Lancet study casts doubt over herd immunity for tackling Covid-19

A Spanish study published in The Lancet journal has cast doubt over the feasibility of herd immunity -- when enough people become infected with a virus to stop its spread -- as a way of tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

For herd immunity to work, at least 70 per cent of a population needs to be immune to protect the uninfected people, experts say.

The study of over 60,000 people estimates that around just 5 per cent of the Spanish population has developed antibodies, according to the researchers, including those from the National Centre for Epidemiology, Spain.

The aim of the population-based study was to