The White House’s chief coronavirus advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, appears to have changed his position on what percentage of the US population needs to receive a COVID-19 vaccine for the country to achieve collective immunity.
Herd immunity occurs when a large percentage of a specific population becomes immune to a virus; immunity can happen naturally or through vaccines to prevent viral infections like influenza and COVID-19.
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told The New York Times in an interview published on Thursday that between 70% and 90% of the US population would need to be inoculated (or vaccinated) against COVID-19 for the country achieve herd immunity.
Fauci indicated that he based his statement changes on public research on the popularity of coronavirus vaccines.
“When polls indicated that only half of all Americans would get the vaccine, I was saying that collective immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” said Fauci. “So when the most 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.”
CORONAVIRUS HERD IMUNITY, PROBABLE UNTIL THE END OF THE NEXT YEAR, WHO SAYS
He continued, “We don’t really know what the real number is. I think the actual range is somewhere between 70 and 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gestures after receiving his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health, Tuesday, December 22, 2020, in Bethesda, Maryland (AP Photo / Patrick Semansky, Pool)
His comments appear to be in contrast to some of his earlier statements on herd immunity against COVID-19.
Fauci previously told Fox News’ “The Story” on December 3 that the United States could achieve collective immunity if 70% of the population gets the COVID-19 vaccine.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
“The estimate is that you will need about 70%, maybe 75%, of the people in the country vaccinated to get that umbrella of collective immunity that will really put us on the road, very close, to being normal.”
In an interview with CNBC on December 17, however, Fauci said that between 75% and 85% of the population will need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and create an “umbrella”, according to the vehicle.
“This would be able to protect even the vulnerable who have not been vaccinated, or those in whom the vaccine has not been effective,” said Fauci.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
About 1 million vaccines have been distributed so far, representing about 0.3% of the country’s population of around 331 million. Meanwhile, about 18.5 million Americans tested positive for the virus, or more than 5% of the population.
The administration is planning to deliver about 20 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year.
CORONAVIRUS VACCINE DISTRIBUTION PLAN: DISTRIBUTION STATE BY STATE
Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marty Makary told The Story on Monday that the country could achieve collective immunity if only 20% to 25% of the population were vaccinated by March “to really reach 70% levels of collective immunity. “