Dr. Jay Bhatt
Dr. Jay Bhatt, D.O., MPH, MPA is a physician executive, geriatrician, internist, a public health innovator, and an expert on healthcare transformation and improving healthcare outcomes. As a physician executive, Dr. Bhatt’s initiatives have helped hospitals in delivering safer, smarter, and better care; made physicians and nurses more skilled and responsive to patients; helped government across sectors impact health outcomes and the health of communities.
Dr. Anthony Fauci passed a verdict on June 26, 2020, that even if two-thirds of a country’s population were to receive a vaccine with an efficacy of 70-75%, the chances of developing herd immunity to the novel coronavirus is ‘unlikely’. His statement caused some unrest and incredulity and stirred conversations around the anti-vaccine movement. Now that the vaccine administration has taken off in India, let’s take a closer look at how effective the vaccination is claimed to be at evoking herd immunity.
HERD IMMUNITY
When a sufficient proportion of a population develops effective protective immunity against an infectious disease or pathogen, indirect protection is granted even to those who are not immune to that particular disease by virtue of herd immunity (also called population immunity or herd protection). It is like an umbrella of protection under which the poorly immune people are also taken under the wing and safeguarded against infection due to immunity acquired by others against it. This checks the spread of an infectious agent. When infectivity goes down, the number of patients declines, and eventually, an infectious disease can be successfully eradicated (even if it’s just in theory). This protection can be developed by means of getting infected and consequently attaining the protective antibodies against the infection or it may be achieved in the form of mass vaccination. Essentially the two ways to acquire herd protection are either Infection or Injection.COVID-19 VACCINE’S IMPACT ON HERD IMMUNITY
Three factors pertaining to a vaccine go on to decide if it is capable of inducing herd immunity within the population. These are:
- Efficacy of a vaccine- the recent vaccines circulating in the market are 70-78% efficacious. Covishield’s overall efficacy is claimed to be around 70% but it increases to 90% if followed by administration of half a dose in the subsequent month. Covaxin trials guarantee 78% efficacy but there is some discordance around this data.
- Prevalence of its use- population immunity will come about quicker if the proportion of people receiving the vaccine is considerable in comparison to people who aren’t. The anti-vaccination movement seriously impairs this proportion and leads people down the garden path. People need to be educated about the vaccination process and its benefits; however mild they might be.
- Durability and Longevity of immunity induced by the vaccine- a vaccine acts by evoking an immune response in the individual that mimics the series of natural events that occur following the entry of the targeted infectious agent. So, the durability of a vaccine depends on the nature and lifespan of antibodies that develop following its administration. Most recently a published study in the journal Science claims that immunity can last for around 8 months following infection but lack of enough shreds of evidence and reinforcing research renders this information unsound.
IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL DISTANCING EVEN AFTER RECEIVING THE VACCINE
If we were to stop wearing masks, throw away all our sanitizers, resume our activities and go back to the pre-pandemic way of life before the vaccination program reaches everyone, we might make the situation substantially worse. Even if an individual is vaccinated, it is crucial that they still abide by all the outlined precautionary measures till a large section of the population gets vaccinated. If not, the cases will continue to spike resulting in increased transmission and deaths. This isn’t the only concern. The more people the virus will infect, the more room it has to mutate. This will cause failure or decreased effectiveness of vaccines, increased transmission risk, and a catastrophe much worse than what we’re dealing with currently. As more and more people will fall under the vaccinated category while still maintaining social distance and other preventative measures, we will be better equipped to fight this biological calamity. The hope for a ‘herd immunity day’ where everyone will be declared immune against the virus and life will go back to normal is nonsensical but following along on these guidelines will get us closer to our goal of minimizing the number of cases, thereby gaining an upper hand over this pandemic.