SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
What Science Has To Say About “Herd Immunity”
Yale scientists bring sanity into this discussion
Published reports have indicated that the White House has officially embraced — as policy — the “strategy” of herd immunity to combat the SARS CoV-2 pandemic. While most public health experts have roundly condemned this approach, it may still be unclear as to what exactly this term “herd immunity” means. Researchers from Yale University have done an excellent job outlining what “herd immunity” is all about.
What is “herd immunity”?
The precise scientific term is “indirect protection” or “community immunity.” This is the protection against infection of a susceptible group of individuals when a sufficient proportion of the larger population is immune from the infection. When there are enough immune individuals, then sustained transmission is interrupted.
How many people need to get infected or vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity”?
This is not arbitrary. There is actually a formula, and it is based on the R0, or “R-naught,” which is the average number of persons that get infected by one infected person. The formula for the threshold of “herd immunity”…
