In a sufficiently immune population, herd immunity provides indirect protection to susceptible individuals by minimizing the probability of an effective contact between a susceptible individual and an infected host. In its simplest form, herd immunity will begin to take effect when a population reaches the herd immunity threshold, namely when the proportion of individuals who are immune to the pathogen crosses 1 –,1/R0. At this point, sustained transmission cannot occur, so the outbreak will decline. However, in real-world populations, the situation is often much more complex. Epidemiological and immunological factors, such as population structure, variation in transmission dynamics between populations, and waning immunity, will lead to variation in the extent of indirect protection conferred by herd immunity. Consequently, these aspects must be taken into account when discussing the establishment of herd immunity within populations. There are two possible approaches to build widespread SARS-CoV-2 im-munity: (1) a mass vaccination campaign, which requires the development of an effective and safe vaccine, or (2) natural immunization of global populations with the virus over time. However, the consequences of the latter are serious and far-reaching—, a large fraction of the human population would need to become in-fected with the virus, and millions would succumb to it. Thus, in the absence of a vaccination program, establishing herd immunity should not be the ultimate goal. Instead, an emphasis should be placed on policies that protect the most vulnerable groups in the hopes that herd immunity will eventually be achieved as a byprod-uct of such measures, although not the primary objective itself.