Herd Immunity

Herd Immunity is when sufficient proportions of a population are immune to an infectious disease - spread from person to person becomes unlikely.

Coronavirus pandemic - the concemt of herd immunity keeps surfacing.

The idea behind herd immunity - is when sufficient proportions of a population are immune to an infectious disease - spread from person to person becomes unlikely.

Now - one of mayo clinic's leading covid-19 experts is giving insight into what herd immunity could mean for us - as we work toward returning to a new normal.

Live kimt news three's raquel hellman joins us live in rochester to explain - raquel?xxx lowerthird2line talent coronavirus:raquel hellman rhellman@kimt.com coverage you can count on downtown is much quieter than normal right now because of the pandemic... but it's usually jam-packed with people at this time of day.

Busy places are where people are at risk of catching illnesses the most... whether is the common cold - the flu - or the coronavirus.

And that's kind of the idea behind herd immunity.

It can be a confusing concept to understand.

So mayo clinic covid-19 expert doctor gregory poland is making it a bit clearer.xxx senate is back-live vo-1 herd immunity-livesotvo-4 herd immunity basically means, if you could envision a circle, let's say, of 100 people inside this circle and if you can imagine the susceptible people being in the center of that, the more immune people around the susceptible people, the less likely is it that the virus can penetrate in and actually infect somebody herd immunity-livesotvo-5 doctor poland says acquiring herd immunity can happen with two approaches.

The first is you become immune because you got infected.

But in regards to covid-19 - poland says this approach means you have to be willing to accept that there will be a lot of severe illnesses and even deaths.xxx senate is back-live sot-1 herd immunity-live sot-4 "you've seen some countries do this and say, 'no restrictions, we're going to go for herd immunity.'

You look at scandinavian countries for example, some of them have done that and they've had very high death rates.

Other countries have not done that, they've had very low death rates."

Senate is back-live sot-3 the other option is developing a vaccine - where you can make somebody immune by tricking the body into thinking it has seen the virus.

Doctor poland says the consequence of going that route is that we'll have to implement social distancing practices longer while we wait for a vaccine to be developed.

Live in rochester- raquel hellman kimt news 3 thanks raquel.

The next big question is how much herd immunity is needed to effectively control the spread of covid-19.

We'll hear doctor poland's insights on that - coming up on kimt news three at five.

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