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FACT BRIEF

Will everyone on earth need to get a vaccine to halt the spread of the coronavirus?

Thursday, June 4, 2020
By Anna Lenaker
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NO

Early estimates suggest at least 70% of the population would need to acquire immunity to stop the spread of the coronavirus, according to infectious disease specialists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. By the time a vaccine is widely available, some percentage of the population will have acquired at least a degree of immunity through prior exposure to the virus. So some proportion below 70% would need to get a vaccine, depending on how many people have acquired "natural" immunity.

Immunity thresholds vary with the contagiousness of a disease, ranging anywhere from 50% to 90%, according to Hopkins. And some immunity is lifelong, while with other infectious diseases, like the flu, it is only about a year.

"Herd immunity is still a long way away," a Hopkins advisory said on April 30.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Johns Hopkins: Achieving herd immunity for coronavirus
Oxford: Vaccine Knowledge Project overview of herd immunity
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Gigafact
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.