Coronavirus Herd Immunity In Boston Won't Come 'Any Time Soon'

BOSTON — Greater Boston and most other coronavirus hotspots are well below the "herd immunity" threshold experts believe would be needed so the virus could no longer spread widely.

Health officials are still trying to understand how COVID-19 spreads, but have said 60 percent of a given population would need to have coronavirus antibodies to reach herd immunity. In Boston, according to an analysis of recent studies, the percentage of the population with COVID-19 antibodies is 9.9 percent.

Of all the places hit hard by the coronavirus, New York has the highest percentage of its population with antibodies at 19.9 percent, according to The New York Times, which first reported this story.

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Sweden and Britain, which experimented with limited lockdowns, are also a far way off from reaching herd immunity. Both Stockholm, at 7.3 percent, and London, at 17.5 percent, trail New York City.

Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told The Times that the studies mean the world won't reach herd immunity for the coronavirus "any time soon."

"We don’t have a good way to safely build it up, to be honest, not in the short term," Mina said. "Unless we’re going to let the virus run rampant again — but I think society has decided that is not an approach available to us."

More Coronavirus Coverage On Massachusetts Patch:

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• Coronavirus Case Counts For Every Massachusetts Town (Updated May 20)

Dave Copeland writes for Patch and can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).