Coronavirus, the “ruling” on herd immunity in a letter in The Lancet

The “intentional” achievement ofgroup immunity it will not save us from the pandemic. In fact, betting on this strategy is “a dangerous mistake not supported by scientific evidence.” The verdict contained in the open letter written by an international group of 80 scientists is a unanimous verdict. In the document “Memorandum from John Snow”, Published in the magazine The lancet and which will be presented at the XVI World Congress of the Public Health Program 2020, the academics definitively reject the approach to the Covid-19 emergency that provides for the achievement of immunity in the low-risk population in order to protect the most vulnerable . Much better, according to the researchers, the restrictive measures and the confinement. At least until we have effective vaccines and therapies.

The open letter comes after the dissemination of a petition, signed by scientists, doctors and university professors, entitled “The Great Declaration of Barrington”, which suggests letting the virus take its course among young people and people in good health, protecting and instead, isolate the most vulnerable. The objective of this petition is precisely herd immunity, an approach to the pandemic that has found favor with the President of the United States. Donal trump, recently recovered from Covid-19 after also undergoing an experimental cure. In reality, Trump is not the first or the only one to defend this strategy. Among his first, later repentant supporters, is the British Prime Minister Boris johnson. After falling seriously ill from the Sars-CoV-2 virus on March 27, he took a step back and the first lockdowns in the UK began as well. However, the Brazilian president would not have changed his mind Jair bolsonaro who, after overcoming the disease, continue to show their contempt for restrictive measures. Brazil ranks third in number of cases after the United States and India in number of cases. Sweden, with a very low population density and a lower population than Lombardy alone, was also among the proponents of herd immunity.

However, for the signatories of the new letter, closures and restraints are the only safest way against emergency. This large group of experts brought together various specialized knowledge (public health, epidemiology, medicine, pediatrics, sociology, virology, infectious diseases, health systems, psychology, psychiatry, health policy and mathematics) and finally concluded that group immunity is not the form correct. Even if the alternative will require a lot of sacrifices. “In the short term, continued restrictions are likely to be needed to reduce transmission,” they write. “The goal, they continue, is to effectively suppress SARS-CoV-2 infections and bring them to low levels to allow rapid detection of localized outbreaks.” The authors acknowledge that, understandably, the restrictions in place have resulted, in addition to severe economic shock, also a general demoralization and a decline in confidence and that in the face of a second wave of infection there is renewed interest in so-called “natural” herd immunity approaches. But this, according to scientists, would actually lead to totally losing control of this pandemic.

According to the authors of the letter, history has taught us precisely this. In fact, past experiences have shown that “it is not possible to limit outbreaks to certain sectors of society, and it is practically impossible and highly immoral to isolate large sectors of the population,” the scholars explain. S.Not to mention the fact that there are still great doubts about the duration of natural immunity to Sars-CoV-2. There is a real risk that the pandemic will not end and that “there will be repeated waves of transmission over several years,” the academics warn. This means putting vulnerable populations at risk in the indefinite future: “Herd immunity strategies based on natural infections would in fact cause recurrent epidemics, as occurs with many infectious diseases before mass vaccination,” the researchers explain, according to Immunity. Collective disease based on natural infections runs the risk of having an impact on the workforce as a whole and may compromise the ability of health systems to provide routine and urgent care. Therefore, the way forward is to control the spread of the virus until the population can be vaccinated.. “The evidence is very clear: controlling community spread is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapies arrive in the coming months. We cannot afford distractions that undermine an effective response. It is essential to act urgently on the basis of the evidence ”, conclude the researchers.

The letter in The Lancet

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