COVID-19 herd immunity is a mirage. Here's how the virus could become 'manageable' instead.
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America came this close to herd immunity.
Last May, “we had enough vaccination and natural immunity to have basically almost achieved a population level of immunity,” Dr. Eric Topol said. “We were getting down to fewer than 10,000 cases a day. We were looking good.”
Then the delta variant moved the goal posts.
With the original version of the virus that causes COVID-19, America's current vaccination rate of about 65% would have been enough to stop the spread.
"If we were dealing with the original, we have sufficient vaccination such that the large-scale pandemic would be over in this country," said Joshua Schiffer, a physician and mathematical modeling expert who studies infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.