The Mirror leads with the preprint I flagged up yesterday estimating that by the end of April 29% of the UK population may have already had the virus (29% of 66 million is ~19 million). If we assume that roughly 50,000 people in the UK will have died from COVID-19 by May 21st – allowing for the three-week lag time between infection and death – that gives an infection fatality rate (IFR) of ~0.076%, less than half the IFR of seasonal flu. Is a seroprevalence of 29% high enough for herd immunity? Yes, according to a summary of the evidence by Nicholas Lewis about the threshold that needs to be reached that I flagged up a few days ago. According to Lewis, the variation in COVID-19 susceptibility and infectivity between individuals, arising mainly from differences in their social connectivity, lowers the herd immunity threshold to 7% - 24% of the population, much lower than the 50% - 60% previously thought. His analysis draws on a recent preprint by Gomes et al entitled ‘Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold‘. New data from London suggests the city has already obtained herd immunity. According to the latest estimates by Public Health England (PHE) and Cambridge University, as reported in the Telegraph, only 24 people a day ...