ARCHIVED - Herd immunity against Covid will not be achieved until mid-autumn says National Research Council
The spread of the Delta variant raises the vaccination target to 80 per cent of the population
Spain’s National Scientific Research Council (CSIC) has warned that the country will not achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 until far more than 70 per cent of the population are fully vaccinated, meaning that the aim will not be reached until after the date targeted by the national government during the second half of August.
Luis Enjuanes explained on Wednesday that the emergence of new strains of Covid such as the Delta variant have raised the bar above the 70 per cent which was set by the government and the EU at the start of the immunization campaign, reinforcing the view expressed earlier this week by Fernando Simón, the Director of the Coordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health. Sr Simón implied that initial forecasts that a vaccination rate of 66 per cent would be sufficient are now out of date, and that experts now place the threshold at between 70 and 80 per cent.
80 per cent is the figure specified by Sr Enjuanes, not only for the proportion of the population vaccinated but for the level of group immunity. This, he says, will not be reached at the current rate of vaccination until October or November, well after the timeframe initially established by the national government.
However, Sr Enjuanes also expressed optimism that the pandemic situation in Spain will improve significantly as the vaccination campaign progresses, and even proposed that if too many people object to receiving the vaccine they should be obliged to do so in order to ensure better protection for society as a whole. Fortunately, at present it seems that the objectors are in a minority small enough to make this unnecessary, although in countries such as Israel there are so many that the arrival of Delta variant has meant a resurgence of the pandemic.