The UK Government has carried out an embarassing U-turn over its strategy to delay the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said the Government’s approach to tackling coronavirus was to create a “herd immunity” to the virus. However, less than 48 hours later, Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed that herd immunity “is not our goal or policy”.

Speaking to Sophy Ridge this morning, Mr Hancock said government policy “is to protect lives and to beat this virus,” instead of achieving herd immunity.

This comes after the UK government faced a huge backlash over its approach from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other scientific experts.

Ministers have come in for criticism after they said they wanted as many as 60 percent of Brits to contract the disease in a bid to prevent it spreading further among the population.

Critics have claimed that this approach could see hundreds of thousands of people die, given an estimated mortality rate of around one percent. 

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Just yesterday, World Health Organisation spokeswoman Margaret Harris called the approach into question .

She told the BBC: “We don’t know enough about the science of this virus, it hasn’t been in our population for long enough for us to know what it does in immunological terms.

“Every virus functions differently in your body and stimulates a different immunological profile.

“We can talk theories, but at the moment we are really facing a situation where we have got to look at action.”

The Government has faced pressure to do more to tackle the epidemic after the UK death toll rose to 21 on Saturday.

During his interview on Sky News, Mr Hancock was pressed on comments by Sir Vallance, who said millions of Britons need to contract COVID-19 to control the impact of the disease and society to get “herd immunity”.

When asked by Ridge if he was playing “roulette” with public safety, Mr Hancock replied: “No, obviously.

“What we will do is listen to all the credible scientists and we will look at all the evidence.

“Herd immunity is not our goal or policy – it’s a scientific concept. Our policy is to protect lives and to beat this virus.”

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No 10 sources have said that “mass immunity” is a “bonus,” but not the aim.

Downing Street have since insisted that its priority is to protect as many people as possible from infection.

Earlier today, Mr Hancock also confirmed Boris Johnson’s plans to isolate people over 70 at home or in care homes for up to four months.

Mr Johnson has refused to rule out China-style lockdowns of entire cities as the Government stepped up its so-called “wartime” measures in a bid to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

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