RE: Israel not achieved herd immunity16 Mar 2021 10:47
This is really interesting:-
I read a white paper about three weeks back that was in effect saying that new Variants entering a country will reduce Vaccine efficacy levels (hence why they are already working on new vaccines to pick up new variants) and this has a direct correlation to the increases in the percentage of the vaccine take up rates required.
In this article they quote:-
"The British variant is at least 45% more contagious than the original Wuhan strain, meaning that the threshold for achieving herd immunity, which was at first believed to be around 60%, has increased to somewhere near 80% in Israel where 99.5% of new cases are people who are infected with the mutation"
It was also picked up on Horizon recently. For the scientific here. The answer is in the formula:-
H = I – I/R over E
Heard immunity ideal, this being the percentage of people vaccinated in the population required to stop it spreading.
R reproduction number how quick it reproduces (1 in 3 is the natural level) but a new variant can see this level increase to 4.5 which is the concern that can affect the timelines.
And vaccine efficacy, how well the vaccine is working against the virus. Taking the expected AZK efficacy level of 67% the rate of spread would mean that 84% of the population in the UK would need to be vaccinated to allow heard immunity by November in the UK this year for total normality!!!
BUT a small percentage reduction in efficacy means the percentage of people vaccinated needs to go up. For example, a new variant that spreads quicker can see our vaccine required rate go up to 97% for heard immunity which is just not likely.
So IF they are confirming now that this is what they are seeing already in Israel, then it WILL be the same here and ROW.
The conclusion being that we will need to adjust to living with this virus. We can live with the virus without Heard immunity, but we need ideally vaccine rates as high as possible. Need to stay safe and test on a fairly regular basis and encourage as many as possible to be vaccinated.
Don't want to sound like a doom monger here, but its looking like even with our current high vaccine roll out rates it wont be enough. As for France and countries with very low rates the position will be worse but as i say we will adjust to living with it, it wont be erradicated just like the flu is still here - its the only option.
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