Modeling Studies Show 60-70% People Need To Be COVID-19 Immune To Curb Transmission - WHO

Modeling Studies Show 60-70% People Need to Be COVID-19 Immune to Curb Transmission - WHO

Modeling studies indicate that some 60-70 percent of people would need to be immune to COVID-19 to weaken or halt the virus transmission, the World Health Organization's (WHO) top immunization expert, Dr. Katherine O'Brien, said on Friday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th November, 2020) Modeling studies indicate that some 60-70 percent of people would need to be immune to COVID-19 to weaken or halt the virus transmission, the World Health Organization's (WHO) top immunization expert, Dr. Katherine O'Brien, said on Friday.

Speaking at a virtual press briefing, O'Brien, the chief of the department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals, said that the WHO cannot say at the moment "the proportion of the population that would need to be immunized" because the health agency has not observed that yet.

"But the answer to that can come from modelling studies that would tell us, under certain conditions, what proportion of the population would need to be immunized. And so these modeling studies, a number of them have been done, and under a variety of conditions have concluded that somewhere around 60 to 70 percent of the population would need to be immune, presumably through immunization, in order to achieve a reduction or an interruption of transmission of the virus," she added.

At present, there are 48 candidate vaccines on the WHO's list. Some manufacturers have already begun releasing the interim results of phase 3 trials of their candidate vaccines. Russia's Sputnik V, as well as candidate vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, have all reported over 90 percent efficacy, according to the preliminary data. The average efficacy of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine totals 70 percent, interim analysis shows.