Don’t wait for the herd, be a part of the solution. Get vaccinated
- Category: New Orleans, Community, COVID-19
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Whether your vaccination is a distant memory or an upcoming date on your calendar, here’s what you need to know about COVID-19 immunity in our new-new normal, post-vaccination world.
Just what is immunity?
When your body is immune to a disease, it means your immune system has created antibodies to that disease. Antibodies destroy disease-carrying organisms or at least neutralize them. Either way, those little antibody proteins stay hard at work to keep you healthy.
The 2 types of immunity (and how they work)
Your body’s got two types of immunity: passive and active.
Passive immunity is when you’re given antibodies rather than your immune system making them itself. Researchers are studying whether passive immunity is an effective way to combat COVID-19. We’re still learning, but passive immunity does have one downside: its expiration date. Passive immunity starts working immediately, but the longest it can work is just a couple of months.
Active immunity lasts longer than passive immunity—sometimes even for life—and here’s how. Active immunity gives your body the blueprints for building antibodies against diseases, which your immune system files away for later use. The next time you encounter the same disease, your body’s just got to dust off those blueprints and get to work antibody-building.
Antibodies are picky about which diseases they fight—measles antibodies won’t protect you against chicken pox, for example. That’s why the COVID-19 vaccine is so important. It’ll give your body the blueprints for the antibodies specifically designed to fight COVID-19.
What’s up with herd immunity?
Herd immunity is when a whole lotta people are immune to one disease. This makes that disease less likely to spread. Usually, herd or community immunity is achieved with a high vaccination rate. That’s how we got rid of polio and smallpox in the United States.
What’s difficult is we’re still learning how high that vaccination rate needs to be for COVID-19. It’s different for every disease: polio needs an 80% vaccination rate for community immunity, while measles needs a 95%. Scientists used to think 60% to 70% of the population getting vaccinated would bring on herd immunity for COVID-19, but now the numbers might be higher.
When it comes to herd immunity and COVID-19, we’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is we aren’t sure if we can achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 as
soon as we had hoped. The good news is we can get a whole lot closer, if we all roll up our sleeves and do our part.
Be in that number!
Right now, your best bet for fighting COVID-19 is to get vaccinated. It will start the active immunity process in your body to fight the virus. And as research continues, we might learn it’s helping you prevent the spread of the virus, too.
If you’ve gotten your vaccine, congratulations and thank you for doing your part! And if you haven’t, go ahead and click off here to schedule your appointment. We don’t mind waiting; we’ll hang here till you get back.
