Reaching herd immunity is “not a possibility” with the current Delta variant, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said this week, The Guardian reports.

Prof. Sir Andrew Pollard was giving evidence to members of the UK Parliament, and told them that the chances of reaching overall immunity were “mythical.”

“The problem with this virus is [it is] not measles,” he said.

“If 95% of people were vaccinated against measles, the virus cannot transmit in the population.”

“The Delta variant will still infect people who have been vaccinated. And that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated at some point will meet the virus … and we don’t have anything that will [completely] stop that transmission.”

The Guardian cites data from a recent study conducted by Imperial College London that suggested that fully vaccinated adults under the age of 64 are around 50% less likely to contract coronavirus.

The study also found that the risk of contracting the virus from an infected person is just 7.23% for someone who has not been vaccinated (as opposed to 3.84% for someone who has received two vaccine shots).

Prof. Pollard also addressed the question of the booster shot being offered in some countries to the immunocompromised and now, in Israel, to all those over the age of 50. He downplayed the significance of waning antibody levels, as other experts have done before him, asserting that people’s immune systems would probably remember the vaccination for “decades” and still provide a degree of protection. “So, there isn’t any reason at this moment to panic,” he said.

Source: Arutz Sheva