Beautiful Virgin Islands

Friday, Jul 25, 2025

Forget herd immunity, better to prepare to live with Covid-19

Forget herd immunity, better to prepare to live with Covid-19

Fast-spreading variants that render vaccines less effective have changed the game, say experts

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Leading epidemiologists told the Post that the 70 per cent threshold for achieving herd immunity had become outdated with the arrival of faster-spreading coronavirus variants that rendered vaccines less effective.

Herd immunity refers to the situation in which most of the population has become immune to the virus, making it difficult to spread.

People queue for Sinovac jabs at the Hong Kong Central Library in Causeway Bay.


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.

Since the vaccination drive began in late February, only 3 million people, or 40 per cent of the population, have received at least one jab, while 2.21 million have had both doses – only halfway to the experts’ new threshold of 80 per cent.

The evolving pandemic has made more scientists realise that aiming to get the majority immune might not be realistic.

They said some coronavirus variants had weakened the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines. Of the two available in Hong Kong, the efficacy of the mainland-produced Sinovac vaccine is particularly low compared with that of German-made BioNTech.

The highly transmissible Delta variant has now emerged in at least 124 countries, and initial research has suggested that vaccines have a lower efficacy rate against it.

The BioNTech vaccine was found to be 88 per cent effective in reducing symptoms caused by the variant, compared with an efficacy of about 95 per cent for non-variants. The efficacy rate for the Sinovac shots remains unknown.

Professor Benjamin Cowling has suggested herd immunity via vaccination alone is no longer a likely outcome.


“I don’t think we will be able to achieve herd immunity in Hong Kong through vaccination alone,” said Professor Benjamin Cowling, a leading University of Hong Kong epidemiologist who recently published findings that Sinovac induced much lower levels of antibodies, the protein in the blood that fights the virus.

He said herd immunity could be achieved through inoculation only if everyone was vaccinated with the highly effective mRNA jabs, such as BioNTech’s.

But the 7.5 million doses of BioNTech available are enough for only half the population, with vaccines not yet available to children aged below 12.

“If a location has a high vaccination coverage but has not yet reached herd immunity, one choice is to reopen and prepare for an ‘exit wave’,” he said, referring to a final, inevitable rise in infections when the community opens up and discards social-distancing measures.

England, for example, declared July 19 its “Freedom Day” from virus restrictions. With about 68 per cent of its citizens having received at least one dose of vaccine, the country lifted most pandemic restrictions and is now expected to see more than a million infections in the coming months.

That option is considered impossible for Hong Kong, whose leaders have clung to the goal of “zero local infections” in the hope of meeting tough requirements set by Beijing for resuming cross-border travel.

The city has logged a 47-day streak of no local infections as of Saturday, although there have been imported cases.

Cowling said: “Another policy choice would be to continue with a ‘zero Covid’ strategy to protect public health until additional rounds of booster doses can be administered to further increase population immunity.”

Assistant Professor Kwok Kin-on says many of the original parameters for achieving herd immunity have gone out the window with the arrival of the Covid-19 variants.


But that could end up a moving target if more coronavirus variants emerged, he added.

“I expect that most locations in the world will learn to live with the virus, managing it in a similar way to the seasonal flu,” he said.

Assistant Professor Kwok Kin-on of Chinese University’s school of public health said the original goal of a 70 per cent vaccination rate assumed that one infected person could spread the virus to three others – the transmission rate of the original virus strain – and that the two available vaccines would maintain 60 to 95 per cent efficacy rates.

But the arrival of variants changed all that. Scientists estimate that a person infected with the Delta variant can pass it on to at least five others.

Instead of chasing herd immunity, Kwok said it might be better to focus on whether vaccinated people had severe symptoms when infected with Covid-19 or the variants.

Covid-19 has a much higher mortality rate than flu. We hope to bring down the mortality rate of Covid-19 through vaccination,” he said.

“If one is infected but will recover after resting for two days, can we accept that? If we find it acceptable, the problem is solved.”

Hong Kong has so far seen 23 imported cases of fully vaccinated people who fell ill with Covid-19, of which 19 were infected with variants. But the severity of their symptoms and mortality rates were lower in general.

Kwok said if the mortality rate of Covid-19 could be brought down to a level comparable to the flu, normality could be resumed.

“Would we impose lockdown or social-distancing measures because of the flu?” he asked.

Professor Lau Yu-lung, chairman of the Centre for Health Protection’s scientific committee on vaccine preventable disease, said the city should be prepared to live with the virus once it had hit a high vaccination rate.

He said: “Achieving a zero-infection status is just to let society continue to operate and have time to reach at least an 80 per cent full vaccination rate. When we have reached that state, we will not see a large number of deaths and a high hospitalisation rate.”

Cowling said Hong Kong could start planning to reopen and relax pandemic measures once vaccinations pass the 70 per cent mark, even without herd immunity.

“We will certainly have to live with the virus at some point, unless we are planning to stay in our ‘zero covid’ bubble for the foreseeable future,” he said.

“The virus isn’t going to disappear from the world.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
×