Should We Rely on Herd Immunity? Here's What to Know

Herd immunity has become a controversial topic after months of the U.S.'s efforts to limit the COVID-19 pandemic's spread.

White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Scott Atlas was reportedly "urging the White House to embrace a controversial 'herd immunity' strategy."

Atlas denied the report. He said during a press conference in Florida that he has never advocated the stated strategy.

The herd immunity approach would mean that many people across the country would have to get sick with the coronavirus to build up a natural immunity in communities.

Many people could die in the process as the virus spreads and infects people.

Atlas denied that he is pushing for this kind of strategy. But an administration official said that all of the policies that Atlas is touting are in line with her immunity.

"Everything he says and does points toward herd immunity," the senior administration official was quoted in a report.

Emergency physician and medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said that about two million Americans could die in trying to achieve herd immunity.

"If we're waiting until 60% to 80% of people have it, we're talking about 200 million-plus Americans getting this -- and at a fatality rate of 1%, let's say, that's 2 million Americans who will die in this effort to try to get herd immunity," Wen was quoted.

Wen said that those are preventable deaths of our loved ones that we can not let happen under our watch.

Herd immunity is a significant public health concept, developed and used to guide vaccination rules.

This involves calculating the percentage of people in a population who would need to achieve immunity to prevent an outbreak.

The World Health Organization's technical lead for coronavirus response Maria Van Kerkhove earlier said that herd immunity is typically discussed in the context of vaccinations, not as a response to a pandemic.

Van Kerkhove said that when herd immunity is talked about, it is normally about how much of the population needs to be vaccinated to have immunity to the virus.

In this way, transmission can no longer occur, or it is very difficult for a virus to penetrate a community.

"If we think about herd immunity in the natural sense of just letting a virus run, it's very dangerous," she was quoted.

She added that that means many people are infected, many people will need hospitalizations, and many people will die.

White House communications director Alyssa Farah said there is no change in the administration's approach in fighting the pandemic.

She said that Trump is still focused on defeating the virus through therapeutics and a vaccine.

Farah added that there is no discussion about how they are changing their strategy.

"We have initiated an unprecedented effort under Operation Warp Speed to safely bring a vaccine to market in record time - ending this virus through medicine is our top focus," Farah was quoted.

White House officials said the president has asked questions about herd immunity but has not formally adopted the strategy.

Trump, however, made comments that tout the same approach.

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