Turkey seeks to achieve herd immunity by fall after massive vaccination program

Within the scope of its massive vaccination program, Turkey aims to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 by the fall this year, the daily Hürriyet reported on May 25.

According to Health Ministry's data, around 20 million people across the country have gained immunity against the virus, as 12 million of them have been fully inoculated, while the rest of them have developed antibodies naturally after recovering from the virus.

Based on a deal recently made between Turkey's Health Ministry and the U.S. Pfizer pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, Ankara is rooting to vaccinate 30 million more people with a dose of BioNTech vaccines as of June.

The first dose of the BioNTech vaccine is highly protective against the coronavirus, and a vaccinated person will develop antibodies within 10 to 14 days, officials said.

Based on these calculations, officials estimate that some 50 million people will become immune, and the country will experience herd immunity against the virus by the second half of July.

Vaccination alone is not the only option to fight against the COVID-19 until fall, but we need to keep the daily coronavirus cases below 15,000, officials noted.

According to data, the rate of the positive COVID-19 cases, which was around 20 percent last winter, has declined to 4 percent, while the number of the daily coronavirus cases nosedived from 600,000 to 120,000 in that period.

These numbers show that the burden of the virus on the public has eased to some extent, experts said. "We have to control this decrease with measures and keep the daily numbers below 15,000," they added.

In a bid to reach the intended target by fall, Turkey is preparing to receive 30 million doses of BioNTech...