Covid-19 protection: CNN analysis suggests 12% – and no less than a third – of the US population may currently have some protection against Covid-19

About 6% of the U.S. population has been vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 20 million people have received at least one dose of the two-dose regimen – which trial data shows may offer partial protection against the virus – and more than 3.8 million people are fully vaccinated.

Studies show that people who recover from Covid-19 are largely immune to the virus for some time. About 25 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported to the CDC, which is about 8% of the population with some protection against Covid-19.

However, the CDC estimates that only a fraction of the total cases of Covid-19 in the United States have actually been reported. The latest estimates show that the total number of cases may have exceeded 83 million through December. In addition to the roughly 5 million cases reported in January, around 88 million people – more than a quarter of the US population – could actually be protected from Covid-19 after recovering from infection.

Experts say people who have already had Covid-19 should still get vaccinated. The immunity you get from contracting Covid-19 lasts for a while, but the nature of the vaccine should provide longer immunity, according to CNN chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta.

CNN’s estimates of current protection against Covid-19 do not take into account any potential overlap between people who may be counted in both the number of people who have been vaccinated and those who have been infected.

With at least one dose of the vaccine given to around 6% of the population and potentially a quarter of the population immune after infection, up to around 1 in 3 people in the United States can currently be at least partially protected against Covid- 19.

That said, trial data shows that one dose of vaccine provides only partial coverage. And while some studies have shown that immunity to Covid-19 can last for years after infection, others have found that it may wane after just five months.