The World Health Organization does not expect the advent of coronavirus vaccines to break the chains of transmission soon, the executive director of the UN agency's health emergencies program said Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th December, 2020) The World Health Organization does not expect the advent of coronavirus vaccines to break the chains of transmission soon, the executive director of the UN agency's health emergencies program said Friday.
The United Kingdom has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on Wednesday. The rollout will start next week. Health Minister Hancock said he expected the nation to be "through this" by spring.
"Some countries are actually going back into very high transmission levels and there is no prospect that vaccine will end that transmission in enough time," Mike Ryan told reporters at a briefing.
He stressed that, although the arrival of vaccines was good news, they were not enough to stop the pandemic in its tracks.
"Vaccines do not equal zero COVID. Vaccines and vaccination will add a major, major powerful tool to the toolkit that we have. By themselves, they will not do the job," Ryan said.
An important question was the level of herd immunity against COVID-19 in the population, Ryan added. Data suggests that protection may not be lifelong, meaning we may see reinfections beginning to occur.
