Scientists advising European governments are coming to the realization that mass vaccinations are not going to eradicate COVID-19. Instead, they are recommending that the virus be allowed to circulate throughout the population, with precautions taken for the most vulnerable individuals.
“The delta variant has wrecked any chance of herd immunity, a panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team said as they called for an end to mass testing so Britain can start to live with Covid,” the Telegraph reported Tuesday.
Although “more than three quarters of [U.K.] adults have now received both jabs,” wrote the paper, “experts said it would never be enough to stop Covid from spreading.”
“We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals,” Professor Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine effort, told a parliamentary panel.
The notion that mass vaccination will put an end to COVID-19 is an article of faith among most Western movers and shakers, hence their continual push for more people to accept the jab and punishment of those who don’t. “However,” noted the Telegraph, “analysis by Public Health England has shown that when vaccinated people catch the virus they have a similar viral load to unvaccinated individuals and may be as infectious.”
In his remarks to the committee, University of East Anglia professor of medicine Paul Hunter, an infectious-disease expert, concurred that vaccination would not bring about herd immunity. He further argued that it was time to stop concentrating on supposed cases rather than actual infections.
“We need to start moving away from just reporting infections, or just reporting positive cases admitted to hospital, to actually start reporting the number of people who are ill because of Covid,” said Hunter, who also advises the World Health Organization on the virus. “Otherwise we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden.”
According to the Telegraph, Pollard “argued that, if mass testing was not stopped, Britain could be in a situation of continually vaccinating the population.” Instead, he said, only those with symptoms should be tested; others should go about their daily lives.
Her Majesty’s scientists aren’t the only ones arriving at these conclusions. According to the Icelandic newspaper Visir, Iceland’s state epidemiologist voiced similar sentiments Sunday.
The paper, as translated by Google Translate, reported that “a record number of people [in Iceland] have been diagnosed infected in recent weeks, despite the fact that the majority of the population has been vaccinated.”
“We really cannot do anything else” but allow the virus to take its course in order for the population to achieve herd immunity, said epidemiologist Þórólfur Guðnason.
“We need to try to vaccinate and better protect those who are vulnerable, but let us tolerate the infection,” he added.
Moreover,
“It is not a priority now to vaccinate everyone with the third dose, as we also need to think: Maybe we should get a new variant? Do we need to be vaccinated with another vaccine?” he says. Þórólfur says that the fight against the virus will be characterized by such uncertainty.
“We need to somehow navigate this way, and we are now in this, not to get too many serious illnesses so that the hospital system does not collapse, but still try to achieve this herd immunity by letting the virus somehow run.”
While it’s heartening to hear such sentiments from these high-placed scientists, the fact is they’re a little late to the party. What they are only now recommending was, until last year, standard protocol for dealing with a pandemic. It is also the course of action many doctors and public-health experts, such as the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration, have been recommending throughout the past 18 months only to be either ignored or derided as “science deniers” and “grandma killers.”
Still, one can only hope that the establishment scientists’ belated recognition of reality ends up translating into policy changes. If ever there were a case of “better late than never,” this is it.
