\n(SOTN Editor’s Note: Where MSM = CBS + AFP)<\/strong><\/p>\n
The head of the World Health Organization warned Monday against suggestions by some to just allow\u00a0COVID-19<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to spread in the hope of achieving so-called\u00a0herd immunity<\/a><\/span>, saying this was “unethical.”<\/p>\n “Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual press briefing. He explained that “herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached.”<\/p>\n He pointed out that for measles, for example, it is estimated that if 95% of the\u00a0population is vaccinated<\/a><\/span>, the remaining 5% will also be protected from the spread of the virus. For polio, the threshold is estimated at 80%. Herd immunity helps protect vulnerable people like infants and those with compromised immune systems who can’t get the vaccine.<\/p>\n However, Tedros said, “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic.”<\/p>\n According to Johns Hopkins University, 70% to 90% of Americans would need to have coronavirus antibodies for herd immunity to be achieved. But the nation is\u00a0nowhere near that level<\/a><\/span>\u00a0yet, even though more than 8 million people have tested positive and 214,000 have died since the pandemic began.<\/p>\n Even\u00a0once a vaccine is approved<\/a><\/span>, it’s unclear how many people would immediately receive it. Vaccine opponents had already begun efforts to disparage a future vaccine\u00a0as early as April<\/a>, months before any clinical trials.<\/p>\n
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