WHO: Coronavirus Herd Immunity Unattainable in 2021

Society » HEALTH | January 12, 2021, Tuesday // 14:32
Bulgaria: WHO: Coronavirus Herd Immunity Unattainable in 2021 pexels.com

Despite widespread vaccination campaigns, herd immunity to the coronavirus will not be achieved this year, the WHO's top scientist has said. Until then, preventive measures such as masks will be necessary.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said Monday that herd immunity to the coronavirus would not be achieved in 2021, despite the growing availability of vaccines

Mitigating factors to herd immunity include limited access to vaccines in developing countries, skepticism about vaccination and the potential for virus mutations, according to health experts.  

A growing number of countries around the world — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Germany and other EU countries — are in the first stages of mass-vaccination campaigns. 

Herd immunity occurs when enough people in a population have immunity to an infection so that it prevents the disease from spreading. 

"We are not going to achieve any levels of population immunity or herd immunity in 2021," Swaminathan told a briefing, while emphasizing that measures such as physical distancing, handwashing and wearing masks continue to be necessary in containing COVID-19's spread for the rest of the year. 

Swaminathan commended the "incredible progress" made by researchers to develop several safe and effective vaccines at unprecedented speed. Countries are currently administering vaccines developed by BioNTech-Pfizer, Oxford University/AstraZeneca and Moderna. 

The WHO scientist called on people to be "a little patient," saying the rollout of vaccines "does take time," as the scale of dose production is in the billions.

"The vaccines are going to come," she said. "They are going to go to all countries ... but meanwhile we mustn't forget that there are measures that work," she added, referring to hygiene and social distancing.

In the United States, which currently has the world's highest daily case numbers, officials said Monday that over 25.4 million vaccine doses have so far been distributed, with nearly 9 million doses having been administered. In Germany, more than 600,000 people have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19, according the Robert Koch Institute for public health. 

"We won't get back to normal quickly," Dale Fisher, chairman of the WHO's Outbreak Alert and Response Network, told a conference hosted by the Reuters news agency.

"We know we need to get to herd immunity and we need that in a majority of countries, so we are not going to see that in 2021," Fisher said.

"There might be some countries that might achieve it but even then that will not create 'normal,' especially in terms of border controls," he added. 

 

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

Health » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: vaccination, world, herd immunity

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria