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ln Order for the Vaccine to Be Effective, Many, Many People Need to Get It

Marlena Right (L), a housekeeper at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, thanks a nurse for her covid-19 vaccination on December 16, 2020 in Portland, Oregon.
Marlena Right (L), a housekeeper at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, thanks a nurse for her covid-19 vaccination on December 16, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Photo: Nathan Howard (Getty Images)

As we mentioned earlier, it is important for as many people to get vaccinated as possible in order to stop the spread of the virus. This past Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told NPR that 50% of the U.S. population needs to get vaccinated before we start to see an impact. However, Fauci added that between 75% and 85% have to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

According to experts with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, when most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection, or herd immunity, to those who are not immune to the disease. Vaccines have helped establish herd immunity for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox.

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