Despite vaccines being rolled out, WHO says there will be no COVID herd immunity in 2021

Despite vaccines being rolled out in a number of countries, the World Health Organisation has issued a COVID-19 reality check for this year.

Despite vaccines against COVID-19 being rolled out in a number of countries, the World Health Organisation warned on Monday that herd immunity would not be achieved this year.

Countries across the globe are looking forward to vaccines finally allowing a return to normality in the months ahead.

But the WHO’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan warned that it will take time to produce and administer enough doses to halt the spread of the virus.

“We are not going to achieve any levels of population immunity or herd immunity in 2021,” she told a virtual press briefing from WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, stressing the need to continue measures like physical distancing, hand washing and mask wearing to rein in the pandemic.

She hailed the “incredible progress” made by scientists who managed the unthinkable of developing not one but several safe and effective vaccines against a brand new virus in under a year.

It’s being warned the vaccine will only do so much this year. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

But, she stressed, the rollout “does take time”. “It takes time to scale the production of doses, not just in the millions, but here we are talking about in the billions,” she pointed out, calling on people to “be a little bit patient”. Swaminathan stressed that eventually, “the vaccines are going to come. They are going to go to all countries.”

“But meanwhile we mustn’t forget that there are measures that work,” she said. “There would be a need to continue taking the public health and social measures aimed at halting transmission for “the rest of this year at least.”

Here’s a quick a look at what else is happening around the world.

– BioNTech: 2 bln doses – German company BioNTech says it expects to produce two billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, up from the 1.3 billion previously forecast.

– Biden’s second shot – US President-elect Joe Biden receives his second vaccine dose, saying: “My number one priority is getting vaccine in people’s arms, as rapidly as we can.”

– Beijing lockdown – More than half a million people are under lockdown in Beijing as the government tries to avoid an outbreak in the city of 20 million ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday next month.

– UK mass vaccination – Britain opens seven mass vaccination sites across England where thousands of people a week will gets shots with more sites to follow.

– Origins team – The World Health Organisation says a team of 10 scientists which will visit China from Thursday to investigate the origins of the pandemic is not looking for “somebody to blame”.

President-elect Joe Biden was given his second shot this morning. Picture: Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP

– Russian one-dose vaccine – Russia will trial a one-dose version of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, as it aims to provide a stop-gap solution for badly hit countries.

– More than 1.9 million dead – The pandemic has killed more than 1,934,693 million people worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP using official sources and information from the WHO.

The US is the country most affected with more than 374,341 deaths, followed by Brazil (203,100), India (over 151,160), Mexico (133,706) and the UK (81,431).

– Portuguese lockdown looms – Portugal has suffered record numbers of coronavirus deaths and infections, making a new lockdown unavoidable, Prime Minister Antonio Costa says.

– Lebanon 24-hour curfew – Lebanon imposes a 24-hour curfew for an 11-day period and introduces new travel restrictions to stem an unprecedented spike in infections.

– Rugby union cups suspended – Rugby union’s European Champions Cup and Challenge Cup have been suspended after the French government said the pandemic made it too risky for French teams to play.