Patrick Vallance, UK’s chief scientific adviser, said 40 million people or around 60 percent of the country’s population will need to catch the coronavirus for the country to develop herd immunity and prevent future outbreaks.
While the Government is trying to control the spread of the killer disease, it also anticipates the worst could come in mid-June and the levels would be reduced by September.
But Vallance said trying to stop the coronavirus would be more dangerous in the future.
“All of the evidence from previous epidemics suggests that when you do that and then you release it, it all comes back again… this is to make sure we don’t end up with a sudden peak again in the winter, which is even larger, which causes even more problems,” he said.
Former Tory Minister Rory Steward also described the ‘herd immunity’ concept as ‘eccentric’ as it helped tackle Ebola outbreak.
“This is a very eccentric policy and I am troubled by it on a number of different levels,” he said to CNN.
“One of them is if the UK, with all its resources as a major economy is one of the only countries to actually allow this virus to spread quickly that will pose huge strains for the rest of the world system.”
He continued: “Secondly this problem is this theory is based on very, very complex modelling and they are putting a lot of faith in the mathematical modelling to be able to land their peak in the summer.
“And thirdly I think they underestimating the impact that I think is going to hit our health system if they allow it to go in this direction.”
When asked about the lock-down safety measures deployed by other countries, Vallance said it was ‘impossible’ for a nation to try to self-isolate its population.
“We want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely, which you can’t do anyway, and also allow enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune to this to help with the sort of whole population response which would protect everybody.”
He added: “We think that this virus is likely to be one that comes back year on year, become like a seasonal virus, and communities will become immune to it, and that’s going to be an important part of controlling this longer term.”
When asked why the UK has delayed closing down schools, Vallance said a closer would see educational establishments closed for several months.
“Because of the nature of this disease and the way it spreads and its duration, we would have to close schools for many months, not just a few weeks,” he said to LBC.
“And they (children) may go and stay with grandma, one of those in the most vulnerable group,” he added.
He also told LBC radio: “This isn’t an epidemic that is going to last a couple of weeks, it is going to go on for months. We need to make sure we do the right thing at the right stage to have the biggest impact.
“And the measures that were announced yesterday, which were that anybody with mild symptoms, which are a fever, a raised temperature or a cough, should stay at home. That’s not a trivial change.
“That is going to have a big impact of many people staying at home for a week. It is one of the things that can have the biggest impact in terms of reducing the transmissability and ability of the virus to spread quickly across the population.”
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