Latest updates: new figures came ahead of publication of Public Health England’s latest vaccine surveillance report
- Raab: vaccine passports aimed at encouraging young to get jabbed
- Lack of quarantine at England’s borders ‘risks havoc of Covid variants’
- Number of UK workers on furlough drops by 590,000
- Coronavirus – latest global updates
- See all our coronavirus coverage
“Herd immunity [from coronavirus] may be in sight”, a prominent thinktank has claimed. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research produces a fortnightly Covid tracker, and in its latest edition, out today, it says the latest peak in cases “has occurred somewhat sooner than we forecast”.
Under the headline “herd immunity may be in sight”, it forecasts “a uniform reduction of cases across all English regions”. It says:
It would appear that a large enough proportion of the population is currently immune, due either to vaccination or prior infection, thereby reducing the probability of transmission between persons.
Prof Jonathan Van-Tam the deputy chief medical officer for England told BBC News a few minutes ago that new research suggested that vaccines had prevented 22m coronavirus infections and 60,000 deaths in England.
He was speaking shortly before the publication of Public Health England’s latest vaccine surveillance report (pdf), which contains the figures. It says:
Estimates suggest that 60,000 deaths and 22,057,000 infections have been prevented as a result of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, up to 9 July.
Continue reading…
