Achieving collective immunity against coronavirus may require that up to 90 percent of the population be vaccinated, Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciDC Mayor honoring Fauci on his 80th birthday with ‘Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day’s Republican club, whose conga line without a mask went viral, responds: Adults have the right to make their own decisions Research: Americans increasingly likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine MORE said in an interview published Thursday.
Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, acknowledged in the New York Times interview that he has gradually increased his estimate of the herd’s immunity numbers.
Fauci said he has raised estimates in his public statements because he believes Americans are now able to handle the message that getting back to normal may take longer than anticipated, and fewer Americans are reporting that they are skeptical about vaccination.
“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,” Fauci told the Times. “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.”
The Times noted that about a month ago, Fauci began to say that collective immunity would lead “70, 75 percent” of Americans to be vaccinated.
Last week, in a interview with CNBC News, Fauci estimated “between 75 and 80, 85 percent of the population.”
At this level of vaccination, Fauci said, “we would develop an immunity umbrella. This would be able to protect even the vulnerable, who have not been vaccinated, or those in whom the vaccine has not been effective.”
The more infectious a disease is, the higher the vaccination rate needed to reach a collective immunity threshold. For example, measles, considered the most infectious disease in the world, needs collective immunity of at least 90%.
Fauci said that experts are uncertain about the level of vaccination required for herd immunity, but initial estimates of 60 to 70 percent were based on previous data.
“We need to be a little humble here,” said Fauci in the interview. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the actual range is between 70 and 90 percent. But, I will not say 90 percent. “
Fauci’s comments come as data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show just over 1 million Americans received the first of two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, and Trump administration officials admit they are unlikely to meet their goal of giving 20 million Americans the first dose by the end of the year.
More than 327,000 people died of the virus in America, according to Johns Hopkins University estimates, and a new “set” of the CDC scheduled for the next four weeks predicts a total of 378,000 to 419,000 COVID-19 deaths by January 16.
On Wednesday, more than 3,000 people died for the second day in a row, according to Johns Hopkins data.
Still, the Transport Security Administration on Wednesday registered 1,191,123 travelers passing through airport control points, the longest number of days since the pandemic began in March.