The herd immunity strategy for handling the Covid-19 pandemic has many risks.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW YORK – A study found that efforts to achieve herd immunity (community immunity) to Covid-19 is an impractical public health strategy. Moreover, immunity is not perfect and having a wide exposure in society is certainly very undesirable.
That conclusion came from the results of a study investigating suppression and mitigation approaches to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Concept community immunity It’s tantalizing because this is the end of the Covid-19 threat, “said the lead study author from the University of Georgia in the US, Toby Brett.
However, according to Brett, since the approach aims at avoiding disease elimination, there will need to be constant adjustments of social distancing policies to ensure enough people are infected at any given point. The research team is trying to determine if and how countries can achieve herd immunity, without overburdening the health care system?
Researchers developed an age-stratified disease transmission model to simulate SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the UK, with controlled spread of isolation from youthful individuals and varying degrees of social distancing. The simulation found that if no control measures were taken, the UK would experience as many as 410,000 Covid-19-related deaths, of which 350,000 were from individuals over 60.
Then, the researchers found that using a suppression strategy, mortality was estimated to be much less, namely 62 thousand individuals aged over 60 years and 43 thousand under 60 years. If self-isolation involvement is high (defined as a reduction of at least 70 percent in transmission), suppression can be achieved within two months regardless of social distancing measures.
In fact, the condition is potentially faster if schools, workplaces and social gatherings remain closed. To achieve herd immunity, Great Britain will need to adjust social distancing levels accordingly real time to ensure that the number of sick people equals the availability of hospitals.
“If the virus spreads too quickly, hospitals will be overwhelmed, but if it spreads too slowly, the epidemic will be suppressed without reaching herd immunity,” the study said.
The research team noted that much is not known about the nature, duration, and effectiveness of Covid-19 immunity. The team warns that if immunity is imperfect, then there is a high chance of reinfection. Therefore, it is very unlikely to achieve herd immunity via a broad paprant.
“We realize that there is still much to learn about Covid-19 transmission and immunity,” said the research team.
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