April 20, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Expert: herd immunity since September

US National Cancer Institute researcher George Pavlakis, speaking Friday June 11 on SKAI TV, talked about the formation of herd immunity in about three months, starting in September.

“Vaccinated people have tremendous, but not absolute, protection,” he said, citing the risk of what happened in Singapore ahead of the holiday season. In particular, Mr. Pavlakis asked to start voluntary vaccination of children aged 12 and over. “It is becoming more and more likely that new strains will infect children more easily,” the scientist said.

As for herd immunity, he stressed that “it is too early to talk about protection at the level of the population, simply because we do not even have the numbers that would allow us to dream about it. According to the WHO, we need to vaccinate more than 80% of the entire population. Its performance in Greece is very good, but we need another 3 months or so. We will be able to talk about it by the end of September. “

The expert explained that if Greece makes 150,000 vaccinations a day, it will become the “world champion”. In China, 20 million vaccinations are carried out per day, and in Greece (in relation to population) this is equal to 150,000 vaccinations.

At the same time, the scientist warned: “We must be careful in the summer, because it depends on him how we spend the fall. Let’s not forget that the virus is still dangerous. Singapore was doing well, it is a small, organized country with one airport. International roundtrip flights were permitted. The 78-year-old worker was stuck at the airport and infected 40 people in one day. “

Since Greece is open, the likelihood of dangerous covid strains arriving in the country is high.

He also referred to the risk of two or more simultaneous or sequential epidemics or disease clusters accumulating in the population, as happened in South Africa, where in some regions 25% of the adult population has AIDS, and now also coronavirus.





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