The National Command and Control Center (NCOC) aims to vaccinate more than 70 million of the total eligible population against the Coronavirus by the end of this year.
However, experts are of the view that the concept of herd immunity can prove counterproductive because many people may cease adhering to the COVID-19 SOPs aimed at controlling the pandemic.
Speaking in this regard, Dr. Hasan Urooj, a public health expert who has been treating COVID-19 patients in Islamabad, claimed that herd immunity is technically impossible to achieve in the urban areas of the country.
Herd immunity can only be attained in an ideal environment in which people don’t move in and out of a specific area frequently. Take Islamabad for instance, a large number of people work in the federal capital but they live in rural areas.
While a certain percentage of the population in Islamabad has been vaccinated, it does not indicate that only the residents of the city have been vaccinated because those who come to work from adjoining rural areas also get vaccinated in the city.
It can never be concluded that over 50% or 60% of Islamabad’s eligible population has been vaccinated because people from KP, AJK, and other areas come to the capital for work.
Dr. Hasan added that new variants are a major threat to herd immunity as the existing Coronavirus vaccines have yet to prove their efficacies against them, urging the authorities to stop using the term ‘herd immunity’ because the public could become complacent and cease following COVID-19 SOPs amid emerging new variants of the viral infection.