The progress of vaccine rollouts and growing herd immunity means the coronavirus pandemic should all but disappear in the U.S. in April or May, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marty Makary told “America’s Newsroom” Thursday.
Last month, Makary — a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health — predicted in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that America will have “Herd Immunity by April.”
“Some people say, ‘Look, the projection I said gave people a false sense of security.’ I think it actually encouraged people to do what they need to do until we get to that point because hope is on the way and I think the numbers are pointing that way,” Makary said.
His comments came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted COVID-19 deaths could decline drastically over the coming four weeks.
CORONAVIRUS IN THE US: STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN
The CDC’s forecast suggests that between 3,200 and 10,100 Americans will die of COVID-19 during the week of April 4-10.
“We’re seeing some really good news,” said Makary, who noted that 10 states have had days in which they’ve reported no coronavirus deaths.
“I call that herd immunity,” Makary continued.
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“I don’t think we’re going to extinguish this virus, as I wrote in that piece,” he said later in the segment. “But a debate is going to ensue: ‘Who are those people?’ And those are going to be primarily young people who have asymptomatic and mild disease. They could linger through May and early June.”
As of Wednesday morning, the novel coronavirus has infected more than 120,710,811 people across 192 countries and territories, resulting in at least 2,670,763 deaths. In the U.S., all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have reported confirmed cases of COVID-19, tallying more than 29,549,010 illnesses and at least 536,914 deaths.
