It could take TWO MILLION deaths across the US to reach herd immunity says political scientist at Johns Hopkins (9 Pics)

A political scientist from Johns Hopkins University has said the US will need to hit at least two million deaths before herd immunity is reached.

Dr Yascha Mounk says that after reports that as many as 25 percent with the disease don't seem to show any symptoms, it raised the prospect that the US may reach widespread immunity quickly without mass fatalities.

However, when adjusting for a low fatality rate and a high caseload, letting it spread through the US so people can build up antibodies would result in millions of deaths.

In a series of tweets and in an article for The Atlantic, Mounk and offers a grim reality saying that 'deliverance is not in sight.'  

For the 80% to 95% needed to achieve herd immunity, Dr Yascha Mounk estimates two million Americans would have to die from the virus (above)

Mounk says antibody tests across the US have shown the fatality rate is much lower than previously believed 

While antibody tests show the fatality rate is much lower than believed (pictured), Mounk says it also means the virus would have to spread further for herd immunity to be reached

This week, the first results from a statewide antibody test in New York revealed that up to 14 percent of residents may have had COVID-19. 

Other studies estimate lower fatality rates, such as the roughly six percent of Miami-Dade residents believed to have antibodies against the virus.  

In California, tests in Santa Clara County and Los Angeles County found that the true infection rate was likely around four percent.

That's anywhere from 50 to 85 times higher than the number of cases reported in the two counties.

Mounk said although this seems like good news because it means the virus is less deadly than previously believed, it also means it would have to spread further for herd immunity to be reached.  

'Based on the numbers from New York, it could take about TWO MILLION deaths across America to reach herd immunity,' he tweeted.

Herd immunity occurs when the vast majority of a community - between 80 and 95 percent - becomes immune so that, if a disease is introduced, it is unable to spread.

Therefore, those who are unable to be vaccinated, including the ill, very young and very old, are protected.

Mounk says that the infection rate is too low and the death rate is too low for the virus to be widespread. 

When adjusting for the fatality rate of about one percent, that means about two million Americans would die from COVID-19. 

'The best studies we have imply that millions may have to die in the United States for us to reach herd immunity,' he tweeted. 

'Until that possibility is ruled out, plans to brave the virus by going back to normal remain in the realm of the stupid or the sociopathic.'

In March, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said herd immunity from the coronavirus is unlikely to occur. 

Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says that people who have been infected will have built up antibodies.

However, not enough Americans have gotten the disease for there to be no spread in communities.

'The people who are infected - there is no doubt...that if you recover from an infection, you have an immunity that will protect you with the same particular pathogen, in this case, the coronavirus,' he told CNN anchor Jim Sciutto.

'If people are infected, I don't suppose it would rise to the level of herd community protection. [A]t the community level there would not have been enough infections to really have enough umbrella of herd immunity.'  

Mounk said he is also not hopeful because a vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months away and the US is still lagging in testing. Pictured: A nurse cleans a patient with COVID-19 on a ventilator at at the Stamford Hospital ICU in Connecticut on April 24

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told CNN last month (pictured) herd immunity from the novel coronavirus in the US is unlikely

This was the strategy of the UK - to build up herd immunity rather than lockdown in order to remove the virus from the community.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, told Sky News: 'Herd immunity [allows] enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune.'

When models showed that the nation's hospital system would not be able to address all the serious cases, the government walked the plan back.

Mounk said he is also not hopeful because a vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months away and the US is still lagging in tracing.

According to Johns Hopkins University, only about six million people have been tested - less than two percent of the US population.   

'We won’t get to herd immunity in the near future,' Mounk writes in The Atlantic.

'A miracle drug is not in sight. The only way to restart the economy, then, is to put a highly effective system in place to test millions of people, trace their movements and quickly quarantine those who might have been infected.'