5 Fibs You Were Told This Week About Coronavirus, Test And Trace, And Cornish Pasties
What’s green and would kill you if it fell out of a tree? A golf course.
And there the jokes end, because this is of course the very serious business of calling out fibs told by those who really should know better.
This week’s edition begins with perhaps one of the most concerning yet to grace this series: the curious case of the health minister with a vast knowledge gap of health issues.
Nadine Dorries
Take a look at this tweet...
If herd immunity existed, measles and chicken pox would have been wiped out years ago. There is no such thing as herd immunity. https://t.co/THC1DC1mJa
— Nadine Dorries 🇬🇧#StayAlert (@NadineDorries) October 13, 2020
Yes, you read that right – Tory health minister Nadine Dorries claiming “there is no such thing as herd immunity” and then backing it up by saying her point is proved by the fact that “measles and chicken pox” have not been wiped out.
Both statements are false.
Herd immunity does not require the absolute eradication of a disease but occurs when a large enough percentage of a population becomes immune so that it doesn’t spread exponentially.
For instance, if 80% of a population have immunity to a virus, four out of every five people who come into contact with someone with the virus will not get sick and further spread the disease.
Herd immunity is achieved either through vaccination or exposing enough of a population to the virus in question. It is supported by decades of scientific research.
Secondly, new cases of measles and chicken pox still occur because people are not born with immunity to them, meaning the disease is impossible to eradicate entirely – but prevalence diminishes gradually over time.
The DHSC did not say whether Dorries’ tweet was an official government line when asked by HuffPost UK.
