The World Health Organisation yesterday questioned the UK 'herd immunity' policy on coronavirus, stating that there is not enough known about the virus to support this strategy.

In their press conference statement on the 11th March, the W.H.O. urged countries to follow the lead of China and other countries who have successfully slowed and controlled the virus, but the UK government has chosen to not follow this.

We urge the UK government to immediately stop this high-risk strategy and to follow the W.H.O. guidance, introducing their robust recommendations - including social distancing, cancellation of mass gatherings, increasing amount of testing for surveillance of numbers (not decreasing!!!) - without hesitation. The suggestion that, if introduced too early, the population will develop 'behaviour fatigue', does not appear to be based on any scientific evidence.

The right answer here is not yet known, only time will tell, but surely it is not the time to go against W.H.O recommendations.

Excerpt from W.H.O. statement on 11th March:

""We cannot say this loudly enough or clearly enough or often enough; all countries can still change the course of this pandemic. If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise their people in the response those with a handful of cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters and those clusters becoming community transmission. Even those countries with community transmission or larger cluster can turn the tide on this virus. Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled. The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same; it's whether they will.""