COMMENT | Covid-19 - can we really achieve herd immunity?

COMMENT | Covid-19 vaccination has become the focus of many in the nation and internationally. We look to it as one of the mechanisms by which we can return to more social and community interactions.

With vaccination, we will still have to maintain our masks and limit our numbers but we can move about more freely and life can return to a closer semblance of ‘normality. However, for this to happen we will require vaccination to give us herd immunity.

Herd immunity is where a sufficient proportion of the population has achieved immunity against Covid-19 through vaccination and this significantly reduces the spread of the disease and also protects those that cannot be vaccinated (contraindicated). See Figure 1 which illustrates this.

We are aware that the vaccines are effective at reducing hospital admissions and clinical infections but the data is still uncertain as to how good they are at preventing transmission. Overall it would result in a huge reduction in symptomatic cases, long term morbidity (‘long Covid’) and deaths.

To achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 a substantial proportion of the population would need to be vaccinated but we are currently uncertain ...