R0 OR THE BASIC REPRODUCTION NUMBER

Covid-19 being a new viral disease cause by the spread of Corona Virus, while
much about the COVID-19 pandemic remains uncertain, we know how it will
likely end: when the spread of the virus starts to slow and eventually ceases
altogether and thus stopping the transmission of virus altogether. because enough
people have developed immunity to it, which is called 'Herd immunity', also
known as 'population immunity', .

While determining that threshold for COVID-19 is critical, a lot of nuance is

involved in calculating exactly how much of the population needs to be immune
for herd immunity to take effect and protect the people who aren’t immune.

The calculation seems simple.The only thing you need to know is R0 (pronounced
“R naught”).    is the basic reproduction number of the disease: the average
number of people an infected person goes on to infect, given that everyone in the
population is susceptible to the disease. The R0 of measles is 12-18, by far the
highest known to humankind. The R0 of seasonal influenza is around 0.9-2.1.
Based on the data available so far, the R0 of COVID-19 is 1.4-3.9.

In the given graph, you can see how a large enough   leads to a rapid spread of
the disease. For example, if   is equal to 2 then a single infected person generates
the following growth of new infections:

1st generation:   new infections 2nd generation:   new infections 3rd generation:   
new infections 4th generation:   new infections.

Generally, there are   new infections in the  th round of new infections.

Assuming a person is only infectious for a week, at this rate the entire world
population (7.8 billion) would be infected after slightly over 32 weeks.
The number of new infections after n generations for R0=2.

When the basic reproduction number   is less than 1 a very different picture
emerges. As an illustration, imagine we have   Now obviously, an infected
person can't go on to infect half a person, but remember that this is an average: it
means that 10 people can be assumed to go on to infect 5 others, or that 100 people
can be assumed to go on to infect 50 others. As before let's assume there is 1
infected person to start with, then the number of new infections behaves like this:

1st generation:   new infections 2nd generation:   new infections 3rd

generation:   new infections 4th generation:   new infections.

Generally, there are   new infections in the  th round of infections. This

number becomes smaller and smaller as the number   of generations becomes
larger. A dead end for the disease.
 The average number of new infections after n generations for R0=0.5.

What if  ? In this case the disease will be endemic: always present in the
population, but not an epidemic.

So to achieve herd immunity we need to somehow get the effective reproduction

number   to under 1. Since  , where   is the proportion of the population
that is susceptible, we need

     
Rearranging, this gives

     
In other words, we need to get the proportion of susceptible people in the
population to under   How many people need to be immune to achieve this? If
the proportion of susceptible people is  , then the proportion of people who are not
susceptible, in other words immune, is  . Now

     
means
     
So, to achieve herd immunity we need to make sure that at least a proportion
of   of the population is immune. For an   of 2.5, the higher end of the
estimates for COVID-19, this means that we need to get at least a proportion
of   of the population immune. This translates to at least 60%.

Moreover, at this moment nobody knows exactly what is going to happen in the
future. Our most educated guesses come from mathematical models which try and
predict the course of the pandemic. An urgent call has gone out to the scientific
modelling community to help find the best exit strategies from our current
predicament.

That's why experts are encouraging the public to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We have not achieved any herd immunity through a natural disease process to
most major infectious diseases that affect the population to this scale,” she said.
“All of the major infections I know of have required vaccination.”
Until a vaccine is widely available, the best course of action is to continue
following public health measures — physical distancing, masking in public and
good hand-washing hygiene — as those also break the virus transmission chain.
As the vaccines are distributed around the country, experts encourage vaccination
as the next step on the path to herd immunity.
Get Vaccinated.