised, the latest data is encouraging but we should not underestimate this virus. This pandemic is not over and we must continue to proceed cautiously.
“From the outset we have prioritised data and scientific advice over dates and would urge the British public to continue to act responsibly.
“Our approach has always been to protect the NHS, save lives, and ensure as many people as possible are vaccinated and protected against this virus as we learn to live with Covid-19.”
How many people have immunity?
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently estimated that about nine in ten people in the UK have antibodies to Covid-19 from infection or vaccination.
About 90% of the adult population has received one dose of a Covid vaccine, while about 70% have had two jabs.
According to the latest tallies from the Government, a total of 46,653,796 people have had a first dose, while 37,459,060 have had their second jab.
But as experts have pointed out, vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing infection and onward transmission, and testing positive for antibodies does not mean a person is immune or protected against reinfection.
A vast majority of children remain unprotected.
Earlier this month, modellers from the University of Warwick said as much as one third of Britain's population could still be susceptible to the Delta variant, meaning about two thirds have immunity.
When will the pandemic be behind us?
The recent decline in cases and the rollout of the vaccine has given hope that the pandemic will soon be behind us, though Covid-19 is unlikely to disappear completely.
The exact reasons for the decline are not yet known.
Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling was the basis for the first lockdown, said he was "positive" the UK would be past the worst of the pandemic by late September or October.
Boris Johnson on Wednesday stressed the need for caution despite recent falls in the number of coronavirus cases as he warned that the virus “still presents a significant risk”.
But recent data which showed a drop in cases was “encouraging”, the Prime Minister said.
Dr Mike Tildesley, who sits on the scientific advisory body Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), said that it was not yet clear whether the third wave was turning around.
Dr Tildesley said that he hoped that some sort of normality could resume in the autumn.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said Covid-19 “isn’t necessarily all over bar the shouting quite yet”.
