A Perspective on Herd Immunity For COVID-19

On February 18, Dr. Marty Makary published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal which struck an unusually optimistic note as to the stage of the American COVID-19 pandemic.  Dr. Makary predicts that based on the current trajectory, COVID-19 will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to return to a post-COVID-19 normal life. He notes that in the last few weeks, we have seen a dramatic drop in cases (77 percent drop in six weeks) which has been difficult to explain based on a single factor such as vaccinations or drastically improved adherence to social distancing and masking.