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Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible

Even with vaccination efforts in full force, the theoretical threshold for vanquishing COVID-19 looks to be out of reach.
  1. Christie Aschwanden

    1. Christie Aschwanden is a science journalist in Cedaredge, Colorado.

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A narrow street in Tel Aviv filled with people, some wearing face coverings

About 50% of Israel’s population has so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, yet herd immunity remains elusive. Credit: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg/Getty

As COVID-19 vaccination rates pick up around the world, people have reasonably begun to ask: how much longer will this pandemic last? It’s an issue surrounded with uncertainties. But the once-popular idea that enough people will eventually gain immunity to SARS-CoV-2 to block most transmission — a ‘herd-immunity threshold’ — is starting to look unlikely.

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Nature 591, 520-522 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00728-2

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