Well, let’s start with immunity and what that means.
The human body has a very advanced and highly adaptive immune system that keeps us safe by fending off a host of potential enemies on a daily basis. Every day we come in contact with bacteria and viruses, dust and pollen and all sorts of environmental agents that could potentially harm us. But our immune systems identify those agents as friend or foe and it sends out the appropriate army to fight it off if it’s identified as harmful.
If it’s a foe that we’ve never seen before, the immune system quickly creates a specialized soldier known as antibody that is specifically suited to attack and disarm that foe. Then those antibodies, those specialized soldiers, stick around so if we ever come in contact with that enemy again the immune system can quickly deploy them to the scene. We are now immune to that enemy or disease because we already have the appropriate antibodies to fight it.
Now You may have heard the term Herd Immunity and wondered what that means!
Herd Immunity is when the vast majority upwards of 90 plus percent of an entire population has already been exposed to something and has developed antibodies; those specialized soldiers capable of fighting that enemy. when nearly the entire population has antibodies the few people who have never been exposed, who haven’t developed antibodies are safe because this disease simply can’t take hold in that community and cause an outbreak because it’s fought off and killed before it can spread.
For viruses like COVID-19 that are relatively mild for the vast majority of people, Herd Immunity is sometimes the best approach. In other words, let people be exposed to the disease knowing that they won’t likely become ill but thereby allowing them to develop antibodies naturally so that another outbreak can’t and won’t occur.
Therefore, one of the best things we can do is to allow children to be out and about knowing that if they do get exposed, they have virtually no risk of actually becoming ill, but they will develop antibodies that will protect them from others and from future outbreaks by contributing to the overall immunity of the herd.
Another way that we developed antibodies and immunity to disease is through a vaccine. A vaccine is typically created by taking the virus or virus particles that have been effectively killed or otherwise rendered harmless and ejecting those to the body. The immune system sees this foreign invader or enemy and goes about creating those specialized soldiers or antibodies that allow you to fight the virus off if you ever come in contact with the live version in the future.
