Herd immunity vs COVID-19
By Teodoro B. Padilla
Herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that occurs when a high percentage of the population becomes immune, either through vaccination or previous infection. Also known as population immunity or community immunity, herd immunity makes the spread of an infectious disease from person to person unlikely.
When herd immunity is achieved, even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and the immunocompromised) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community, according to the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).
Last year, some groups floated the idea of allowing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection to spread through whole populations in order to achieve herd immunity quickly. Health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), vehemently oppose this approach to achieving herd immunity.
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Wearing masks and face shields and social distancing help reduce our risk of being exposed to the virus or spreading it to others. However, these measures alone will not be enough. We need to get vaccinated. Vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will train our immune system so it will be ready to fight the virus if we were exposed to it. (See “Benefits of Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, updated April 12, 2021.)
This year’s theme for World Immunization Week (WIW) “Vaccines Bring Us Closer” has never been truer than today. WIW is celebrated every last week of April to promote vaccination as a means to help protect people of all ages against vaccine-preventable diseases. While immunization is known as one of the world’s most successful health interventions, nearly 20 million children globally are not getting their vaccines while many adolescents, adults, and elderly miss ou
How Nationalist IP-Hoarding Will Prolong the Pandemic 25/04/2021
In an opinion piece early last month, the
Washington Post’s free-market shill Marc A. Thiessen bubbled with praise for the pharmaceutical industry, which, he wrote, “mobilised to rescue humanity” during the pandemic. The headline: “Democrats demonised Big Pharma. Now it’s saving us from COVID-19.”
Such a simplistic morality tale is absurd on its face: much of the suspicion of Big Pharma’s vaccines is coming from the right – or from the politically amorphous “anti-vax” movement. And even as regulatory caution and press scrutiny raise fears of side effects from the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines, about 66 million Americans were fully vaccinated as of last week. It’s been mostly good press for the big drug companies since Pfizer announced in November that its first-to-market vaccine was more than 90% effective, with the companies enjoying not just a windfall in new revenu
‘Raw material shortages could hit vaccine supplies’
April 23, 2021
Vaccine-makers pitch for tech-transfers with quality firms
Even as Nobel laureates and public health voices call for a waiver of intellectual property on Covid-19 technologies, including vaccines, global vaccine industry representatives point to export bans as a key barrier to access.
‘Bumpy road ahead’
Collaborations between companies, competitors, countries and regulators has helped deliver multiple Covid-19 vaccines, but the road ahead is “bumpy”, said an industry panel that reflected Big Pharma and companies from the developing world, speaking in a single voice.
On the IP waiver, Sai Prasad, Executive Director, Quality Operations, Bharat Biotech, said that the big picture was to deliver healthcare solutions during the pandemic and that can be done through technology transfer. But then again, technology can be transferred only to companies with the expertise to deliver a quality product, he sai
Apr 23, 2021 8:20am
A shortage of vaccine staffers at Swiss CDMO Lonza may have contributed to Moderna s recent vaccine shortfalls, the biotech s CEO said. (Wikimedia Commons)
COVID-19 has put global manufacturing supply chains through the wringer: First, there were fears of a glass vial shortage; then, concerns cropped up about hold ups on plastic bags used to grow vaccine cells. Now, executives at a suite of COVID-19 heavyweights are raising flags about another pandemic resource in scarcity: people.
When Moderna last week revealed that its COVID-19 vaccine deliveries to countries like the U.K. and Canada would come in light, the mRNA player blamed the squeeze on limited “human and material resources. During a Friday summit on the pandemic vaccine scale-up, the biotech s CEO Stéphane Bancel offered some additional context: “The bottleneck right now is people.”