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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnEGreen" data-source="post: 2243329" data-attributes="member: 223921">Prof Willem van Schaik, Professor of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham, said:“Herd immunity describes the phenomenon that at-risk individuals are protected from infection because they are surrounded by immune individuals.  The spread of the virus is thus minimised.  Currently, we talk mostly about herd immunity in the context of vaccines.  If a sufficiently high number of individuals in a population are vaccinated, they will provide herd immunity to the small number of people that are not vaccinated (e.g. for medical or religious reasons).  We have recently seen cases of measles outbreaks where herd immunity was not sufficiently high because children were not vaccinated out of completely unfounded fears against vaccination." “Unfortunately, a very rough estimate suggests that we will only reach herd immunity to Covid-19 when approximately 60% of the population is immune (and remember that immunity is currently only reached by getting the infection as we have no vaccine!).  The major downside is that this will mean that in the UK alone at least 36 million people will need to be infected and recover.  It is almost impossible to predict what that will mean in terms of human costs but we are conservatively looking at 10,000s deaths, and possibly at 100,000s of death.<a href="https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-comments-about-herd-immunity/" target="_blank">https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-comments-about-herd-immunity/</a>"Levine and others talk about a need to consider population immunity at both a global and hyperlocal level. Take the case of the seven-year-old boy who returned to San Diego with measles. His parents had chosen not to vaccinate him or his siblings. And he attended a San Diego charter school in which parents of 17 percent of the students had signed personal beliefs exemption forms to opt their children out of required vaccinations. So while the average vaccination rate may have been high across the county, it varied locally; rates in some neighborhoods like his fell far below the necessary threshold to achieve herd immunity.In effect, a cluster of unvaccinated children acts as piled-up kindling. When the infected boy returned home, he was the match that lit the pile. And the fuel kept the virus sustained long enough that it could jump to other vulnerable piles. “If you’ve got disease popping up in a community, that herd immunity in essence goes away,”<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-herd-immunity/" target="_blank">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rethinking-herd-immunity/</a>So I don't think I will be relying on the Concept of an illusory herd immunity to save the day.</blockquote>

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