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Harvard researchers predict “social distancing” by 2022
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That is why the weather can be an important ally against the virus.
Researchers from around the world are seeking new knowledge in the fight against the coronavirus. Now American researchers have found something that could help us a lot in the summer.
What is normal after the corona virus? Harvard University experts believe that social distancing measures will continue to be important for years to come. They also play on the stage of sudden relaxation.
MPeople around the world will need to maintain some degree of social detachment by 2022 to prevent Covid-19 from spreading again and overwhelming health systems. This is the assumption of a group of Harvard researchers around the epidemiologist Edward Goldstein.
The sudden abolition of “social distancing” measures could risk delaying and possibly exacerbating the climax of the epidemic, the scientists warned in an article published Tuesday in the journal “Science.” The magazine works on the principle of peer review.
According to the article (“Projecting the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the post-pandemic period”) The course of the pandemic will depend on unanswered questions: Will the spread of the virus change with the seasons? What immunity will people develop after being infected? And does exposure to coronaviruses that cause mild illness offer protection against the pathogen that causes Covid-19?
Harvard researchers used computer models to simulate how the pandemic could develop. One possibility is that strict social distancing, followed by intense work as a public health detective, can detect and eradicate the virus. This was the case for Sars-CoV-1, which caused a worldwide outbreak in 2003. However, given the large number of confirmed cases of the new pathogen, which is approaching the two million mark worldwide, this result It is considered increasingly unlikely, scientists explain.
Seasonal illness
They are more likely to believe that the virus persists like the flu and spreads seasonally throughout the world.
In an investigators model, an epidemic peak that was as large as in the case of uncontrolled spread occurred after the end of 20 weeks of measures to limit the spread.
“Social distance was so effective that virtually no population immunity was built up,” the researchers said in this setting. If the virus is transmitted earlier in the colder months than in the warmer months, a delay in reaching fall could increase the burden on health systems, they wrote.
To avoid such consequences, social distancing measures may be necessary until 2022, unless the capacity of the hospital is increased or effective vaccines or treatments are developed against the new coronavirus.
Germany slowly tries to return to normal
In Germany, the Leopoldina National Academy has just made recommendations to return to normal. Researchers suggested Monday that schools should be reopened “as soon as possible,” initially for younger children. The use of a protective mask for public transport should be mandatory, data collection also had to be “substantially” improved using Corona applications.
The 26-person working group, including Leopoldina President Gerald Haug, the economy Lars Feld and sociologist Armin Nassehi, continue to regard “maximum containment of the spread of the pandemic” as the highest priority. Even if the Corona crisis continued to determine economic and social life in the coming months, strategies for the gradual return to normality would have to be developed.
The prerequisites for relaxation are: new infections stabilize at a low level, the health system is not overburdened, infected people are increasingly identified, known protection measures are “disciplined”.
