US colleges divided over requiring student vaccinations

[hlthe2b]

5. The term has been bastardized by those who have polticized the entire COVID-19 response, but

it is a legitimate term and principle that lead to Measles elimination (not eradication) in the Western Hemisphere for several decades and has allowed for control of numerous deadly and/or economically devastating animal diseases for more than a century.

The oral polio vaccine and fecal shedding of that vaccine-strain resulted in the herd immunity that allowed for containment of polio in this country and has brought us close to elimination several times worldwide--had it not been for the instability of regional wars interrupting mass vaccination efforts. Had that not occurred, the injectable vaccine alone would have been unlikely to have allowed us to reach that point.

Is herd immunity possible with COVID-19? There are a lot of factors that predict whether or not that is possible. Given the unrestrained spread in so much of the world, sans vaccine and vaccine denial in other areas, along with the development of multiple mutation/variant strains this will be a far bigger challenge, but the concept is not inappropriate to discuss in the context of vaccine saturation.