Covid: 'We're not at herd immunity yet,' says Independent SAGE member

29 July 2021, 17:59 | Updated: 29 July 2021, 18:14

Covid: 'We're not at herd immunity yet,' says Prof Christina Pagel

By Sam Sholli

'We're not at herd immunity yet' when it comes to Covid-19, Independent SAGE member Professor Christina Pagel has told LBC.

Professor Pagel made the comment to LBC's Eddie Mair, as Test and Trace figures show that a total of of 307,758 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to July 21.

Eddie asked Professor Pagel: "Do you worry that if people feel rampantly optimistic, they'll stop taking the precautions that we know are still essential?"

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The Independent SAGE member responded: "I think there will be this kind of bumpy feedback effect where if you get a lot of cases people will start being more cautious and then as cases come down people will start being less cautious, and you'll end up with this kind of weird wobbling of people changing their behaviour in response to reported cases.

"But then gradually, hopefully as we get more and more immunity, we'll start seeing cases come down."

She, however, went on to say that "we're not at herd immunity yet".