Ask Dr. Hall- Is Herd Immunity the Answer to COVID-19?

Even when its comes to toothpaste, they could only get four out of five doctors to agree. One can only imagine, getting all doctors to agree on the solution to COVID-19 is a massive challenge, but, we're actually pretty close.

Still, the question is being asked: Should we shelter the vulnerable and just let everybody else get COVID-19 and solve this virus problem once and for all? A handful of doctors presented a report to the White House that a herd immunity approach to the virus was the answer. The report drew strong criticism from doctors and scientists around the world.

Dr. George Rutherford, a UCSF infectious disease expert, said trying to reach herd immunity is “magical thinking,” according to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Stanford virologist Dr. Robert Siegel said the proposal would almost certainly fail, he told the paper.

Dr. Kent Hall of MVHS completely dismissed the theory. Each morning on WIBX's Keeler Show, Dr. Kent Hall takes questions about the virus and the state of the response in the Mohawk Valley, and on this topic he was quite direct.

"If you infect 300 million people with a virus and you know that 5-percent or somewhere between 5 or 10 percent are going to need hospital level care, to make it easier let's say 10-percent, that's 30 million people that would need to be in a hospital," said Hall. He said the U.S. hospital system can not handle that.

Dr. Anthony Fauci also weighed in on the topic and called "herd immunity" for COVID-19, "total nonsense," according to The Hill.

Listen to the complete interview with Dr. Kent Hall below.