Dr. Anthony Fauci now says that 90 percent of the population may need to be vaccinated or infected to obtain collective immunity against COVID-19 – admitting in a new interview that he is intentionally raising the bar based, in part, on what he thinks that the country is ready to hear.
“We really don’t know what the real number is,” the country’s leading infectious disease expert told the New York Times.
“I think the real variation is between 70 to 90 percent. But, I will not say 90 percent. “
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases acknowledged that this number has been intentionally increasing as the understanding of science about the virus has changed – and Americans have become more confident in coronavirus vaccines.
“When surveys indicated that only half of all Americans would get the vaccine, I was saying that collective immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” he said.
“So when more recent polls said that 60 percent or more would accept, I thought, ‘I can increase this a little bit’, so I went to 80, 85.”
He said he feels comfortable drawing the 90% herd immunity limit, because he does not believe the virus is more infectious than measles, which falls within that range.
“I bet my house that COVID is not as contagious as measles,” he said.
About 46 percent of Americans plan to get the vaccine at the first available opportunity, while 32 percent are willing to wait for others to get the injection first, according to a recent USA Today-Suffolk University survey.