With the rollout of the BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, Dr. Anthoy Fauci on Monday said the country could achieve “herd immunity” by late spring or early summer.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told MSNBC that depending on the “efficiency of the rollout,” the COVID-19 vaccines should be widely available to most of the American population by spring.
“I believe if we’re efficient about it and we convince people to get vaccinated, we can accomplish that by the end of the second quarter of early 2021, namely by the end of the late spring [or] early summer,” he said.
NEW: Dr. Fauci estimates that Americans with no underlying conditions will begin to receive coronavirus vaccines at the end of March, beginning of April:
"It really is going to depend on the efficiency of the rollout." pic.twitter.com/XecZvsrNGW
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 14, 2020
According to the World Health Organization, herd immunity, which is also known as population immunity, is a concept in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.
Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.
The U.S. needs to vaccinate 75-80% of its population
Fauci previously said about 75 percent to 80 percent of the U.S. population would need to be vaccinated to reach the level of herd immunity.
Fauci expressed high hopes that by late spring or early summer, the U.S. will attain “that umbrella of herd immunity.”
“By the time we get to the fall, we can start approaching some degree of relief where the level of infection will be so low in society we can start essentially approaching some form of normality,” he said.
Fauci also predicted that Americans without underlying conditions will begin to get the vaccine at the end of March or the start of April.
