COVID-19

IHME | COVID-19 | The Myth of Herd Immunity

Herd immunity is not an effective strategy for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. IHME Director and lead COVID-19 modeler Dr. Christopher Murray busts myths about the strategy and provides insights on more effective solutions to the global crisis.

Interact with IHME’s COVID-19 model »covid19.healthdata.org
View additional COVID-19 resources »www.healthdata.org/covid

The Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation is an independent population health research center at UW Medicine, part of the University of Washington, that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. IHME makes this information freely available so that policymakers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources to best improve population health.

Christopher J.L. Murray, MD, DPhil, is the Chair and Professor of Health Metrics Sciences and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. His career has focused on improving health for everyone worldwide by improving health evidence. A physician and health economist, his work has led to the development of a range of new methods and empirical studies to strengthen health measurement, analyze the performance of public health and medical care systems, and assess the cost-effectiveness of health technologies. IHME provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them.

Dr. Murray has authored or edited 16 books, many book chapters, and more than 420 journal articles in internationally peer-reviewed publications. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the 2018 co-recipient of the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. He and IHME were the subjects of Epic Measures: One Doctor, Seven Billion Patients, which was published by Harper Wave in 2015. Dr. Murray holds Bachelor of Arts and Science degrees from Harvard University, a DPhil in International Health Economics from Oxford University, and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School.