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The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus - The New York Times

The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus - The New York Times

The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus - The New York Times
May 28, 2020 2 mins, 45 secs

But in new studies that test the population more broadly, the percentage of people who have been infected so far is still in the single digits.

The numbers are a fraction of the threshold known as herd immunity, at which the virus can no longer spread widely.

The precise herd immunity threshold for the novel coronavirus is not yet clear; but several experts said they believed it would be higher than 60 percent.

But even in these places, recent studies indicate that no more than 7 to 17 percent of people have been infected so far.

In New York City, which has had the largest coronavirus outbreak in the United States, around 20 percent of the city’s residents have been infected by the virus as of early May, according to a survey of people in grocery stores and community centers released by the governor’s office.

A study from a single hospital in the city of Wuhan found that about 10 percent of people seeking to go back to work had been infected with the virus.

The herd immunity threshold for this new disease is still uncertain, but many epidemiologists believe it will be reached when between 60 percent and 80 percent of the population has been infected and develops resistance.

A lower level of immunity in the population can slow the spread of a disease somewhat, but the herd immunity number represents the point where infections are substantially less likely to turn into large outbreaks.

The herd immunity threshold may differ from place to place, depending on factors like density and social interaction, he said.

All estimates of herd immunity assume that a past infection will protect people from becoming sick a second time.

If you are infected with the virus and walk into a room where everyone is susceptible to it, he said, you might infect two or three other people on average.

Even with herd immunity, some people will still get sick.

If you assume that herd protection could be achieved when 60 percent of the population becomes resistant to the virus, that means New York City is only one-third of the way there.

To calculate them precisely, it’s important to know how many people in a place died from the virus versus how many were infected

In New York City, where 20 percent of people were infected with the virus by May 2, according to antibody testing, and where more than 18,000 had died by then, the infection fatality rate appears to be around 1 percent

It has to do with the number of people who are at risk of getting sick and dying as the disease spreads

With the flu, only about half the population is at risk of getting sick in a given flu season

Many people have some immunity already, either because they have been sick with a similar strain of flu, or because they got a flu shot that was a good match for the version of the virus they encountered that year

That number isn’t high enough to fully reach herd immunity — and the flu still circulates every year

But there are benefits to partial immunity in the population: Only a fraction of adults are at risk of catching the flu in a normal year, and they can spread it less quickly, too

That means that the number of people at risk of dying is also much lower

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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