CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta predicted Friday that the United States will “probably” reach a point in the spring and summer where transmission rates of the coronavirus go so low that we reach a point of “functional herd immunity.”
Gupta joined hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman on “New Day” and began by responding to a question from a viewer asking if it was safe to resume everyday activities once someone has had the coronavirus vaccine. (RELATED: MSNBC Contributor Says It’s Going To ‘Get Old’ For Biden Administration To Keep Blaming Pandemic On Trump)
Gupta responded by explaining that if you’ve had the vaccine, then “you should feel very confident that you’re not going to get sick.” He said that “you could still be a carrier” but that data will “hopefully” show over the next few months that the likelihood someone would be carrying the virus after having the vaccine will be low.
He went on to say that people can continue their activities as long as they follow the guidelines in place to continue physical distancing and wearing a mask, and added that restrictions are probably “going to be in place for awhile.”
“We’ll probably get to the point, is my guess, over the spring and summer where the transmission rates come down so low that we’ll have some sort of functional herd immunity, and we may see some relaxing of the guidelines,” Gupta continued.
“When we go back into the winter of next year they may say, at least for a period of time, you know, limit indoor gatherings, wear masks again, things like that. So, we may, sort of, have this toggling for a little bit of time. But, that’s the, sort of, way to think about it. Being vaccinated is great, but you do have this obligation to others to not spread the virus to them,” he concluded.
The chief scientific advisor for Operation Warp Speed under the Trump administration, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, predicted in November of last year that the U.S. could reach herd immunity by May 2021 if 70% of the population received the coronavirus vaccine.
As of Friday, the vaccine has been administered to 13.9% of the U.S. population, with 1.5 million doses being administered each day, according to NPR.