Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2021
Do vaccinated people have valid reasons to hope everyone in their community also gets vaccinated?
Public healh scientists and leaders cite a number of reasons to encourage as many members of a community as possible to get vaccinatons against serious communicable diseases.
No vaccination offers 100% protection, so having more people vaccinated helps reduce the risk of serious illness for all.
Some members of the population—infants, children, the immunocompromised—may not be able to gain adequate protection from a vaccine, so hope to rely on widespread vaccinations of others to reduce their own risk.
The goal of “herd immunity” reflects these considerations, which have prevailed in the U.S. since court decisions in the early 20th century upholding authorities’ power to make certain vaccinations mandatory.
The goal underlies continuing efforts to inoculate more people against COVID-19, despite objections based on personal preference, religious grounds or claims of immunity acquired through previous infection.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Emerging Themes in Epidemiology Individual freedoms versus collective responsibility: immunization decision-making in the face of occasionally competing values
- History of Vaccines (College of Physicians of Philadelphia) Cultural Perspectives on Vaccination
- Mayo Clinic Herd immunity and COVID-19 (coronavirus): What you need to know
- Centers for Disease Control Key Things to Know About COVID-19 Vaccines
- World Health Organization How do vaccines work?
About fact briefs
Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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