Our former President suggested that "herd immunity" would be the answer to the COVID-19 crisis. Let's not hold our breath!
A word or two about "herd immunity."
Herd immunity is a concept from epidemiology -- a discipline that includes the study of how communicable diseases spread.
Herd immunity may occur when, as a result of a high proportion of immunity-conferring infection or vaccination within a community, otherwise susceptible individuals within that community may enjoy some degree of resistance to that disease
When many individuals in a population are resistant to a communicable disease, the infection may have nowhere to go and eventually subsides. (This is a huge simplification but it is the basic idea.)
You can read more about this here: https://www.webmd.com/lung/what-is-herd-immunity#1
Could COVID-19 possibly fit into this concept? Let's look the necessary conditions for resistance. At least one of the following two conditions must be present for herd immunity to kick in.
1. A population with a high percentage of people resistant by dint of vaccination could enjoy herd immunity. This is why the few people in a community who are not vaccinated against smallpox may be unlikely to get this disease. As long as they are a very small segment of the population, they are likely to enjoy some protection by dint of the vaccinated population.
But we do not yet have a widely used safe, effective vaccination for COVID-19, so we can set this condition aside.
2. Unprotected individuals within a population having a high percentage of people who are resistant by dint of already having contracted the disease could enjoy herd immunity. Some authorities suggest that may happen when more than about 60% percent of a population have been infected, but COVID-19 is nowhere near this. (Click Here)
Also, it may be possible to be reinfected with COVID-19. (Click Here)
So it appears that this second condition does not currently exist.
Admittedly this is a gross over-simplification of the concept of "herd immunity" as it applies to COVID-19, but it appears unlikely that this concept is applicable at this time to the current pandemic.
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