The British attempt to continue life as usual and only isolate the elderly and the sick is not successful. Waiting for herd immunity to occur in the UK by allowing the virus to spread freely in the population does not appear to be a good public health strategy.
Update: On March 16, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the abandonment of this policy, until then all cultural and sports events took place as planned.
The original decision provoked a lot of criticism. Here is what Jeremy Rossman, Senior Lecturer in Virology and President of Research-Aid Networks at the University of Kent, wrote about it (Translation: Nitzan Burak)
"The British government recently enacted the second stage in preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic: a stage defined as "delay" was announced. According to an ITV reporter, the government's strategy for eradicating the impact of the virus "is to allow the virus to infect the majority of the population, and thus we all develop herd immunity, in a slow manner and delayed but also one that will allow the population at risk to receive the proper care they need, and one that will not push the health system into a corner and cause it to collapse under the wave of cases That they will need her treatment at any given moment." On the face of it, this plan seems appropriate, but what exactly is this herd immunity and can it be used to fight against COVID-19?
The human body fights infectious diseases through the activity of the immune system. When we recover from such an infection, we will usually retain an immune memory of the source of the infection that will allow us to fight the same infection in the future in a faster and better way. This is the principle behind the vaccines, creating an immune memory without being exposed to the source of the infection and getting sick.
When a new disease appears, such as COVID-19 for which we have no vaccine to offer and no one has been exposed to it before, the implication is that it will spread through the population. But if enough people develop an immune memory to it, it will stop spreading, they are among those who have not developed immunity to it (excluding diseases that change genetically or that affect a limited segment of the population) This is herd immunity, one of the useful ways to protect the entire population from infectious diseases.
Herd immunity is usually a well-known and recognized strategy when it comes to a regular vaccination program, such as that for seasonal flu. When there is no vaccine available, as in the case of the corona virus, the achievement of herd immunity will only take place if a significant segment of the population is infected and cured of the virus. What will this mean for the spread of COVID-19 in the UK?
The percentages of the population that are required to be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity depends on how contagious the disease is. The degree of infection of a virus is defined as R0 in Hebrew "the basic culture number" or, the number of people that each patient is expected to infect. For COVID-19 this number is 3.28, but studies are still being conducted and the number is expected to change. If we put this number in a dedicated equation it turns out that immunity of 70% of the UK population is required to create herd immunity and thus also protect the other 30%.
In numbers, there are 47 million of the Kingdom's citizens who will need to be infected with the virus. The interim estimates regarding the virus speak of 2.3 percent mortality and 19 percent of severe cases. This means that until herd immunity is achieved, the process will include over a million deaths and about 8 million severe cases that require intensive care in the intensive care unit.
Delay as a public health policy
It is not yet clear to what extent the above discussion on herd immunity - which according to reports was proposed by David Halpern, CEO of a behavioral advice group, and later reported by Robert Paston, a journalist - is a concrete government policy.
On top of that, the idea being discussed is not only to give the virus the opportunity to spread through the population, it includes slowing it down by limiting the routine of life and additional protection for those in the population who are prone to the severe cases.
Slowing the spread of COVID-19 is a promising strategy, especially when implemented in conjunction with increased measures to protect the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. By slowing the spread, the health system is expected to have more essential time to prepare, during this time developing a treatment or a vaccine is a reasonable possibility and we will approach the summer when we have a low rate of other diseases, which create a burden on the system, influenza for example.
The delay strategy combined with detection and containment of the spread, as recommended by the World Health Organization WHO, can be very effective in the fight against the spread of COVID19. But if you slow down the spread and rely on herd immunity, those 47 million people will have to be infected.
Even if the segment of the population at risk is protected (which will not be discussed how and for how long this will be done) the percentage of deaths even in the healthy part of the population reaches half a percent or more. This means that even in the most optimistic estimates it is about 236,000 deaths.
There are better options to choose from. China quickly took control of the spread of COVID-19 not to mention herd immunity (only 0.0056% of the population there was infected)
Waiting for herd immunity to occur in the UK by allowing the virus to spread freely through the population does not appear to be a good public health strategy.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- What can the Black Death teach us about the global economic consequences of an epidemic like the Corona?
