Scientist: No panic over Covid
A LEADING Scots scientist who supports herd immunity has called for young people to be able to live their lives without restrictions during the coronavirus crisis.
Despite Covid-19 claiming more than 46,000 lives in the UK and no vaccine available, Professor Raj Bhopal said it is “not an infection we should be panicking about” as deaths among those under 25 are “rare”.
Prof Bhopal, emeritus professor of public health at Edinburgh University, believes young people should be allowed to live normally again to establish herd immunity, as an alternative to “severe” lockdown measures.
Prof Bhopal believes other conditions, such as flu, pose more of a danger to the younger generation. He has argued in the journal Public Health in Practice that the worst effect of the virus is confined to old people, who should be the focus of lockdown measures.
The herd immunity approach – where enough people are immune to the infection through previous exposure that it will no longer significantly spread among the rest of the population – has been rejected by ministers.
Prof Bhopal said: “If about 40 to 50 per cent of the population has some level of immunity from this virus, we would actually clear the virus over time from the population.
“How are we going to reach that number?
“We can reach it through immunisation but currently we don’t have a vaccine.
“The best estimates are we will have a partially effective vaccine, perhaps by next summer. It’s a long time to wait, especially for low and middle-income countries. So, the other way to get it (immunisation) is by allowing some people to get the infection. We have to see this in perspective.”