Professor Dragan Danilovski estimates that up to half of the population in Macedonia was already in contact with the coronavirus. Official infection numbers are about to reach 90,000 positive tests for the course of the entire epidemic, but Danilovski says that the actual numbers are between 7 and 10 times the number of those confirmed through testing.

A realistic number would be between 600,000 and 860,000. And a realistic estimate of the Macedonian population, based on the number of those receiving public healthcare, is about 1.6 million people. So we are at collective immunity levels of between 37.5 and 54 percent. To stop the spread, we need to get to about 60 percent or a million people. If there is no major spike due to the holidays we just had, we should reach that level in 60 to 100 days. That’s without the vaccine, but with simple spread of the virus. And with lethal consequences, given that the mortality rate is about 3 percent, Danilovski said.

He warned that the main benefit of the vaccine will be to spare many people of the complications of the illness.