- When a virus changes governance arrangements - and Israel becomes a surveillance state (and why that's good)
- What are viruses, how do they spread and how do they attack us
- An artificial intelligence system that predicts the deterioration of corona patients during hospitalization
- Nature: Science in 2020 under the sign of the Corona virus for better and for worse
17 תגובות
Does the fact that a second wave of Corona did not develop in China strengthen the argument that the majority of the population in China is vaccinated?
"But if enough people develop an immune memory to it, it will stop spreading, they are among those who have not developed immunity to it"
Someone explain this sentence to me
My brother
The Chinese put a blockade on the province of Hovei and distributed very strong kapafs to those who violate isolation.
This prevented the infection of the rest of the population in the district.
Those who are not infected - will not be infected.
Those who were infected until then - either died or are on the way to recovery or have already recovered.
This is what you see for now.
as "one" wrote
You didn't explain what China did right,
How did she stop it? Stifled the bacteria until it died?
And what will happen if another corona patient arrives from abroad in a month? Again the disease will spread like wildfire
Miracles, the Chinese claim that the cases they published about recurrent disease were due to an error in the test - they thought the person was healthy but he was not. There was also an Israeli from the Corona ship with the same story. As of now - there is no evidence of anyone who fully recovered and became infected again.
200000 reasons why not. This will be the number of dead in Israel if the disease is allowed to spread quickly: 70% are infected, 3.2% mortality (in Italy even 7%). If we somehow magically manage to isolate the 70-year-olds and older, the smokers and the other risk groups, it could drop to 50000 dead (mostly healthy young people). Still a huge number.
anonymous
There was at least one case. And maybe a few dozen. We just don't know…
China has achieved nothing, only illusions, it is in the exact same place where the first patient was infected, again before the whole story, you can't live like this forever, in the end you have to achieve herd immunity
As soon as the quarantine ends, the infection rates will rise again
The neuter is the virus like the corona
The castration from 2002 until today has not passed away from the world and neither will the corona virus
in the next decade
And the development of this vaccine will take at least two years
Therefore only herd immunity will help
Miracles
If there was such a case, then it indicates a high infection rate and many carriers in the same environment.
If I understood correctly
If they provide the public with 15-minute corona tests in serious quantities
The global epidemic can be eliminated in a matter of days
There is already a solution
Everything depends on production and supply
Every bacterium here thinks it is an expert on viruses...
Hello.
Those who are confused, to understand, then listen to what Bibi says. Bibi manages the affairs. World leaders take an example from Bibi, on how to conduct oneself during a crisis. Bibi said that gatherings are not allowed.
Bibi said you should sit at home. Bibi asked not to come into contact. This is the recommendations of the doctors and experts.
That's what Bibi says. So listen to Bibi,
This will already solve a considerable part of the illness..
Who guarantees that someone who has contracted Covid-19 and is healthy, cannot be infected again? There is at least one usable case that got sick and got well, got sick again.
In terms of the statistical parameters of infection, 'herd immunity' is no different from keeping a distance between people, only that instead of a physical distance from the carriers, a distance is kept from the virus, assuming that most of the people close to you have already been infected and cured. The difference, that you have control over the distance from others (usually) but you have no idea if the person in front of you is vaccinated with the herd vaccine or if you should stay away from him.
Response to Yoav, since by the time you reach the percentage that guarantees immunity for everyone there will be lots of dead people even in the most optimistic scenario
The death rate in the healthy population is really not half a percent. The population at risk is not only by age, it is also asthma patients, diabetes and more.
In fact, no one knows what the mortality rate is in the healthy population, there are no data on that, but even if we only take it according to age, we are talking about 0.2 percent among young people, if the population at risk among them is in isolation and does not get infected, it is even less.
It is not necessary for all 70 percent to be infected in order for the herd vaccination to be meaningful, even 10 percent is enough to significantly damage the chains of infection and reduce the chance of infection of the risk population.
You can't trust the data from China, do you really think that the corona isn't circulating there anymore?
More than that, this is the first round, the corona virus will accompany us for a long time and a large population that will be vaccinated against it can contribute to public health in the long term.
Why not? In the whole article I did not see a single reason why it is not good.