Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Sep 24:8:547314.
doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.547314. eCollection 2020.

How to Understand "Herd Immunity" in COVID-19 Pandemic

Yuanqing Xia  1   2 , Lumin Zhong  3 , Jingcong Tan  1 , Zhiruo Zhang  1 , Jiajun Lyu  1 , Yiting Chen  1 , Anda Zhao  4 , Lili Huang  1 , Zichong Long  1 , Ning-Ning Liu  1 , Hui Wang  1 , Shenghui Li  1   5
Affiliations
Review

How to Understand "Herd Immunity" in COVID-19 Pandemic

Yuanqing Xia et al. Front Cell Dev Biol. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global threat. Through rapid and effective surveillance and control, the newly confirmed patients have been fluctuated at a very low level and imported case explained most of them through March, 2020 to the present, indicating China's response has achieved a stage victory. By contrast, the epidemic of COVID-19 in other countries out of China is bursting. Different countries are adopting varied response strategy in terms of their public health system to prevent the spread. Herd immunity has been a hot topic since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Can it be a possible strategy to combat COVID-19? To fully interpret the knowledge regarding the term upon the background of COVID-19-related health crisis, we aim to systematically review the definition, describe the effective measures of acquiring herd immunity, and discuss its feasibility in COVID-19 prevention. Findings from this review would promote and strengthen the international cooperation and joint efforts when confronting with COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; herd immunity; outbreak; pandemic.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Measles cases in the United States from 1950 to 2004.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Newly reported cases in last 6 months of United Kingdom, Sweden, United States, and Australia.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Schematic flow diagram of SARS transmission within a population (Riley et al., 2003).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adams D. A., Thomas K. R., Jajosky R. A., Foster L., Baroi G., Sharp P., et al. (2017). Summary of notifiable infectious diseases and conditions - United States, 2015. MMWR 64 1–143. 10.15585/mmwr.mm6453a1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Al-Tawfiq J. A. (2013). Middle east respiratory syndrome-coronavirus infection: an overview. J. infect. Public Health 6 319–322. 10.1016/j.jiph.2013.06.001 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Assaad F. (1983). Measles: summary of worldwide impact. Rev. Infect. Dis. 5 452–459. 10.1093/clinids/5.3.452 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Black F. L. (1982). The role of herd immunity in control of measles. Yale J. Biol. Med. 55 351–360. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brisson M., Benard E., Drolet M., Bogaards J. A., Baussano I., Vanska S., et al. (2016). Population-level impact, herd immunity, and elimination after human papillomavirus vaccination: a systematic review and meta-analysis of predictions from transmission-dynamic models. Lancet. Public Health 1 e8–e17. - PMC - PubMed