While the UK has long abandoned the strategy of achieving herd immunity by allowing the virus to spread throughout the least at risk sections of the population, the availability of vaccines finally opened up the possibility of getting there without having to sacrifice the public’s health. As the latest government figures show though, All of the UK has now reached the 70 percent mark. As of the week beginning 17 May, estimates based on blood test results taken from a randomly selected subsample of the adult population, indicate that Wales had the largest share of people with the relevant SARS-CoV-2 antibodies – 82.7 percent.
Whether herd immunity can be truly achieved with Covid-19 is now in question though, with a recent Nature article citing “factors such as vaccine hesitancy, the emergence of new variants and the delayed arrival of vaccinations for children” as reasons why this ‘holy grail’ may not be reached.
This chart shows the estimated share of the UK population with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in May 2021, by country.
