Britain can beat Covid and avoid more lockdowns with vaccine rollout, says top scientist Jeremy Farrar

Sir Jeremy Farrar said an end is in sight if Covid jabs are offered to the whole population, including school children

Britain can beat the virus to avoid any more lockdowns by getting “population immunity” with the vaccine roll-out, a top scientist said today.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, stressed that there was still a long way to go to cut Covid-19 infection levels and warned against lifting lockdown too early.

However, he also made clear that an end is in sight to the nightmare epidemic if Covid jabs are offered to the whole population, including school children.

“With vaccination now, an amazing achievement, vaccine task force deserves great credit and the roll-out through the NHS, we can now achieve, we believe, population immunity whereby we will not have to go back into lockdowns,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We drive down transmission, we vaccinate as many people as possible including I think later this year school children and the whole of the population and that way the whole of the population will be protected, vulnerable people will be protected and we can keep the pressure off the NHS.

“Science can drive the development of new vaccines that can deal with new variants.”

He added: “The new variants are a massive warning, we are not through this pandemic yet but we can be through it but only if we reduce transmission, we vaccinate as many people in this country and we ensure that those vaccines are available in an equitable way around the world - that’s not just a moral and ethical case, that’s a financial and economic...and it’s the only way actually to bring this pandemic to a close globally.”

He also warned that Government against easing lockdown too quickly or setting dates for this to happen. “In 2020, we lifted restrictions too quickly when the data would not have really allowed that and as a result the transmission went back up in this country,” he explained.

He also emphasised that the number of Covid-19 infections in the UK needed to be below 10,000 before restrictions are lifted.

Sir Jeremy, a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said: “Transmission is still incredibly high in the UK. If transmission were still at this level and we were not in lockdown, we would be going into lockdown.

“There are 750,000 people today in the UK infected, there’s still huge pressure on the NHS and on critical care in this country.

“We’ve made enormous progress - the UK deserves great credit for the science behind the vaccines and the rollout (with) 30 million people now vaccinated in this country.

“But the transmission rate is incredibly high still and we’ve got to get it lower, we’ve got to get it - in my view - into the single thousands before we can possibly think of lifting restrictions.”

He also emphasised that border controls only work if transmission rates are low in the community.

He pointed out that almost all of the first infections detected in the UK in February and early March last year were seeded by British people returning from mainland Europe and not from China, where the pandemic began.

“Border controls can work if transmission is very low, if they are very comprehensive and you’re willing to put them in place for a very long time,” he said.

“They buy you time, but they don’t reduce transmission when your transmission is already very high.”

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