After a long road on Covid-19 handling, the government now relies on the vaccine-administered to achieve herd immunity. Dr. Riris Andono Ahmad, MPH., Ph.D., as UGM Epidemiologist, revealed that Indonesia could achieve herd immunity if more than 70 percent of people are vaccinated either through its infection or vaccination.
"70 percent of people should have immunity to achieve herd immunity, and it depends on how agile the process of vaccination is going on and its target achieved before immunity duration ends," he explained on Wednesday (31/3).
Since Covid-19 is considered a new virus and it continually mutates, it is hard to estimate how long the immunity lasts on a human's body. Therefore, until now, many researchers in the world still attempt to conduct and collect various data.
"There has been no exact conclusion how long the immunity will last on a human's body. It could be three months, six months, until one year. Then, we use approximately one year as estimation," explained the UGM Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing lecturer.
He also expected support from the community not to hesitate to get vaccinated. This effort aims to speed up the vaccination process so that Indonesia could immediately achieve herd immunity to control Covid-19. Currently, Indonesia implements the second stage of vaccination that is dedicated to the elderly and public workers. Later, there would be two vaccination stages left dedicated for community and economy stakeholders adjusted to the vaccine availability.
Later, when all targets are achieved, the community should still implement their awareness in complying with the health protocols because vaccines cannot stop the pandemic. In fact, it only reduces pain and the number of deaths.
"When we had been vaccinated, we should still implement health protocols of 5M because the vaccine is only aimed to reduce pain and the death risks, but it cannot stop its transmission," he concluded.
Author: Ika
Photo: Firsto