Study claims UK may have sufficient herd immunity incase of second Corona outbreak

A study at the University of Oxford says that in the event of a second outbreak of the corona virus pandemic in the UK, people here may have developed adequate immunity to prevent it. The study also includes Professor Sunetra Gupta of Indian origin.

In the study, Gupta and her three other colleagues at Oxford University have come to the conclusion that the level of herd immunity is already so high in the UK that seasonal infections, such as common cold, they can stop the outbreak of the deadly corona virus.

“There is a widespread belief that the required level of immunity for an pandemic area is 50 percent higher in terms of prevention of infection,” the paper said. The new study also indicates that when people with good immunity combine with people with low immunity, the level of collective immunity decreases rapidly.

However, this study has not yet been widely reviewed and analyzed. Gupta, a professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University, had previously called for increased emphasis on antibody screening to find out if the level of immunity against the deadly coronavirus is getting stronger in the UK population.

Britain as a whole is not close to a high level of herd immunity, with Government testing surveys suggesting between five and six per cent of the population have had Covid-19 which so far is about three million people. There have been 300,000 confirmed infections and 45,000 deaths in the first wave of the Novel Coronavirus.