'Herd immunity' against Covid-19 possible in US by spring, some analysts believe

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US registered 130,000 new infections on 24 January.

That was 27% less than a week before while the weekly number of cases was continuing to decline at a pace of approximately 22% while the seven-day moving average was down by 32% from its recent peak.

Commenting on the latest date, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "We have been pleasantly surprised to see the steady and rapid drop in cases continue unabated.

"We doubt that the current level of restrictions is enough to keep cases falling towards zero, but over the next couple months it is reasonable to expect vaccination to start making a visible difference [...]."

In parallel, the number of Covid-19 vaccine shots administered daily continued to rise, having reaching an average of over 1.0m over the preceding seven days.

The Biden administration's goal was to administer 100m doses in its first 100 days in office.

At the weekend, in an interview with Bloomberg, Moncef Slaoui, the former head of the US government's successful 'Warp Speed' programme, labeled that target as not very ambitious, reportedly saying that the government had planned for twice that many doses to be given.

Shepherdson agreed, saying the current target was "too easy" and predicting that the pace of vaccinations would be ramped up to 2m per day over the coming weeks.

"If that happens, herd immunity by spring will be reachable."