Virology Expert Sheds Light on COVID-19 Herd Immunity, Vaccine Safety

(KNSI) – As of Sunday, more than 65 percent of Minnesotans age 16 and older have gotten at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. When 12-to-15-year-olds are added to the count, nearly 3 million people in the state are at least partially vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. As a whole, the U.S. has a 51.6 vaccination rate.

The Biden Administration — and, at the state level, the Minnesota Department of Health — has a goal of inoculating 70 percent of American adults by Independence Day. That benchmark is rooted in the idea of getting to herd immunity.

“The basic concept is: In a group of people, if enough people in that group have been vaccinated, the odds of somebody that’s not been vaccinated actually getting infected and developing disease becomes statistically very low, because the probability of them bumping into somebody that’s not been vaccinated that’s infected becomes very low,” says Dr. Louis Mansky, director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota.

Mansky says herd immunity is not an absolute science; there’s not a magic number that works for all diseases. The goal now is to get as many people vaccinated as possible. That involves reducing vaccine hesitancy.

“Improving the access to the scientific data that demonstrates the efficacy and safety of the vaccines is a key strategy to helping to address vaccine hesitancy,” Mansky said. “Listening to the concerns of those who are hesitant is essential to understand the various concerns and using scientific data to help address and alleviate these concerns.”

With misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines spreading on social media and elsewhere, Mansky says we know we live in a world where not every piece of media we come across is accurate.

“My best advice to the general public is to be more critical in terms of where you’re getting new information, and look and listen for information that appears to be much better grounded in scientific data and direct scientific evidence,” Mansky said. “That should give you much greater confidence in what you’re learning about is directly associated with what the scientists have actually found.”

Some vaccine misinformation takes aim at the components in the vaccine doses. Mansky clarifies that there is no evidence that says any ingredients in the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are harmful for human use.

“The ingredients in each of the available COVID-19 vaccines that have received emergency use authorization by the FDA are readily available to the public,” he said.

The MDH has a webpage dedicated to COVID-19 vaccine information and how to find vaccination opportunities in the state.

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