All you need to know about Herd Immunity & Sero- Survey:
For the past few months, we have heard many people using these two terms “Herd Immunity” and “Sero-Survey”, some of us are aware of these while some are still clueless so, here is a small guide to knowing what these terms are and what impact they’ll cause on you.
First, let us understand what Herd Immunity means. “Herd Immunity” is a clever combination of two words, “Herd” and “Immunity” and these terms, when put together define themselves. It is a generated immunity among a herd, aka a large percentage of a group, which is the population of the cities in our case. The immunity comes into picture when a large percentage of the population becomes immune to a widespread disease like COVID-19, thus breaking the transmission chain and protecting the remaining population by not getting them infected.
It can be achieved either by exposure to the infection and generating immunity against it or via vaccinations.
The number of people getting infected and generating immunity depends upon the rate at which that particular virus is transmitting. The greater the rate, the more number of people are infected by it. In the case of COVID-19, since it is for the first time that we are facing it, we are not aware of the number of people who need to be infected to achieve herd immunity, and since we don’t know the exact numbers, we cannot particularly predict when are we going to achieve that point at which it will stop impacting us.
The only way to understand the virus’s prevalence is by understanding the pattern of the virus follows while spreading, and for that, we require sero-surveys.
Now, let us understand what these sero-surveys are and what do they do?
A Sero-survey is a kind of survey where we take blood serum samples from a group of individuals to monitor the ongoing trend in the prevalence of the virus.
The trends help us understand the chances of the spread of the virus in a particular community. Thus, helping the concerned authorities in coming up with cope up mechanisms to avoid a bad situation. These surveys help us understand the presence or absence of antibodies in an individual though the amount in which these antibodies are present is still unclear.
To sum up, we would say understanding the exact meaning of these terms is important to prepare for a fight against COVID-19.
We want to add that we are still not sure whether our bodies are immune to the virus or not unless the virus attacks us, so it’s better to take preventive measures against it. When outside, try maintaining proper distance, wearing a mask, and keeping your hand sanitized, either using soap or sanitizer.
STAY SAFE!