New Study Says US is Nowhere Near COVID-19 Herd Immunity
Mike Ryan, executive of WHO's emergency program, speaks at a press conference in February.
About a third of the latest Yorkers and fewer than a tenth of yank adults were exposed to the coronavirus by the top of July, a replacement study of dialysis patients found. That level is way from the “herd immunity” many hope will help end restrictions aimed toward slowing the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.
In some states, the infection rate was essentially zero, consistent with the study, which tested plasma samples from quite 28,000 randomly selected dialysis patients from across the US. In NY, the speed was 33.6%, far and away from the very best within the nation, with the speed largely skewed toward downstate counties. subsequent highest was Louisiana, at 17.6%. New Jersey’s rate was just 11.9%.
Nationwide, the infection rate was just 9%. Herd immunity means enough people are infected to stop further spread of the virus. Experts say for the coronavirus, that might about 50 to 65% of the population.
However, it’s not clear how long infection can protect someone. Last month, a Nevada man became the primary person within the country to urge COVID-19 twice. Several other patients in China and Europe have also been reinfected.
By Saturday morning, 203,789 Americans had died from COVID-19, and quite 7 million Americans were confirmed infected, consistent with Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracker. About 4.5 million were recovered.
The uneven infection rates mean that folks in areas with high infection rates are unlikely to be protected because others will bring the virus in from elsewhere, William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist who wasn't one among the study’s authors, told.
Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist, and biostatistician at the University of California told the paper the US is nowhere on the brink of an end to the pandemic. “The only way we’re getting to get to herd immunity unless you’re during a very closed community sort of prison is for everyone to urge vaccinated,” Rutherford said.
Hanage is additionally concerned communities not yet hit by COVID-19 will feel a false sense of security.
“We expect small-town America to not be within the first surge,” he said, but over time, as people move around more and it gets introduced multiple times, more communities will have outbreaks.
Separately, with the planet approaching 1 million deaths from the pandemic, which started in China in December, the planet Health Organization said it’s “not impossible” for that number to double, the Washington Post reported.
“If we glance at losing 1 million people in nine months then we just check out the realities of getting vaccines out there within the next nine months, it’s an enormous task for everybody involved,” said Mike Ryan, the chief director of WHO’s health emergencies.
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