We can learn about the spread of diseases through populations by studying naturally occurring instances of herd immunity. Avian cholera in the Canadian Arctic provides a useful case study.
Most children don’t get severely ill from COVID-19, but they can still spread the virus.
Copyright Phil Hands/Wisconsin State Journal
With a third of adults saying they likely won’t get the vaccine, the US has a herd immunity math problem.
Medical students’ backgrounds often reflect the diversity of local communities, which can allow them more access and trust for vaccination efforts.
Bryan Goodchild/UMass Medical School
One university is showing how the vaccine corps concept can speed up vaccination rates, including launching a large-scale vaccination site staffed by hundreds of students and volunteers.
Maria Saravia, a worker at the University of Southern California’s Keck Hospital, adjusts her mother’s mask before her COVID-19 vaccination.
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Getting a vaccine is proving difficult for many older people now, but the mad rush for the vaccine won’t last long. Many people don’t want to get one at all, and that will impede herd immunity.
Joe Biden, then president-elect, received his COVID-19 vaccination in December.
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Vaccine hesitancy has resulted in multiple vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks. Research on vaccine hesitancy in South Africa is limited. But growing evidence suggests that it’s becoming a problem.
Australia’s expedited plan to start dishing out COVID jabs in mid-late February will call for NASA-like logistical organisation. And ideally, no more clusters of infections to distract frontline workers.
Before the U.S. can return to some form of normal, a lot of people need to be vaccinated.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, Pool
Researchers say around 70% of the US needs to get the coronavirus vaccine to stop the pandemic. But questions around the vaccines and regional differences add some uncertainty to that estimate.
Latrice Davis, a nurse at Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago, receives the COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 18, 2020.
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Black people are skeptical about the new vaccines for many reasons. If public health leaders told the full story, maybe there’d be a higher chance that Black people would want to take the vaccine.
Francesca Passer, a registered pharmacist technician, carefully fills a syringe with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine at a vaccine clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Dec. 15, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Employers could require their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 via both workplace policies and existing laws. Neither option, however, is simple or straightforward.
There have been a few accounts of patients who have tested positive, then negative, then positive again for COVID-19.
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So, if you have ever tested positive, there is a chance you could contract the virus again. And you could infect other people. You should still take the necessary precautions.
A nurse at the Royal Free Hospital in London simulates the administration of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 4, 2020 to support staff training ahead of the rollout in the United Kingdom.
(Yui Mok/Pool Photo via AP)
If supplies of COVID-19 vaccine are initially limited, who should be vaccinated first? A mathematical model shows when and why it’s best to start with the young, and when older people should go first.
Parents also want to know about safety, side effects and if they’ll still have to wear masks.
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Join The Conversation for a virtual discussion with leading scientists about what life will be like with the COVID-19 vaccine.
A volunteer gets an injection of Moderna’s possible COVID-19 vaccine on July 27, 2020. Moderna announced Nov. 16 that its vaccine is proving highly effective in a major trial.
(AP Photo/Hans Pennink)
Two pharma companies have announced early COVID-19 vaccine trial results with over 90 per cent effectiveness. What does that mean for getting back to normal?
People wear face masks to help control the spread of COVID-19 as they walk along a street in Montréal on Oct. 18, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The Great Barrington Declaration’s advocacy for naturally acquired herd immunity to COVID-19 amounts to a global chickenpox party: naive and dangerous.
Some have suggested the US allow healthy people to return to normal life, catch the coronavirus and get the population to herd immunity. The science says this plan is doomed to fail from the start.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand