Theme: Public health

This annual International Health Lecture is organised by the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Lancet. It is a platform for leaders in global health to discuss topics of international significance, promoting debate, discussion and the exchange of ideas on current research. It attracts a diverse international audience. The 2020 lecture took place on 2 November and can be accessed online; it is just under two hours long. There was an excellent introduction by Professor Richard Horton, Executive Editor of the Lancet, and three main speakers…

In correspondence published in The Lancet, a group of researchers warned that the so-called herd immunity approach to managing Covid-19, that is, allowing people in low-risk populations to become infected for immunity to develop, while protecting the most vulnerable, is “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by the scientific evidence”. Faced with a second wave of Covid-19, and more than a million recorded deaths worldwide as of 12 October, the authors present their view of the evidence-based consensus on Covid-19.