How collective immunity works and whether it will help tame the coronavirus - ForumDaily
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How collective immunity works and whether it will help tame the coronavirus

As the 2019-nCoV coronavirus spreads over most of the globe, debates about the effectiveness of so-called collective (group, herd) immunity continue to revolve in public health and politics. What is this strategy for combating an infectious disease? Tells Fox News.

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“Herd immunity is protection from an infectious disease in a community when a large percentage—usually at least 60%—is immune,” John White, MD, chief medical officer for WebMD, told Fox News. “People become immune either through infection and recovery—survival—or through vaccination. Because most people in a community become immune, fewer people are likely to become infected.”

But the gluttony of COVID-19 infection threatens to destroy health care infrastructure, prompting most experts to argue that without a vaccine, there is more likely to be more harm than good.

“Herd immunity works best when we have a vaccine and a disease that doesn't have serious consequences,” White continued. “The lack of a vaccine against coronavirus reduces herd immunity, and for some people the disease has serious consequences.”

Even when a large part of the West in early March hastened to restrict meetings in public places and issue orders to stay at home, the United Kingdom caused a great uproar, supporting a different strategy based on collective immunity. Instead of imposing strict measures of social distance and ordering public places, the authorities imposed soft restrictions in the hope that a sufficient number of the population would develop protection that would contain the spread. The other day, the country abandoned this plan and also introduced restrictive measures.

“The UK initially said it would rely on herd immunity, but quickly corrected course when modeling showed its hospital system would not be able to cope with all serious cases,” White explained. “Even if 80% or 90% get mildly ill, 10% is a large number of people for the health care system.”

On the subject: He helped to eradicate smallpox and make the film 'Infection': the epidemiologist told how to defeat the coronavirus

However, other countries, such as the Netherlands, continue to apply this strategy, despite the fact that it is considered risky.

“The reality is that in the near future a large part of the Dutch population will be infected with this virus,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in mid-March. “We can slow the spread of the virus by creating immunity in a controlled group.”

He also noted that it could take “months or more” to create collective immunity, and therefore, during this time, the goal of the authorities will be to protect people at high risk, such as older people and people with weakened immunity.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the nature of the coronavirus pandemic requires significantly more action. Many experts consider this approach theoretically justified, but unreasonable, given the lack of a vaccine and the idea that it will take at least a year to develop a vaccine.

“The idea behind herd immunity is that when enough people and percentages of the population become infected and become immune to the virus, its spread will naturally stop because not as many people will be able to get it and pass it on to others. Herd immunity is primarily created by vaccines: a collective or group becomes immunized, said Dr. David Nazarian, a Beverly Hills physician, diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and founder of My Concierge MD. — The problem with herd immunity without a vaccine is the overload and stress of the healthcare system. The reason they are social distancing at this time is because too many people are getting infected at once and a percentage of them require hospitalization, we don't have enough health care workers, hospital beds, and ventilators to care for everyone who is sick. This is what we are seeing now in Italy.”

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In addition, Dr. Stanley Weiss, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Rutgers School of Medicine in New Jersey, emphasized that there is still too much unknown around the new virus, the models are still incomplete, which means that collective immunity is simply too risky rely on in a crisis.

“We expect that over time this will help reduce the spread of COVID-19, based on the assumption that people who are infected and recover will have protective immunity,” Weiss said. “However, with SARS, protective immunity has a limited duration. Thus, precise time dynamics can be very important. For example, there may be repeating waves. We hope, but we don’t yet know for sure, that these people have completely defeated COVID-19 and will not become infected again.”

He also noted that collective immunity will be effective only if the virus does not change in such a way that it can bypass this protective immunity, and that other similar, but different from the current and other known coronaviruses, will not appear in the future.

However, experts also note that collective immunity has repeatedly played a key role in history.

“Herd immunity and vaccination have eradicated two highly (contagious) diseases: rinderpest and human smallpox. The verdict is in on the coronavirus, said Shaheen Lakhan, vice president of research and development for neuroscience and progressive diseases in Boston. “This will depend on how immunogenic our body’s response to the virus is, that is, how much protection the antibodies will provide against re-infection.”

And since the vaccine is unlikely to appear in the near future, healthcare providers still hope that collective immunity will become one of the factors that will soon slow down the spread.

“Vaccines are an artificial way of immunity that helps a person cope with the virus, while infections are the most natural and effective way to provide immunity. Both types of immunity last a very long time,” Nazaryan added. - The natural form of immunity from actual infection is usually the most effective, as it induces greater antibody production and protection against future infections. Ultimately, without a vaccine, a large percentage of the population will become infected with the 2019-nCoV virus, and we will achieve herd immunity.”

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