Greene County public health director Becky Wolf reported Tuesday there have been 861 cases of COVID-19 in Greene County as of Monday, May 2. There are currently 111 active cases with 750 people recovered. The 14-day positivity rate is 2.3 percent. Ten deaths have been reported.
“Our ‘fully vaccinated’ numbers have not increased much in the past seven-10 days; we need to pick up the momentum, Wolf said.
A total of 6,602 doses of vaccine have been administered, with 36 percent of Greene County residents fully vaccinated. In the 65 years and older group, 3,125 doses have been administered and 76 percent are fully vaccinated.
All Greene County vaccine providers now have access to COVID-19 vaccine
Wolf explained “herd immunity” and how it can protect the public from Covid-19:
Herd immunity occurs when enough people become immune to a disease to make its spread unlikely. As a result, the entire community is protected, even those who are not themselves immune.
Herd immunity is usually achieved through vaccination, but can also occur through natural infection. The more contagious a disease is, the higher the percentage of the population needs to be immune in order to stop the chain of spreading from person to person.
She also explained several challenges to the idea of relying on everyone getting the virus, rather than going through a vaccination process.
- Reinfection: It’s not clear how long you are protected from getting sick again after recovering from COVID-19, even if you have antibodies
- Health impact: Experts estimate that 70 percent of the U.S. population (more than 200 million people) would have to recover from COVID-19 to halt the pandemic
