16.10.2020 change 16.10.2020

Up to 30 percent of Population will not develop COVID-19, says expert

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A third of the population will not develop COVID-19, says geneticist and biologist Professor Marek Sanak. He adds that as infections increase, the herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will also increase.

According to Sanak, research carried out in New York, a city with a high population density and extensive public transport, despite an increase in the number of infections, herd immunity exceeded 20 percent - this percentage has now become immune to SARS-CoV-2.

Sanak, acting head of Department of Molecular Biology and Clinical Genetics at the Jagiellonian University Medical College, said: “Some of us will not get infected when exposed to the coronavirus, some will have the disease without any symptoms. The problem is that we don't know who exactly.”

In his opinion, if someone had a disease in childhood or adolescence due to other coronaviruses and has good immunity, the risk of infection or severe disease in such a person is reduced.

He said: “Scientific data show that after childhood and adolescent infections with other coronaviruses (and several such viruses circulate seasonally in the population), our immune cells remember the antigenic pattern of the coronavirus. 

“As a result, these people already have lymphocytes that successfully destroy the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, preventing the disease from developing. This has already been demonstrated.”

PAP - Science in Poland, Beata Kołodziej

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