85 percent of Canadians need antibodies or vaccination before herd immunity, reopenings: Doctors

A federal advisor to the Commons health committee says that 85 percent of Canadians must be vaccinated or have already contracted the virus before the country can reopen, according to Blacklock's Reporter.

Thus far, 793,000 people have recovered from COVID-19 in Canada. Just three percent of people in Canada has been vaccinated.

"You would need more closely to 85 percent of your population immunized or protected through natural disease to reach herd immunity," said Dr. Quach-Thanh of the University of Montreal.

The US, by comparison, has administered at least one dose of the vaccine to over 12 percent of its population, while a total of 28 million positive cases have been recorded (0.085 percent of the population)

When doctor Guillaume Poliquin was pressed by MPs as to when the economy would be allowed to reopen, Poliquin said that the answers to those questions were still being explored and would be updated.

"The government apparently has the data to enforce border lockdowns and travel restrictions and quarantine people in hotels, you have that data, but you don’t have the data available that we can tell Canadians when life can go back to normal, Canadian businesses can reopen and Canadians can go back to work? We don’t have that data? Is that what you’re saying?" asked MP John Barlow.

"We continue to learn more and learn about this," replied Dr. Poliquin.

Meanwhile, Dr. Theresa Tam has said that "For the next months, we're not going to have a lot of people vaccinated, that's a fact."