We're Nowhere Near Herd Immunity With Covid-19

Is herd immunity even possible?

- Himshikha Shukla

With so many people contracting the new coronavirus, you might be tempted to think we’re close to achieving herd immunity protection, which would help stop the virus from spreading. But experts say we’re not even close. To get there, we would need 60 to 70 percent of the population to get an infection.

We are ‘traveling to Mars length’ away from achieving herd immunity. What we do know is that the majority of Indians have not been infected. We’re very, very far from the majority. There are hot spots where the outbreak has been heavier, but even in the most heavily exposed places we know about so far, nowhere, no city has gotten anywhere close to herd immunity.

Very few places have antibody levels greater than 20 percent, and herd immunity is likely to require around 60 percent protection.

Take Italy and look at the hardest-hit city. They’ve done seroprevalence studies. It was 12.6 percent, an uncontrolled number of deaths and yet it only reached about 13 percent. That’s a long way from 70 percent.

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