#Mumbai slums have highest coronavirus immunity rate, study says

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A woman who recovered from COVID-19 donates blood plasma in Dharavi, Mumbai’s largest slum.
Indranil Mukherjee/AFP via Getty Images

Slums in India are bucking the coronavirus uptick thanks to “herd immunity,” according to a new study.

About 57 percent of the nearly 7,000 people surveyed in the crowded slums of Mumbai were found to have antibodies in their blood — the highest immunity rate in the world, the study by local authorities and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research determined.

That’s compared to the 21.2 percent immunity rate in the Big Apple in April, and the 14 percent rate in Stockholm in May, Bloomberg News said.

“Mumbai’s slums may have reached herd immunity,” Jayaprakash Muliyil, chair of the Science Advisory Committee of Indian’s National Institute of Epidemiology told the outlet. “If people in Mumbai want a safe place to avoid infection, they should probably go there.”

“Herd immunity” works under the theory that the spread of COVID-19 is neutralized faster if it is allowed to run through the population — in contrast to the social-distancing guidelines put in place over much of the world.

Social distancing is virtually impossible in the Mumbai slums, which packs a population similar to San Francisco into an area the size of Central Park, and where it is not uncommon for a family of eight to live in a 100-square-foot room.

Yet, the shantytown has seen steep drops of coronavirus cases in recent weeks, even as India has seen cases grow at one of the globe’s fastest rates since April. The country now has 1.5 million confirmed cases of the deadly bug, with more than 34,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Researchers concede that the slums do tend to have younger residents compared to the general population.

“One explanation is they did an excellent job containing it,” Muliyil said. “The other is that herd immunity has been reached.”

“The virus does its work,” he said. “The virus doesn’t worry about your quarantine and it is much more efficient than your efforts to contain it.”