OREANDA-NEWS. To end the coronavirus pandemic, it is sufficient to vaccinate 70% of people in six months, but if this process is slow, the infection will spread "indefinitely". This was stated by Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Centre.

"If we vaccinate 70% of the population in six months the pandemic will be over and then we will open the borders and return to our ordinary lives. And if vaccination goes by a teaspoon an hour, we will count the waves to infinity,"- he said.

A year ago, in January 2021, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the level of collective immunity should be increased to 60% of all adults in the country. Later, the operational headquarters corrected the estimate and estimated the required level of vaccination at 80%. In early November, Tatyana Golikova, deputy prime minister and head of the task force, said Russian and foreign experts advised raising the bar to 90-95%. "For now, we are leaving the bar at no less than 80%,"- she pointed out.

By 6 January the number of detected cases of COVID-19 worldwide since the start of the pandemic had exceeded 300 002 021 (as of 6.15 am Moscow time), according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far reported 296.49 million infections.