UK’s ‘herd immunity’ Covid strategy a ‘public health failure’:

On Oct 12, 2021

A wife adjusts her husband’s mask before entering a shop in Hampshire, England, UK

Peter Titmuss | Collection Mix: Subjects | Getty Images

LONDON — The U.K government’s approach to tackling the coronavirus outbreak at the start of the pandemic has been called one of the country’s worst ever public health failures, following an inquiry by British lawmakers.

The report, which examined the U.K.’s initial response to the Covid pandemic, found that the government made major mistakes at the start of the global outbreak, including its apparent decision to allow Covid to spread throughout the population in a bid to achieve “herd immunity,” and its hesitation to lock down the country.

“Decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic — and the advice that led to them — rank as one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced,” the 150-page report, which was published on Tuesday following an inquiry by two parliamentary committees, found.

The British government, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was accused of dithering as the Covid pandemic hit Europe in early 2020 and appeared reluctant to impose restrictions on public life, travel or borders.

Although it was never formally announced, the U.K.’s initial approach to Covid (which went from trying to ‘contain’ the spread of the virus, to trying to ‘delay’ it) was widely seen as a way to achieve “herd immunity.”

‘Serious early error’

A high level of immunity to a virus in a population can be achieved by both natural infection (through the forming of antibodies when the body fights a virus) and by vaccination.

The latter route is generally preferred as it avoids adverse effects such as excess deaths caused by a virus. However, with no Covid vaccines available at the start of the pandemic, some countries, like the U.K. and Sweden, appeared to favor allowing the virus to spread among the population to some extent in a bid to achieve a level of herd immunity in their populations.

The strategy saw Covid-19 cases rapidly sweep through the U.K., however, causing thousands of deaths among elderly people and strains on the National Health Service. The British government (and later, the Sweden too, to a lesser extent) changed tack and imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 26.

The inquiry, which involved evidence from over 50 “witnesses” including high-profile public officials and health experts who have advised the government throughout the pandemic, was damning in its assessment of the government’s initial approach, noting that it “amounted in practice” to an ill-fated pursuit of herd immunity.

“When the Government moved from the ‘contain’ stage to the ‘delay’ stage, that approach involved trying to manage the spread of Covid through the population rather than to stop it spreading altogether. This amounted in practice to accepting that herd immunity by infection was the inevitable outcome, given that the United Kingdom had no firm prospect…