How Close is the US to Herd Immunity? CDC Scientist Speaks Out
The US has administered over 70 million COVID vaccines for its population, according to Bloomberg. But considering that we’re talking about the third most populated country in the world after China and India, maybe we shouldn’t be so excited about the current number of vaccinations.
New and more contagious strains of the coronavirus are spreading in the US, which is a strong reason why more people need to get vaccinated. CNBC.com brings the news of a Centers for Disease Control scientists who raises the alarm.
The US is nowhere close to herd immunity
Herd immunity represents enough people from a community that develop antibodies against a disease. This immunity can be achieved either by vaccination or prior exposure to the specific disease. Adam MacNeil is the scientist in question and an epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He declared:
Currently we know that the majority of the US population is not immune to SARS-CoV-2 and variants may cause this portion of the population that is not immune to increase.
The solution is obviously to vaccinate more people, as MacNeil also said at an FDA (Food and Drug Administration) meeting. Hopefully, that will make the US achieve herd immunity, and the danger of more contagious coronavirus strains is real. The UK COVID strain discovered last year in October spreads significantly faster than older variants, and authorities are worried that it can even become the dominant coronavirus strain in the US. However, Adam MacNeil is optimistic that more vaccinations could cancel this dreadful scenario.
According to worldometers.info, the total number of COVID infections in the US exceed 19.5 million cases. The number of those who lost the battle with the coronavirus surpasses 522,000 souls, representing about 3% of all the closed cases.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.
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