What is herd immunity?

Transcript of What is herd immunity?

Herd immunity is the level of protection that we have in the community against COVID from vaccination where the virus cannot spread easily.

So at the moment it's estimated that the level of protection that we'll need in the community is probably around 80% coverage, but of course that does depend on which vaccines are being used, what variants are circulating, and a whole lot of other things.

But essentially if we have really high vaccine coverage in the community, if somebody becomes unwell with COVID, they can't easily pass it on to others, and it can't spread within the community and that's when we have really strong herd immunity.