The devil in the details: Herd immunity and pandemic response

Social contributors for the rise of COVID-19 infections in South Asia: A large cross-sectional survey

“…However, as the lockdown measures eased down following a reduction in the daily incidence of COVID-19 cases, there were subsequent waves across South Asian countries. There has been great attention paid to herd immunity and its potential to end local transmission of COVID-19 [ 25 ]. However, there was a lack of consideration of curbing social activities of the local community dependent upon lockdowns or other mitigation strategies [ 26 ].…”

“…Based on the area under curve analysis, and the levels of significance, we determined that the most important predictors for positive vaccination status comprised of the following: 1) gender, 2) job role, 3) income, 4) healthcare worker status, 5) household member tested positive for COVID-19 anytime in the past, 6) personal vehicle ownership, 7) job requiring close contacts with co-workers and 8) co-worker face masking habits. These seven factors out of the 30 tested determined excellent results as predictors for positive vaccination status in South Asia, which accounts for the presence of vaccine acceptance among some groups more so than the others [ 24 , 25 ]. Therefore, a practical approach to overcome the current and upcoming COVID-19 waves is to act practically and eliminate misinformation in real-time, promote continued usage of PPE, encourage vaccination, and avoid large religious and social gatherings until true herd immunity is achieved from vaccination campaigns in South Asia [ [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] ].…”

Protection against Severe Illness versus Immunity—Redefining Vaccine Effectiveness in the Aftermath of COVID-19

“…Based on the lessons learned from COVID-19 vaccination programs, it is imperative that public health agencies reassess the benchmarks for vaccine effectiveness, since the benefits of vaccination have medical, sociological, and economic implications that extend far beyond the mere conferring of immunity as we know it [ 97 , 134 ]. While aiming to obtain sterilizing, lifelong immunity through vaccination is a fair goal, settling for vaccine-mediated protection against severe illness for fast-spreading diseases like COVID-19 would be an acceptable strategy, so that, the highest number of individuals around the world are rapidly protected and negative economic impact is reduced [ 102 , 135 ].…”