Dr. Fauci Says Herd Immunity Is ‘Unattainable’ for COVID-19

Herd immunity is a topic that has come up a lot as a possible way to end thepandemic. And, while numbers have been thrown around in the past about what portion of the population needs to be vaccinated or infected to achieve herd immunity, top public health officials say it’s just unlikely to happen at this point.Anthony Fauci, M.D.

Once herd immunity in a population is achieved, it’s unlikely that an infectious disease will spread from person to person. Herd immunity also offers protection for people who aren’t vaccinated, like newborns, because the disease can’t easily spread in a community, the CDC explains.Dr. Fauci and his co-authors pointed out that SARS-CoV-2 keeps developing variants, and that makes it hard to develop herd immunity against it.

And, while someone my develop infection-acquired immunity by getting COVID-19, it’s likely they’ll only have immunity to that particular variant, Dr. Russo says. So, if you were infected with Delta, it’s still possible to get infected with. “Our ability to go ahead and develop a level of immunity in the population where it will eradicate this virus really isn’t something that’s feasible, whether through infection or vaccines,” he says.

Now, he writes in the paper, it’s just unlikely to happen at all. “If vaccine- or infection-induced immunity to SARS-CoV-2 indeed proves to be short-lived, or if escape mutants continue to emerge, viral spread may continue indefinitely, albeit hopefully at a low endemic level,” he and his co-authors said.COVID-19 isn’t going anywhere, and Dr. Adalja says that it was “always destined” to become a “seasonal community-acquired respiratory coronavirus.

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