Vaccine good, but best plan is herd immunity

The IJ’s Dec 11 editorial did a realistic appraisal of the challenges facing the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, and pointed out that in order to reach herd immunity (the point at which the rate of new infections is stable), at least 70% of the Bay Area’s population would need to be immune through vaccine or a prior infection.

But what happens if 50% of the population does not get vaccinated, as the latest polls suggest?

Epidemiologists Jay Bhattachary of Stanford, Sunetra Cupta of Oxford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard met in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where they wrote “The Great Barrington Declaration” (gbdeclaration.com).

To date, it has been signed by over 43,000 medical and public health scientists and medical practitioners. It is a response to their view that the widespread lockdown policy has been a devastating public health mistake.

Part of the declaration reads: “as immunity builds in the population the risk of infection to all — including the vulnerable — falls, this can be assisted by ( but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal therefore should be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity. The most compassionate approach is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity through natural infection, while better protecting those at higher risk. We call this focused protection.”

We know who is in the vulnerable and high-risk groups, and who isn’t. Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume normal life.

The idea of herd immunity is often misunderstood as a strategy of letting people die. Herd immunity is not a strategy - it is a biological fact that applies to most diseases. The vaccine will help but herd immunity is what will bring COVID-19 to an end.

— Basia Crane, Kentfield