Letting Covid spread with eye to herd immunity 'unethical' - WHO Quote:
The World Health Organization chief has warned against suggestions by some to just allow Covid-19 to spread in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, saying this was "unethical".
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a virtual press briefing that "herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached".
He pointed out for instance that for measles, it is estimated that if 95% of the population is vaccinated, the remaining 5% will also be protected from the spread of the virus.
For polio, the threshold is estimated at 80%, he said.
"Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it," Mr Tedros said.
"Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic," he insisted.
The source above is from
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1012/1170959-covid19-global/The full WHO press briefing video can be found on the WHO website by visiting the link at the end of this post and clicking on the video labelled "WHO - Press Conference" dated 12/10/2020.
Sorry, i couldn't find a direct link.Note: English is the language used by all in the video but because the WHO is an international orginisation there are many (at times) hard to understand accents, it's my understanding a written transcript will be released in the near future.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks from circa 1:20 to about 10:15 in the video after which begins a Q&A from the media, the full video is 56 minutes long and well worth watching in my opinion.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019