COVID-19 vaccine progress impressive, but ‘herd immunity’ a long way off

Andrew Noymer, [associate professor of public health], an epidemiologist and demographer at UCI Irvine, agrees.“If you would have told me in December that on June 1 we’d be where we are right now, I would have said, ‘Yowsa. Yeah, that’s praiseworthy,’” Noymer said. While clearly making progress toward “herd immunity” … reaching millions of people who can’t or won’t be jabbed yet is proving a heavy lift. “Right now, we still get a passing grade, but it’s like the barometer is falling,” Noymer said. “That means a storm is coming, but not that it’s raining right now.”