Tedros warns that herd immunity is a ‘scientifically and ethically problematic’ strategy for a pandemic.
The World Health Organization chief has warned against suggestions by some to just allow COVID-19 to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying this was “unethical”.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual press briefing on Monday 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”.
He pointed out that for measles, for instance, it is estimated that if 95 percent of the population is vaccinated, the remaining five percent will also be protected from the spread of the virus.
For polio, the threshold is estimated at 80 percent, he said.
“Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it,” Tedros said.
Read more at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/12/
