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
. 2021 May;26(20):2100428.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.20.2100428.

The potential for vaccination-induced herd immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant

David Hodgson  1 , Stefan Flasche  1 , Mark Jit  1 , Adam J Kucharski  1 ; CMMID COVID-19 Working Group  1   2 ; Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease (CMMID) COVID-19 Working Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

The potential for vaccination-induced herd immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant

David Hodgson et al. Euro Surveill. 2021 May.

Abstract

We assess the feasibility of reaching the herd immunity threshold against SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination, considering vaccine effectiveness (VE), transmissibility of the virus and the level of pre-existing immunity in populations, as well as their age structure. If highly transmissible variants of concern become dominant in areas with low levels of naturally-acquired immunity and/or in populations with large proportions of < 15 year-olds, control of infection without non-pharmaceutical interventions may only be possible with a VE ≥ 80%, and coverage extended to children.

Keywords: Herd Immunity; SARS-CoV-2; seroprevalence; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparison of effectiveness of currently available vaccines against herd immunity threshold for different viruses, 2000–2021 (n = 9 virus variants/types/subtypes)
Figure 2
Figure 2
Vaccination coverage required to reach herd immunity for COVID-19, considering three different levels of vaccine effectiveness in (A) pre-B.1.1.7 and (B) B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 transmission scenarios, 2021
Figure 3
Figure 3
Estimated seroprevalence and eligible proportion for vaccination in different geographical areas, in relation to the herd immunity thresholds obtained with different vaccine effectiveness, considering (A) pre-B.1.1.7 and (B) B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 transmission scenarios, seroprevalence estimates are from September 2020–April 2021
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hall VJ, Foulkes S, Ayoub Saei A, Andrews N, Oguti B, Charlett A, et al. Effectiveness of BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine Against Infection and COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage in Healthcare Workers in England, Multicentre Prospective Cohort Study (the SIREN Study). SSRN Electron J. 2021. 10.2139/ssrn.3790399 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Davies NG, Abbott S, Barnard RC, Jarvis CI, Kucharski AJ, Munday JD, et al. CMMID COVID-19 Working Group. COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium . Estimated transmissibility and impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in England. Science. 2021;372(6538):eabg3055. 10.1126/science.abg3055 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fine P, Eames K, Heymann DL. "Herd immunity": a rough guide. Clin Infect Dis. 2011;52(7):911-6. 10.1093/cid/cir007 - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization (WHO). Feasibility Assessment of Measles and Rubella Eradication. Geneva: WHO; 2019. Available from: https://www.who.int/immunization/sage/meetings/2019/october/Feasibility_...
    1. Kistler KE, Bedford T. Evidence for adaptive evolution in the receptor-binding domain of seasonal coronaviruses OC43 and 229e. eLife. 2021;10:e64509. 10.7554/eLife.64509 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources