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Originally Posted by Sephiroth
"Immunity" from what? Infection or serious illness? It wasn't sufficiently defined, John.
It can't be immunity from infection. "Herd immunity" can only mean that a critical mass of population has the right antibodies to attack and kill the viral infection.
In the Covid case, the medical boffins decided that, because of the deadliness of the Alpha strain, it would be a vaccine that would provide the so-called herd immunity.
All the above said, there'll be some boffin on this forum that can put me right. I'm sure you can't normally "get" measles twice but I'm pretty sure that one can become infected (it's obvious really) but the antibodies kill it off before it gets hold. Doesn't that mean that you can be infected with Covid, be asymptomatic (but would test positive), never know you'd got it and then it's gone (like measles).
Right?
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At the point originally coined - and throughout it’s continued use - it was indeed that sufficient immunity existed within the population that the vast, vast majority of people would be immune from infection at a later point therefore the population as a whole is protected by a collective immunity that prevented significant outbreaks.
The existing immunity meant that small outbreaks would happen, however would fizzle out, because they’d hit the “wall of immunity” in the population at large.
A bit like monkeypox pre-2022.