Some have touted the effectiveness of herd immunity to solve the COVID-19 pandemic without common safety measures; however, herd immunity cannot occur for sometime and without wearing face masks and social distancing, many will die.
There is no vaccine for COVID-19 at the moment and Mary Beth Bender, Director and Primary Care Nurse Practitioner at Student Health, doesn’t believe there will be a vaccine for sometime. She says there is a lot of data supporting a vaccine timeline of one year which she considers “a reasonable timeline.”
In order to properly implement herd immunity, a majority of people must be vaccinated to repel the illness in question.
“For COVID-19, the data I’ve seen is estimating 70 percent of the population in the US.” Bender explained. “So, we’re talking about 200 million or so people would need to have immunity.”
“Herd Immunity means enough people in a given population have immunity to a certain illness, so that it drastically decreases the spread of that illness or even halts the spread of an illness through that population,” Mary Beth Bender, Director and Primary Care Nurse Practitioner at Student Health said in an interview.
Put more simply, if a large amount of the population has been vaccinated for a specific illness, that illness can’t spread as easily. People who can’t be vaccinated for health reasons have less concerns about becoming sick.
As far as the body developing an immunity to COVID-19 after being infected, there is little data saying yes or no. Additionally, even if you recover there is no telling how long the immunity will last within your system.
“We’ve only been dealing with this virus for six months, maybe eight months,” Bender explained. “We don’t have any longer-term evidence yet to know whether you have the antibodies from that infection that helped you recover.”
Vaccinations and herd immunity have been effective in stopping the spread of illnesses like polio.
Bender was avid about the importance of herd immunity by explaining the near eradication and rebirth of measles in the United States. In the early 2000’s, measles was nearly impossible to get because there was herd immunity.
In recent years, there has been a spike in cases due to the lack of vaccinations. She explained that herd immunity is no longer in effect for measles.
If you have COVID-19 symptoms, Student Health is actively testing patients. Bender requests that patients call to set up an appointment rather than walking in for the safety of others. Student Health can test outside the building or even do drive up tests.
As of Thursday, Wyoming has surpassed 1000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There are now 1,016 cases with 765 recoveries. Albany county alone has seen 29 confirmed cases with 24 recoveries.
