Herd Immunity and How You Can Help Promote It

Herd immunity is the amount of people within a population that is vaccinated against a disease, which then protects people who are unable to be vaccinated. Depending on the disease there is a certain threshold that needs to be met before herd immunity can work properly. There are certain people who cannot be vaccinated, like very young infants, pregnant women, cancer patients, and, transplant recipients (1).

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Many of the disease that we once faced and being seen less and less, thanks to the use of vaccinations. If we keep vaccinating we can eradicate the diseases that we currently have like we did with smallpox and polio (3). As a human being in this world I do my part by getting my flu vaccine every year, speaking with a travel doctor before leaving the country, and making sure to get boosters when needed. If everyone did that, there would be enough people vaccinated to protect the vulnerable people of our communities. To promote these ideas the blog and other social media sites named the Disgruntled Immunologist was made to help spread the right information about vaccines.

As a scientist and a health care provider it is important to understand that not all parents know science the way we do. They are seeing all of this information from a bunch of different sources, and they do not know who to trust. Speak to the parents as they are equal, stick to the facts, do not over explain things. More often than not people who are vaccine hesitant are trying to do what is best for their child, education and speaking with parents is the best way to do that (4).

¹Coalition , I. A. (2020, April). Science Supports Our Confidence in Vaccines. Retrieved May 2, 2020, from https://www.immunize.org/catg.d/p2073.pdf  

²Helft, L. (2014, September 5). What is Herd Immunity? Retrieved May 2, 2020, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/herd-immunity/

³Vaccine Glossary of Terms. (2016, May 31). Retrieved May 2, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/terms/glossary.html#commimmunity 

⁴Vaccines: Vac-Gen/Why Immunize? (2018, July 12). Retrieved May 2, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/why.htm