73% of U.S. Now Immune to Omicron: AP

Most Americans are protected from the virus.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Millions of individual Americans’ immune systems now recognize coronavirus and are primed to fight it off if they encounter omicron, or even another variant, The Associated Press reports.
  • One model estimates that 73% of Americans are, for now, immune to omicron, the dominant variant, and that could rise to 80% by mid-March.
  • This will prevent or shorten new illnesses in protected people and reduce the amount of virus circulating overall, likely tamping down new waves, AP notes.
WHAT SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING:
  • “We have changed,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We have been exposed to this virus and we know how to deal with it.”
  • “I am optimistic even if we have a surge in summer, cases will go up, but hospitalizations and deaths will not,” said Mokdad, who works on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model, which calculated the 73% figure, AP reports.
BACKGROUND:
  • Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that about three out of four people in the United States will have been infected by omicron by the end of the surge, AP notes.
  • “We know it’s a huge proportion of the population,” said Shaun Truelove, an epidemiologist and disease modeler at Johns Hopkins. “This varies a lot by location, and in some areas we expect the number infected to be closer to one in two.”

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