UK Expert: ‘Taboo’ Herd Immunity May Be Only Long-term Solution to COVID-19 Issue

Back in May, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said that, “We can’t be sure we will get a vaccine.” Indeed, he was right to be cautious.

There is a general assumption in mainstream media and with politicians parroting their headlines, that all vaccines are full-proof, effective and safe. But that is not what the facts and data show.

In theory (and in marketing), the ideal vaccine is supposed to protect people against a viral infection, and prevent the spread of diseases. In reality, the manufacturing of a blunt, one-size-fits-all vaccine is a highly complex endeavor for sure – and one which does not guarantee a predictable outcome for public health. In other worlds, it is not an exact science, despite what transnational pharmaceutical corporate giants claim.

These leads us back to the ‘taboo’ issue of herd immunity. Already, scientists across the world are learning that humans have multiple levels of immune response besides antibodies which don’t always stay visible in lab testing after 6 months. Humans have other forms of adaptive immunity like T-Cell responses for example. Still, the media and politicians seem only to be interested in the promise of a Big Pharma silver bullet.

It’s a scientific fact that an acceptable level of generally immunity in the population can be achieved without a coronavirus vaccine.

How long will public health officials deny the function of natural immunity in their dogged pursuit of synthetic immunity?

Camilla Turner of The Telegraph writes…

Herd immunity is the only long-term solution to Covid-19 but the idea has wrongly become “taboo”, a leading scientist has said.

The concept currently “provokes hostility and controversy” but it must be revisited, according to Raj Bhopal, emeritus professor of public health at Edinburgh University.

In a new article published in the journal Public Health in Practice, he argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has put ministers in a “zugwang” which is a position in chess where every move is disadvantageous and where every plan must be examined “however unpalatable” it might be.

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.

With no vaccine available for Covid-19, herd immunity relies on enough people in the population becoming infected to lessen the impact of the disease.

Prof Bhopal argues that even if a vaccine is found it may not work well for older people and those with underlying health conditions.

The side-effects from a vaccine might also be worse for children and young people’s health than catching coronavirus in the first place.

“Herd immunity provokes hostility and controversy as it is usually interpreted as allowing the pandemic to unfold without interventions. The concept needs revisiting,” his paper says.

“If safe and effective vaccines and life-saving preventative and therapeutic medications are not found, lengthy lockdowns prove impossible, and the pandemic does not disappear spontaneously, population immunity is the only, long-term solution.”

Prof Bhopal, who has advised the Government on public health issues, said that the 40-50 per cent infection rate that is needed to achieve herd immunity could be reached by allowing Covid-19 to spread among young and healthy people.

“Allowing infection in those at very low risk while making it safer for them and wider society needs consideration but is currently taboo,” his paper says…

Continue this story at The Telegraph

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