UK says virus needs to infect 60pc of Britons to ‘save lives’
The UK government is battling criticism of a coronavirus plan that blends blunt talk of the pandemic's toll with modest steps that fall far short of measures taken in other countries.
Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, said in broadcast interviews on Friday that the infection rate could hit 60 per cent of the British population, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that "many more" families will lose loved ones.
The approach is aimed at making sure the right interventions are made at the right time to deal with an outbreak that's going to last months, officials said.
The UK risks becoming an outlier in the global fight against the fast-spreading coronavirus, as nations across Europe take more aggressive steps such as closing schools to respond to a widening crisis.
The government faces a growing backlash after saying on Thursday that it was shifting strategy away from efforts to contain the spread of the disease towards moves aimed at delaying the worst of the epidemic.
Mr Vallance defended the UK's approach, saying officials are trying to reduce and broaden the peak of the outbreak, "not to suppress it completely." A 60 per cent infection rate would help build up a degree of "herd immunity", he said.
Asked why the UK was still going ahead with large events, such as Saturday's Six Nations Championship rugby match, Mr Vallance said it's about impact, not headlines.
"It's eye-catching to say stop those - it's not actually a big effect on the transmission," Vallance said in an interview on Radio 4. "I think it's more likely that there will be transmission in pubs and other areas where people are aggregating watching it than in the actual stadium itself."
The UK is not ruling out closing schools, but has decided against it for now, he said. If the government were to take that step, facilities would have to be closed for a prolonged period of "many months", he said.
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