The UK is the closest of any country in the northern hemisphere to exiting the COVID-19 pandemic and seeing it become endemic, an expert has said. Professor David Heymann, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said the UK is probably one of the countries with the highest levels of population immunity. Talking at a Chatham House online briefing on Tuesday, Heymann said that countries in the northern hemisphere have “varying stages of the pandemic,” and the UK is probably “the closest to any country of being out of the pandemic if it isn’t already out of the pandemic and having the disease as endemic.” He said population immunity is already high and “seems to be keeping the virus and its variants at bay, not causing serious illness or death.” Heymann cited the Office for National Statistics as saying that about 95 percent of the population in …