Herd Immunity, Nature's own measure of protecting lives

Did you ever wonder what happens if all the research work to find a vaccine for COVID-19 go south.  can we survive this pandemic Without finding a cure??  Is it possible to eradicate this disease ?? Is there any other way to put an end to this??

The answer is YES, even without finding a vaccine, we can eradicate this contagious disease but at a COST and the way is to go for HERD IMMUNITY.

 

If someone contracts and recovers from a disease their immune system gets boosted up for them the chances of contracting the same disease again are very less, if in a region more number of people recover from the disease then it is known as herd immunity.

 

Herd immunity was first recognized as a naturally occurring phenomenon in the 1930s when A. W. Hedrich published research on the epidemiology of measles in Baltimore and took notice that after many children had become immune to measles, the number of new infections temporarily decreased, including among susceptible children. 

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The greater the proportion of immune individuals in a community, the smaller the probability that non-immune individual will come into contact with an infectious individual, helping to shield non-immune individuals (Elderly and young children) from infection, thus chains of infection are more likely to be disrupted, which either stops or slows down the spread of disease.

 

Once a certain threshold has been reached  (60-70% people having immunity), herd immunity gradually eliminates a disease from a population. If herd immunity has been established and maintained in a population for a sufficient time, the disease is inevitably eliminated—no more endemic transmissions occur.

 

Herd immunity can also be created by mass vaccinating the individuals, so after finding a vaccine also we should go for creating herd immunity in order to eradicate this disease effectively.

High levels of immunity in one age group can create herd immunity for other age groups. Vaccinating adults against pertussis disease reduced pertussis incidence in infants who are too young to be vaccinated having the greatest risk of complications from the disease. 

There are also negative aspects of herd immunity, if no vaccine is found, the only way to achieve herd immunity is to expose more number of healthy individuals to the disease, The aim is that they should contract and recover from the disease to develop the immunity and chances are some individuals may succumb to the disease and this is the COST the humanity has to pay.

If no vaccine or medicine works, the herd immunity as per the evolutionary law will work and will protect mankind, but by that time many people will die that’s why we are not accepting herd immunity most of the time.

reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity