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Highest level of COVID-19 immunity detected in preschoolers — sanitary watchdog

Since September, the watchdog has been conducting a study on discovering the coronavirus among university students and high schoolers

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. The highest level of herd immunity to the coronavirus infection has been detected in preschoolers and elementary school-aged children, it is up to 71%, deputy director of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Yelena Yezhlova reported.

"We are conducting major work on serological testing using the WHO protocols. Twenty six regions are participating, almost 74,500 people were tested. And here is the result, we obtained the seroprevalence range from 6% to 50%, that’s how it is distributed among regions. According to age groups, the highest - up to 71% - values of herd immunity were established in children of preschool and elementary school age," she said at the Molecular Diagnostics and Biosafety - 2020 conference.

According to the socio-professional distribution, the highest values of herd immunity were registered in healthcare (48%) and education (up to 42%) workers. Over 30% of seroprevalence was detected in residents of Tatarstan, the Kaliningrad, Amur and Murmansk regions and over 20% - in residents of the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg and the Astrakhan, Moscow, Leningrad and Tyumen regions. Less than 10% was recorded in residents of Crimea, the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Belgorod, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk regions. "That is, where the epidemiological process started earlier, the level of seroprevalence is higher. Where the incidence was lower and the epidemiological process wasn’t as active, the level of seroprevalence is lower," she explained.

Since September, the sanitary watchdog has been conducting a study on discovering the coronavirus among university students and high schoolers. Overall, almost 4,000 people have been tested and the virus has been found in 2.6% of cases. For high schoolers this value was at 2.5%, while for university students - at 1.3%.

According to the latest statistics, over 35,732,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 1,046,000 deaths have been reported. To date, 1,237,504 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 988,576 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 21,663 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.