"Humans are not herds"
Dr. Mike Ryan

#Herd_immunity has emerged in recent weeks as a popular talking point among people who argue that coronavirus lockdowns have been too stringent.

Herd immunity is a concept in epidemiology that describes how people can collectively stave off infections if some percentage of the population has immunity to a disease.
But herd immunity in relation to the coronavirus is far from a reality, particularly without a vaccine.
Ryan said the term "herd immunity" emerged from veterinary epidemiology, typically involving business decisions of whether to let animals die for the overall health of a herd.

"An individual animal in that sense doesn't matter, from the perspective of the brutal economics of that decision-making," Ryan said.

"So I think we need to be really careful when we use terms in this way around natural infection in humans, because it can lead to a very brutal arithmetic which does not put people and life and suffering at the center of that equation,".

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