Coronavirus: UK heading for 'population immunity' says expert

When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters.Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer.Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights.You can unsubscribe at any time.

The Health Secretary said he hopes coronavirus will turn into a pathogen we can “live with, like we do flu” by the end of 2021. He told the Telegraph new medication should be trialled and made available soon to treat the disease.

Mr Hancock said: “I hope that COVID-19 will become a treatable disease by the end of the year.”

He explained the new drugs will be “turning COVID from a pandemic that affects all of our lives into another illness that we have to live with, like we do flu.”

“That’s where we need to get COVID to over the months to come,” he added.

The UK has already authorised two of the drugs deemed to lower the death risk in the most severely affected patients by around 40 percent.

The treatments, dexamethasone and tocilizumab, could soon be available to people across the country via the NHS.

Former cabinet minister Damian Green MP suggested completely eliminating the virus was not a possibility.

He told BBC Newsnight: “Zero COVID is probably a mirage.

“It is going to be with us, we are going to have to live with it.”

Speaking to the BBC, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, warned that ruling out a “zero COVID” strategy would mean thousands would probably still die from the disease in some years.

He added: “That’s a conversation politicians are going to have to have with the country.”

Dr Horton highlighted that there could be a new surge in coronavirus infections in the UK next winter.

He also warned it would take two, three or four years to establish sufficient rates of immunity in the population.

Dr Horton said: “It’s an illusion to think that our success is going to be sufficient to protect us, because even if we do have high levels of population immunity, our borders are not going to be secure – and we can’t keep locking people up in hotels for the next five years.”

DON’T MISS:
Lockdown end date: Restrictions gone by MAY says scientist advising PM [INSIGHT]
Lockdown poll: Should Boris Johnson reopen schools on March 8? [VOTE]
In lockdown love is not enough to keep couples together ARCH HADES [COMMENT]

Source: Read Full Article