Is 'Herd immunity' an achievable goal?

COLOMBO (News 1st):The Director of the Allergy, Immunology and Cell Biology Unit of Sri Jayewardenepura University, Dr. Chandima Jeewandara says that herd immunity should be achieved via vaccination. In a tweet, Dr. Jeewandara outlines several excerpts from a WHO, which mentions that allowing the disease to spread through any segment of the population would result in unnecessary cases and deaths. “Attempts to reach ‘herd immunity’ through exposing people to a virus are scientifically problematic and unethical.” he further states. Moreover, Dr. Jeewandara mentions that the percentage of the population in Sri Lanka who are fully immune at this point is less than 25%. Herd immunity can be achieved for certain diseases like measles when over 95% of the population is vaccinated, the WHO states. However, we cannot rely on natural immunity to develop into herd immunity for the entire population when it comes to COVID-19, especially with the new variants. The WHO also considers the exact percentage of the population to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to be debatable as well.