Is the Solution Herd Immunity? 💉

There is a lot of talking about using the Coronavirus vaccine to achieve Herd Immunity by essentially starving the virus. That’s a nice long-term goal but it the short-term I think it’s dangerous wishful thinking. We know that the vaccine prevents people from getting seriously sick from the virus but we don’t know for sure if it prevents people from spreading the virus.

A better short-term would be to just focus on keeping people from getting sick by immunizing them. Even if you can’t stop the spread of the virus, you can reduce the likelihood of yourself getting the virus by getting the shot. Enough people get the vaccine then it will greatly reduce the number of people getting seriously ill and dying, and take the load off hospitals and reduce costs to insurance and local government.

Nobody seriously considers a herd immunity for the flu vaccine as the virus mutates every year. But the flu vaccine is worthwhile for individuals to get, because I’ve heard that the flu is pretty nasty to get. It’s a low cost activity – five minutes at the pharmacy for a free shot – to prevent a lot of potential personal suffering. Maybe a flu shot makes you less likely to spread the flu, but the biggest benefit is to the individual.

Herd Immunity is a good future goal but I think we should resist the temptation to be overbearing and instead focus on encouraging people to do what is right for themselves and reduce hospital loads and time out sick by encouraging people to voluntarily get the vaccine. If most of the sickest and at most at risk individuals, along with others are vaccinated then most of the problem is solved. It’s great to help the folks on the margin – those that can’t be vaccinated due to health concerns but I think focusing on the majority of potential lives is most important in the pandemic.