Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered user
I am pro-vaccination. Everyone in the family is up to date. What I don't get though is the argument from the various health boards that if a kid isn't vaccinated we are all at risk. How? We're vaccinated.
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Vaccines are not 100% effective, all the time.
Think of them like a condom. Definitely responsible, and they usually work.
Now think of everyone around you being vaccinated as... an IUD or some other even more effective method of birth control. That is herd immunity. When enough people are vaccinated, it eliminates the disease reservoir, because the disease needs a ladder between people to make a chain and spread. When the ladder is too short to make a chain between two potential victims, that chain is broken and the disease dies in isolation.
But when you have a large unvaccinated population, you have a reservoir for the disease, and the disease will find the people whose vaccinations may not have been effective, and it will find people who couldn't have the vaccine because they are too young, or they have underlying health issues.