Vaccine scientists and public health experts said herd immunity isn't realistic for COVID-19 because of what we've learned about the virus itself.
June 04, 2022, 8:44 AMEarly in the pandemic, scientists and public health experts leaned on their experience with other viruses to make predictions about, hopeful that when enough people developed immunity, the virus would be stopped in its tracks.
Although herd immunity through widespread vaccination can be a successful strategy for certain viruses, such as those that cause smallpox and polio, scientists no longer consider it an appropriate management strategy for the virus that causes COVID-19, these experts said. Herd immunity refers to a situation where a virus can't spread because it keeps encountering people who are resistant to it. As a result, a small number of people who lack resistance can still be protected by the "herd" of resistant people around them, because the virus is less likely to spread to them.