COVID-19 ‘Herd Immunity’: Health Official Says Amish Community May Have Attained It Already

A local official said an Amish community in Pennsylvania might have become the first group in the United States to attain herd immunity.

According to a New York Post report, the administrator of a medical center in the heart of Lancaster County's New Holland Borough, known for its Amish and Mennonite communities, approximated that as many as 90 percent of the religious families have had at least one member of the family infected with the COVID-19.

Parochial Medical Center administrator Allen Hoover said that one would think if COVID-19 was as communicable as they say, "it would go through like a tsunami, and it did." The said medical center caters to the religious community which has 33,000 patients.

Initially, the Amish and Mennonite groups complied with the stay-at-home orders at the onset of the pandemic, shutting down schoolhouses and having church services canceled.

However, by late April in 2020, they had returned to their worship services, where they communion cops and holy kisses were shared, a church greeting practiced by believers.

During the onset of the pandemic, the Amish and Mennonite groups complied with the stay-at-home orders at the onset of the pandemic, shutting down schoolhouses and having church services cancelled.

Exceeding 20-Percent Positivity Rate for COVID-19

Soon after the resumption of worship services, COVID-19 infection reportedly tore throughout the religious community.

Pam Cooper, an assistant of a physician at the Parochial Medical Center said it was bad in there in the spring -- one patient getting infected right after another.

According to Covid Act Now, a nonprofit, in late April and the beginning of May, the positivity rate of the county for COVID-19 tests exceeded 20 percent.

Nonetheless, Hoover said it is impossible to know the entire extent of the virus outbreak since he approximates that less than 10 percent of the patients exhibiting symptoms consented to get tested.

The physician's assistant also said that the medical center saw on average almost a dozen infections each day, or roughly 15 percent of the patient it serves every day.

Herd Immunity, Possible but Rare

While transmissions receded through the summer, before they picked up again in the fall, Hoover said new COVID-19 cases are now 'far and few' in between.

The center has not had a patient present with symptoms of the virus in approximately six weeks, added the physician's assistant.

Nevertheless, some experts have expressed more skepticism that a large outbreak has resulted in widespread immunity within the community.

Washington State University infectious disease epidemiologist Eric Lofgren said that herd immunity is possible although it's rare.

He added that it would be the first general population in the country that has done it. Although experts have proposed that as many as 90 percent of people would need to get infected with the virus to attain herd immunity. Others say that the exact threshold remains unclear.

The key is that there is not essentially a 'magic number,' according to professor David Dowdy from the epidemiology department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Some experts have warned that previous transmissions also might not be sufficient to protect against new variants of COVID-19.

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