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The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said herd immunity is “not a possibility” due to the highly infectious delta variant, which is more transmissible than previous strains of the virus and causes an increase in infections in the world.
“I think we are in a situation here with this current vacancy where collective immunity is not a possibility because it always infects vaccinated individuals,” Andrew Pollard said Tuesday.
Vaccines that have been approved in the US and UK have been shown to be very effective in preventing serious illnesses caused by COVID-19. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are approved in both countries. The United States also administers the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and the United Kingdom has approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
There have, however, been reports of “breakthrough cases” in the United States, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have called positive infections that manifest in people who are fully vaccinated.
CNN reported last week that 99.99% of fully vaccinated Americans had not had a breakthrough case that resulted in hospitalization or death, citing data from the CDC.
Pollard doubled down on his view that herd immunity is not achievable, warning that the virus will “vomit” another variant that could be even more transmissible, making herd immunity more difficult to achieve.
“I suspect that what the virus is going to vomit up next is a variant that may be even better at transmitting in vaccinated populations,” Pollard said. “And so this is even more reason not to create a vaccination program around herd immunity.”
“Collective immunity is not a possibility” because the Delta variant “always infects vaccinated individuals”.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said “there is nothing the UK can do to stop the emergence of new variants”. pic.twitter.com/eCq1zXxBWc
– Channel 4 News (@ Channel4News) August 10, 2021
He continued, stressing that the UK can do nothing to “stop the emergence of new variants”, adding “they will happen”.
“And if anything, we need to focus now and not on what might stop the new variants, because I don’t think we have the ability to control that. We need to focus on how to prevent people from dying or going to the hospital, ”Pollard said.
He said the UK variant strategy should be to “play a more active role in the global imperative, which is to prevent people from dying”.
“This means making sure the doses are going to the right people,” Pollard added.
About 39.5 million people, or around 75% of adults, are fully vaccinated in the UK, according to the BBC.
More than 4.54 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered worldwide, according to the New York Times.
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