Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 May 29;19(5):e0299574.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299574. eCollection 2024.

Can COVID-19 herd immunity be achieved at a city level?

Yuval Arbel  1 , Yifat Arbel  2 , Amichai Kerner  3 , Miryam Kerner  4   5
Affiliations

Can COVID-19 herd immunity be achieved at a city level?

Yuval Arbel et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

We propose a new approach to estimate the vaccination rates required to achieve herd immunity against SARS-COV2 virus at a city level. Based on information obtained from the Israeli Ministry of Health, we estimate two separate quadratic models, one for each dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA Pfizer vaccine. The dependent variable is the scope of morbidity, expressed as the number of cases per 10,000 persons. The independent variables are the first and second vaccination rates and their squares. The outcomes corroborate that herd immunity is achieved in the case that 71 percent of the urban population is vaccinated, and the minimum anticipated scope of morbidity is approximately 5 active COVID-19 cases per 10,000 persons, compared to 53-67 cases per 10,000 persons for zero vaccination rate. Findings emphasize the importance of vaccinations and demonstrate that urban herd immunity may be defined as a situation in which people continue to interact, yet the COVID-19 spread is contained. This, in turn, might prevent the need for lockdowns or other limitations at the city level.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Distribution of COVID-19 cases per 10,000 persons.
Notes: The figure describes the continuous distribution of active COVID-19 cases per 10,000 persons. The vertical axis (percent) is the relative prevalence (the area of each rectangular with width of 10 COVID-19 cases per 10,000 persons). The skewness of the distribution is 3.61 and the null hypothesis of symmetrical distribution is clearly rejected (adjusted calculated chi-square with two degrees of freedom of 91.98 compared to 1% critical value of 9.21).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Distribution of percent of vaccinated persons first vaccination.
Notes: The skewness of the distribution is −1.25 and the null hypothesis of symmetrical distribution is clearly rejected (adjusted calculated chi-square with two degrees of freedom of 23.70 compared to 1% critical value of 9.21).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Distribution of percent of vaccinated persons second vaccination.
Notes: The skewness of the distribution is −0.98 and the null hypothesis of symmetrical distribution is clearly rejected (adjusted calculated chi-square with two degrees of freedom of 15.75 compared to 1% critical value of 9.21).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Second vaccination.
Notes: The figures refer to 132 cities and towns and the estimation outcomes reported in Table 3.
Fig 5
Fig 5. First vaccination.
Notes: The figures refer to 132 cities and towns and the estimation outcomes reported in Table 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dagan N, Barda N, Kepten E, et al.. BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Mass Vaccination Setting. The New England journal of medicine. 2021;384(15):1412–1423. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2101765 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Clemente-Suárez V. J., Hormeño-Holgado A., Jiménez M., Benitez-Agudelo J. C., Navarro-Jiménez E., Perez-Palencia N., et al.. (2020). Dynamics of Population Immunity Due to the Herd Effect in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Vaccines, 8(2), 236. doi: 10.3390/vaccines8020236 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kalish H., Klumpp-Thomas C., Hunsberger S., Baus H. A., Fay M. P., Siripong N., et al.. (2021). Undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Science translational medicine, 13(601), eabh3826. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abh3826 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barker Pierre; MD, MB, ChB, Hartley David, PhD, MPH; Beck Andrew F. MD, MPH; George “Holt” Oliver, MD, PhD, Bhargavi Sampath, MPH, Thomas Roderick, PhD, et al.. (2021). Rethinking Herd Immunity: Managing the Covid-19 Pandemic in a Dynamic Biological and Behavioral Environment. NEJM Catalyst doi: 10.1056/CAT.21.0288 - DOI
    1. Pei S, Yamana TK, Kandula S, et al.. (2021). Burden and characteristics of COVID-19 in the United States during 2020. Nature 2021 [published online August 26, 2021] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03914-4. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03914-4 - DOI - PubMed