Collective immunity to coronavirus is almost here - CORVID / / Collective immunity to coronavirus is almost here Health and Tips 31 Jul Collective immunity to coronavirus is almost here Share with socials Share by: Some population groups may already be close to achieving “crowd immunity”, despite more or less strict social distancing measures.
An international group of scientists suggested that the herd immunity threshold (HIT) in the new coronavirus may be much lower, not 60-70%, but 10-20% of immune people, and perhaps even less.
Scientists believe that the main reason for the different sensitivity of people to the new coronavirus is that a significant part (from 35% to 80%) of those who are not yet infected with SARS-CoV-2 have T cells, antibodies or other components that appeared in them as a result of a cold suffered in the past due to other “harmless” coronaviruses or flu.
That is, many people already have cross-reactive immunity of varying strength to the new pathogen.
In other words, many of us can fight COVID-19 in one way or another.
Since such antibodies are not specific for SARS-CoV-2, and T cells are difficult to detect at all, these components of immunity are usually not detected by current tests for immunity to the new coronavirus, scientists write.
They note that despite the weakening of various quarantine measures, in some regions there is no significant increase in deaths, and this may be evidence of the correctness of their hypothesis.