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‘Forget herd immunity’: Hong Kong experts say better to prepare to live with Covid-19, but more must get their jabs
- Fast-spreading variants that render vaccines less effective have changed the game, experts say
- Instead of chasing ‘zero infections’, city should move towards treating Covid-19 like flu
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Reaching herd immunity against Covid-19 is no longer a realistic goal for Hong Kong, medical experts agree, arguing instead for the city to prepare to live with the virus.
Their warning came despite a recent increase in the vaccination rate and Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s prediction that the city would attain its goal of having 70 per cent of the population vaccinated by late September.
Leading epidemiologists told the Post that the 70 per cent threshold for achieving herd immunity had become outdated with the arrival of faster-spreading coronavirus variants that rendered vaccines less effective.
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Herd immunity refers to the situation in which most of the population has become immune to the virus, making it difficult to spread.
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The experts said with the presence of variants, at least 80 per cent of the city’s 7.5 million population, or 6 million people, need to be vaccinated to minimise the risk of community outbreaks.
They acknowledged that getting so many people jabbed would be a daunting task.
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