Arizona health expert: Effective virus vaccine will help herd immunity
Nov 10, 2020, 4:35 AM
(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
(AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
PHOENIX – An Arizona health expert said that the more effective a coronavirus vaccine is, the less people will have to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity to prevent future spread of the virus.
“The more effective the vaccine is, the fewer people that you need to vaccinate in order to get to herd immunity,” Arizona Public Health Association Director Will Humble told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s the Gaydos and Chad Show on Monday.
“If the vaccine is 90% effective, then we’d probably need to vaccinate about 4.8 million Arizonans out of the 7.2 in order to get the herd immunity.”
Pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer said Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine may be 90% effective based on early and incomplete test results.
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Humble said even if the vaccine is 70% effective that would mean approximately 5.5 million Arizonans would need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity; however, herd immunity becomes more difficult to accomplish as more of the population has to get vaccinated.
President-elect Joe Biden announced a coronavirus task force team on Monday aimed at devising a blueprint for fighting the coronavirus pandemic when they officially take office in January.
Humble said that he gave credit to President Donald Trump’s administration and Congress for the way they’ve focused on getting a coronavirus vaccine developed and tested, but now the focus has to shift to distribution of the vaccine.
“Funding for the distribution part of it and a detailed plan for how to distribute the vaccine is critical and that’s one of the elements in President-elect Biden outline,” Humble said.
He also mentioned that as part of Biden’s outline, it will be important to get additional relief funds to push Arizona and the United States through until the coronavirus vaccine is able to be distributed.
