As Covid-19 vaccination rates pick up around the world, people have reasonably begun to ask: how much longer will this pandemic last? It’s an issue surrounded with uncertainties. But the once-popular idea that enough people will eventually gain immunity to SARS-CoV-2 to block most transmission — a ‘herd-immunity threshold’ — is starting to look unlikely.
- It’s unclear whether vaccines prevent transmission
- Vaccine roll-out is uneven
- New variants change the herd-immunity equation
- Immunity might not last forever
- Vaccines might change human behaviour
Read here (Nature, March 18, 2021)
