Herd immunity and COVID-19 coronavirus

Herd immunity and COVID-19 coronavirus :

What you need to know

Understand what's known about herd immunity and what it means for coronavirus disease 2019 COVID-19

Curious about progress toward herd immunity against the coronavirus disease 2019.

Let's understand how herd immunity works, its role in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges involved in heard immunity.

Why is herd immunity is very important?

Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community also known as the herd becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. As a result, the whole community becomes protected, not just those who are immune to COVID.

Threshold proportion

A percentage of the population must be capable of getting a disease in order for it to spread. This is called a threshold proportion.

If the proportion of the total population that is immune to the disease is greater than this threshold, the spread of the disease will decline. This is known as the herd immunity threshold.

It varies from disease to disease to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity.

The more contagious a disease is, the greater the proportion of the population that needs to be immune to that disease to stop its spread. 

Herd immunity in herd

How is herd immunity can achieved?

There are two main paths to herd immunity for COVID-19:

1. infection 

2. vaccines.

Natural infection

Herd immunity can be reached when enough people in the population have recovered from a disease and have developed protective antibodies against future infections of same pathogens.