Collective immunity acquired through disease and vaccination against COVID-19 is 44 pct nationally

The head of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV), Valeriu Gheorghita, said, on Tuesday, that, at the national level, according to the most recent estimates, the collective immunity rate acquired by disease and vaccination is of 44 pct nationally, and over 60 pct in the counties of Cluj, Ilfov and the City of Bucharest. "We have finalized, together with our colleagues from the National Institute for Public Health, the estimation of the population share with a degree of protection towards the COVID disease obtained by vaccination and having the disease. (...) Two estimates were conducted: one at the county level and one at the administrative-territorial unit level. For the national and county level estimate the calculation base used was the resident population of Romania at January 1, 2020, meaning 19.3 million persons. As such, at the national level, the share of the population with a degree of protection against the COVID-19 disease, compounded with going through the disease and vaccination, is estimated at around 44 pct," said Valeriu Gheorghita in a press conference at the Victoria Palace of Government. The CNCAV head emphasized that there are, obviously, differences from one county to the next. "Two counties and the City of Bucharest have a group immunity rate of over 60 pct - Cluj County, Ilfov County and the City of Bucharest have over 60 pct collective immunity. Furthermore, in 25 counties, over 20 percent of persons have some degree of immunity, in 11 counties collective community rates are over 40 pct and in 3 counties over 50 pct of persons have a degree of immunity at this time. (...) At the national level, I say again, we are talking of an estimation of 44 pct collective immunity acquired through the disease and vaccination," he mentioned. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Simona Iacob)