What is it, how can we achieve it, and why is it important?
What Is Herd Immunity?
‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’ occurs when a majority of a population is immune to a disease or virus. In this way, even people who cannot be vaccinated can be protected. For example, if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of five people who encounter someone with the disease will not get sick (and will not spread the disease any further). In this way, the spread of infectious diseases is kept under control.
How To Achieve Herd Immunity?
There are two main ways to achieving herd immunity, and they are:
- Natural Infection: Herd immunity can be reached when enough people in the population have recovered from a disease and have developed protective antibodies against such infections in the future.
- Vaccines: Herd immunity also can be reached when enough people have been vaccinated against a disease and have developed protective antibodies against future infection.
COVID-19 & Herd Immunity
According to Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ media briefing speech on 12 October 2020, herd immunity against COVID-19 should be achieved by protecting people via vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease. So, right now, vaccination is the best strategy for us in our battle against COVID-19.
We also know a country where vaccination has helped reduce infections and that country is Israel. The numbers of deaths and severe cases have slumped in Israel, which is leading the world’s race to vaccinate its population. Since achieving herd immunity via vaccination sounds like the best idea, why aren’t we doing it quickly so that we can bring an end to the pandemic? Because there might be some difficulties in achieving herd immunity via vaccines.
The Difficulties
Hesitant to take vaccines: Some people might object to taking a COVID-19 vaccine due to religious objections, worries about the possible risks or doubts about the benefits. Take the U.S for example: According to Bloomberg Businessweek, a polling showed that Republicans and White evangelical Christians are most likely to say they will pass up on the vaccination.
Questions about protection: Until now, it is not very clear how long the vaccines will protect you from COVID-19. The other problem is the new variants that have emerged in some countries, including India. So, even if people take vaccines, it might not help achieve herd immunity due to the emergence of new variants, especially those that reduce vaccine efficacy.
Uneven distribution of vaccine: At present, the rollout of vaccines has greatly varied among and within countries. According to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker, only 6.3% of the global population have been vaccinated when we were writing this article. The tracker also showed that countries with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated about 25 times faster than those with the lowest incomes. So, if a community achieves a high vaccination rate and surrounding areas don’t, infection outbreaks can happen when the populations combine.
Zooming Out
Shane Crotty, a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology told Bloomberg, “Everybody is better off if you can vaccinate 90% of the population.” And we couldn’t agree more. At the end of the day, we should focus on increasing vaccinations and make sure that the vaccines are rolled out evenly throughout the world because achieving herd immunity might be the way to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
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