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The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Monday that “It is not an option” let the new coronavirus circulate freely so that the population acquires the herd immunity, as some have suggested.
“Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy to respond to an epidemic, much less a pandemic. It is scientifically and ethically problematic “said the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a press conference.
The new coronavirus pandemic has caused at least 1,077,849 dead in the world since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease in December, according to a balance established this Monday based on official sources.
“Letting go of a dangerous virus, about which we do not understand everything, is simply unethical. It is not an option ”, insisted the WHO.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained that the world does not know much about the immunity enjoyed by people who have contracted the virus, and He stressed that some individuals were re-infected.
“Most people infected with the virus develop an immune response in the first few weeks, but we do not know if this response is strong or durable, or if it differs from one person to another,” he added.
He stressed that the concept of herd immunity is used in vaccination campaigns and recalled that for smallpox it is required that 95% of the population be vaccinated so that the remaining 5% is protected.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 37,575,650 people have contracted the disease. Of these, at least 25,963,400 were recovered, according to authorities.
This number of positive diagnosed cases only reflects a part of all infections due to the disparate policies of different countries to diagnose cases, some only do so with those people who need hospitalization and in a large number of poor countries the ability to testing is limited.
This Monday and since the beginning of the epidemic, Latin America and the Caribbean added 369,292 deaths (10,112,390 infections), Europe 241,960 (6,503,086), the United States and Canada 224,388 (7,945,141), Asia 152,841 (9,204,642 ), Middle East 50,289 (2,198,577), Africa 38,085 (1,579,352), and Oceania 994 (32,468).
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