According to Tyra Grove Krause, scientific director of the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), Denmark has finally reached herd immunity regarding COVID-19 – at least for now.
The term herd immunity refers to when there is so much immunity in the population that a disease can no longer spread widely in society.
Even without restrictions, infection rates continue to fall. Currently, the infection rate is between 8,000 and 11,000 a day.
The group most immune to corona are young people. The elderly and vulnerable are still the most vulnerable if they become infected.
Does not go away overnight
“The infection does not disappear overnight. When many people have been infected, they will pass it on to a certain degree. But it will decrease week by week,” Viggo Andreasen, associate professor of mathematical epidemiology at Roskilde University, told TV2.
He points out that cities like Copenhagen, which had a high infection rate at the beginning of the year, now have a low number of corona-positive.
But SSI does not believe this is the end of the corona. Like the flu, immunity to corona does not last forever.
A less dangerous one
A new variant is likely. “There is an imminent risk that we will see a new corona variant before the year is over,” predicts Andreasen.
His best guess is that the new version will be a more contagious but less dangerous variant.
“We’ve seen viruses adapt to being higher up in the airways instead of deep in the lungs because they’re more contagious that way,” he says.
Still, nothing is ever certain, and he admits that scientists have been fooled before.
But for now, the contact number will probably remain below 1 – the necessary condition for the epidemic to fall. It is currently 0.7.
The number of tests may have dropped, but so have intensive admissions.
Source: The Nordic Page