Herd Immunity: What Is It? And How Can it Stop the Spread of the Coronavirus?

Herd immunity is reached when the majority of a given population becomes immune to an infectious disease, either because they have become infected and recovered, or through vaccination. When that happens, the disease is less likely to spread to people who aren't immune because there aren't enough infectious carriers to reach them.

But in the case of the Coronavirus, which is still an ongoing pandemic, there are only two ways to achieve herd immunity: widepsread vaccination, which for COVID-19 is still many months away, or widepsread infections that ultimately lead to immunity.