'60-70% of population needs to be immune to curb Covid-19 transmission'

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase across the country, many people are asking whether so-called herd immunity might be the best strategy to defeat the disease. Katherine O'Brien Director of WHO says that the WHO cannot give the exact number of "the proportion of the population that would need to be immunized."

Modeling studies have revealed that about 60 to 70 percent of the global population needs to be immune to curb or halt Covid-19 transmission, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said.

Population need to be immunized

Katherine O'Brien Director of WHO's Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals says on Friday that Noting the WHO cannot give the exact number of "the proportion of the population that would need to be immunized. She added these modeling studies 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. Also, predicated on what the performance of the vaccines would be.

Increasing numbers of death

According to Johns Hopkins University, the remarks come as the overall number of global coronavirus has topped 61.5 million, while the death has surged to more than 1.44 million. In its latest update on Saturday, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 6 crores 15 lakhs 85 thousand 651 and 14lakhs 41 thousand 875 respectively.

India stood inthe second position

The US is the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 13,086,367 and 264,842, respectively, according to the CSSE. India comes in second place in terms of cases at 9,309,787, while the country's death toll soared to 135,715.

Countries need to remain vigilant

In the same virtual briefing on Friday, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for WHO's Health Emergencies Program, said that countries with decreasing Covid-19 numbers still need to stay "vigilant". "Even as case numbers are coming down, all countries need to remain vigilant. You've heard of this before, but we really need to emphasize it again. Do not let your guard down. She added "It's good to see the measures taking effect and transmission going down. But it's not time to let up. It's time to even scale up. "What we don't want to see in situations where you are moving from a so-called lockdown state to bring the virus under control to moving to a so-called lockdown state''.