Buyers wear face masks on Oxford Street in London
Highlight
- COVID should be treated as an endemic virus similar to flu: Former chairman of UK Vaccine Taskforce.
- “Vulnerable people need to be protected, and not everyone should be vaccinated,” he said.
- “Mass population-based vaccination in the UK must now end,” he was quoted as saying.
The former chairman of the UK Vaccine Task Force has said that COVID should be treated as an endemic virus similar to the flu, and mass vaccination should end after a booster campaign.
According to Dr. Clive Dix, the vulnerable need to be protected, and not everyone should be vaccinated. The Guardian reported that Dix called for a major rethink on the UK’s COVID strategy.
“We need to analyze whether we use the current booster campaign to ensure that vulnerable people are protected if this is necessary. Large-scale population-based vaccination in the UK must now end,” He was quoted as saying.
He said ministers should urgently withdraw research into COVID immunity beyond antibodies to include B-cells and T-cells (white blood cells). This could help in creating vaccines for those vulnerable to the COVID variant, he said, adding: “We need to manage the disease now, not the spread of the virus. Hence the progression of severe disease in vulnerable groups.” The aim of the future is to prevent
His intervention comes after it was revealed that more than 150,000 people across the UK have now died of Covid. Official figures published on Saturday recorded 313 more deaths, the highest daily number since February last year when the last peak was declining. The report said that within 28 days of a positive COVID test, the total number of recorded deaths rises to 150,057.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet: “Coronavirus has taken a terrible toll on our country and the number of deaths recorded today has reached 150,000.”
“Each one of them is a profound loss to the affected families, friends and communities and my thoughts and condolences are with them. Our way out of this pandemic is for everyone to get their boosters or their first or second dose, if any. They have. Not yet,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dix’s comments on ending mass vaccination; the Joint Committee on Immunization and Immunization (JCVI) ruled that a fourth dose was not currently needed because most older people still receive boosters three months after a booster campaign. Were well protected against Omicron. started.
The UK Health Protection Agency said three months after the booster jab, protection for those over 65 was around 90 per cent. JCVI Deputy Chairman Professor Anthony Harden said the committee is monitoring Omicron’s impact on the elderly and vulnerable on a weekly basis.
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Read also | The death toll from Kovid-19 has crossed 150,000 since the start of the pandemic in the UK
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