Herd immunity

With a lot of cases comes the chance of herd immunity. Today we are going to debunk that myth and tell you why herd immunity is not possible

IN the absence of a cure and a vaccine we have been hearing a lot of herd immunity. Herd immunity is the resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination.

Dr. Gypsyamber D’Souza has said that a majority of Americans have not got this virus, she also added that America is far away from the majority. Through this statement we can tell that herd immunity is going to take a long time, In India, we have a population of more than four times that of the USA and we still have fewer cases then the USA, it looks more unlikely in India.

This virus must be here for a long time before we see herd immunity. The classification of herd immunity is at least 70% and at the time of writing the cases in India are at 0.1% of the population .0.1%is still a lot as that is 20 lakh but is not enough for herd immunity and out of these cases only 6 lakh are active cases, with these numbers it looks like we will have zero cases before herd immunity.

A lot of experts have told this is not the peek of the virus in India but there is another research conducted by King’s College London that states that the antibody levels peak 3 weeks after symptoms began but then drastically fell. This gives the room for one person to get this virus more than once that is another reason that herd immunity looks unlikely.

Many governments think that herd immunity efficient but DR. Poland has a different ideology. “A naïve public looks at the death rate and says it’s only killing  2 percent,” Poland said. “But there’s very early evidence that lack of symptoms should not be equated with lack of harm. There may well be pulmonary fibrosis, liver and kidney damage, myocarditis, cardiomyopathies with decreased cardiorespiratory fitness.” with this statement DR. Poland has not only made us think but has made us aware of the threats and the after-effects of the virus that could lead to the increased deaths in the long run and also that herd immunity will have after-effects on the population.

For more information on this topic visit https://www.healthline.com/health-news/nowhere-near-herd-immunity-with-covid-19#The-fallout-from-herd-immunity.