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A new study has stated that social distancing may be necessary until 2022 to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Scientists have warned that while one-time social distancing can help curb critical cases within hospitals, the infection rate will increase once measures are lifted.
This will put great pressure on hospitals, and research says the only way to avoid this is to follow social distancing on and off until 2022.
The new modeling study indicates that the total incidence of the virus through 2025 will crucially depend on the duration of human immunity, of which scientists currently know little.
The researchers say longitudinal serological studies are urgently required to determine the population’s degree of immunity, if immunity declines, and at what rate.
Experts believe Covid-19 is unlikely to follow its closest cousin, Sars-CoV-1, and be eradicated by intensive public health measures after causing a brief pandemic.
Instead, transmission could resemble pandemic influenza circulating seasonally.
Stephen Kissler, a postdoctoral fellow at the TH Harvard TH School of Public Health, Grad Lab, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and his colleagues used data on the seasonality of other known human coronaviruses, assuming some cross-immunity between them and Sars- CoV- 2 – to build a multi-year interaction model.
They used the model to investigate how long social distancing measures must be maintained to maintain control of Covid-19 by projecting its potential dynamics over the next five years.
According to their simulations, they say the key factor that modulates the incidence of the virus in the coming years is the rate at which the virus’s immunity declines, something that scientists have not yet determined.
The researchers report that, in all simulated scenarios, including single and intermittent social distancing, infections reappear when the simulated social distancing measures are lifted.
Their model indicates that when social distancing relaxes as the virus’s transmissibility increases in the fall, an intense outbreak of winter can occur, overlapping with the flu season and exceeding the capacity of hospitals.
Another scenario suggests a resurgence in Covid-19 that could occur in the future until 2025.
The researchers say the new treatments may alleviate the need for strict social distancing, but in the absence of these, surveillance and intermittent distancing may need to continue in 2022.
This would give hospitals time to increase critical care capacity while allowing immunity to build up in the population.
The authors write in the journal Science: “Our goal in modeling such policies is not to support them but to identify possible trajectories of the epidemic under alternative approaches.”
They say: “Additional interventions, including expanded critical care capacity and effective therapy, would improve the success of intermittent distancing and accelerate the acquisition of collective immunity.
“Longitudinal serological studies are urgently needed to determine the extent and duration of immunity to Sars-CoV-2.
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“Even in the case of an apparent elimination, surveillance of Sars-CoV-2 must be maintained since a resurgence of contagion could be possible until 2024.”
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “This is an excellent study that uses mathematical models to explore Covid-19 dynamics over a period of several years, in contrast to previously published studies that have focused on the coming weeks or months.
“It is important to recognize that it is a model. It is consistent with current data, but it is nonetheless based on a number of assumptions, for example about acquired immunity, that have not yet been confirmed.”
“Therefore, it should be considered that the study suggests possible scenarios rather than making firm predictions.”
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