Public health experts worldwide continue to grapple with possible responses to the coronavirus pandemic, with some citing herd immunity as a sensible way to get the most amount of people immune to the virus. Dr. Joia Mukherjee, an associate professor of global health at Harvard Medical School and chief medical officer for Partners in Health, says discussions around herd immunity are “extremely dangerous and nihilistic.” The many unknowns about the spread of the virus and the proportion of the population that would have to be infected in order to have the herd immunity effect make it an unsound and immoral choice, she argues. Mukherjee also calls for economic relief that creates work opportunities for vulnerable people. “If we harness the trillions of dollars that are needed right now to prop up the stock market and the global economy toward creating jobs that would actually end the epidemic and could be synergized with the needs of the vulnerable to end the epidemic, that is a far better moral choice.”
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