Gobierno de Mexico

Hugo López-Gatell, who's headed Mexico's coronavirus response, says the country could reach herd immunity by September.

Mexican health officials hope the country will reach what’s known as “herd immunity” against COVID-19 by this fall, meaning enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer effectively spread.

The country’s lead coronavirus response official Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday that the country is on track to reach herd immunity by August or September.

“We’ve calculated, according to the expected vaccination pace, and the number of people we know already have antibodies against COVID-19, mostly through infection, that we will be reaching a sufficient number of immune people by the end of August, perhaps between August and September, to reach the critical point of herd immunity, which is 75%," he said during a press conference.

However, many experts are cautioning that factors including global vaccine inequality, new coronavirus variants and uncertainty about how long immunity lasts could make reaching that that threshold difficult.

As Wednesday, 24.2 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, with about 11 million people now fully vaccinated — less than 10% of the total population. By comparison, more than 125 million people, or nearly 40% of the population, is fully vaccinated in the United States, according Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.