Herd Immunity
- August 22, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
No Comments
Herd Immunity
Subject – Science and Tech
Context – When people move, changing the demography of the ‘herd,’ or when new variants emerge, this can lead to loss of herd immunity.
Concept –
- Herd immunity is when a large number of people are vaccinated against a disease, lowering the chances of others being infected by it.
- When a sufficient percentage of a population is vaccinated, it slows the spread of disease.
- It is also referred to as community immunity or herd protection.
- Herd immunity depends on the contagiousness of the disease. Diseases that spread easily, such as measles, require a higher number of immune individuals in a community to reach herd immunity.
- Herd immunity protects the most vulnerable members of our population. If enough people are vaccinated against dangerous diseases, those who are susceptible and cannot get vaccinated are protected because the germ will not be able to “find” those susceptible individuals.