Herd Immunity is Misleading

by Daniel B. Klein
The American Institute for Economic Research

The expression “herd immunity” is misleading. Instead we should speak in a looser way of augmented immunity.

The war on COVID-19 should not be waged as a big centrally commanded confrontation. It should be waged as guerilla warfare while making strides in augmented immunity.

The concept of herd immunity highlights that as the immunity rate among a population is augmented the rates of transmission decline and, past some point, drive toward elimination of the disease. But herd immunity obscures important aspects of the problem, including how transmission of the disease is affected by behavioral changes and how the disease affects people differently.

Dictionary.com says for the word herd:

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