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Dr .. Osama Abu Al-Rub
With the outbreak of the new Corona virus that caused the “Covid 19” disease in the world, Sweden implemented a different policy than the rest of the countries to face the epidemic, since it did not impose quarantine, and applied flexible measures to achieve the “collective immunity”, was this experiment successful? Can it be applied in Arab countries?
The “collective immunity” strategy is based on the idea that when as many people as possible contract a disease like SK, most of them will recover, despite potentially significant deaths, and then have immunity to the virus, which it will finally help reduce the disease.
Perhaps the closest analogy to the “crowd immunity” strategy is to allow the virus to “feed” on as many people as possible, creating immunity against it in society, and the result is that it retracts and is defeated after that is “satiated”.
The quarantine and isolation strategy is based on the principle of starvation, according to a member of the Egyptian Society for Allergy and Immunology in Cairo, Professor Magdy Badran, in previous statements to the German Media Authority “Deutsche Welle”, when people infected with the virus stay away from others and cannot transmit it to anyone. Another, this will lead to “starvation of the new coronavirus,” which means denying the virus access to individual cells, and thus the number of people who contract the disease decreases at the same time and the virus cannot find anyone. enters and dies.
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Mortality
On the other hand, and until the herd’s immunity spreads, the virus will have infected millions and killed thousands, exposing this strategy to criticism from health experts. Earlier, the “Guardian” quoted a senior British National Health Service official that with an infection rate of 80%, the death rate will reach more than half a million people (in Britain).
Let’s start with Sweden, which was an exception in the handling of the western countries of the Corona crisis, since instead of imposing a quarantine or declaring a state of emergency, it depended a lot on the understanding of the population to adopt a policy of divergence social, according to an article published by the American magazine “Foreign Affairs” by the writers Niels Carlson and Charlotta Stern. And Daniel B. Clay.
To date, the number of coronavirus infections in Sweden has exceeded 28,000 and 3,500 deaths, according to WorldMeter.
Swedish authorities have imposed flexible restrictions to flatten the curve, such as avoiding meetings of more than 50 people and distance education in high schools and universities. The Swedes have responded to these flexible measures and have changed their behavior.
The article indicated that Swedish authorities have not formally announced that their goal is to achieve herd immunity, although most scientists believe this may happen when more than 60% of the population is infected with the virus, but increased immunity. it is undoubtedly part of the government’s broader strategy, or at least a potential outcome of keeping schools, restaurants, and most businesses open.
The chief virologist at the Swedish Public Health Agency, Anders Tijnell, predicted that Stockholm could achieve “collective immunity” earlier this month. According to behavioral assumptions updated daily, according to Stockholm mathematician Tom Bretton, achieving 40% of the herd’s immunity in the capital may be enough to stop the spread of the virus in mid-June.
According to the article, Sweden’s policy has received approval from some sectors to maintain an almost normal economic situation and a lower death rate compared to many European countries such as Italy, Spain and Great Britain. But he also criticized it from other circles, given that its mortality rate surpassed the rest of the northern countries, not to mention the lack of protection for the elderly and immigrant populations.
However, Swedish authorities have said the country’s high death rate will decrease over time, and when most of the world faces a second deadly wave, Sweden will have left the worst behind.
According to the article, Sweden’s response to the virus was not ideal, but it managed to strengthen the immunity of young people and healthy people, that is, those with a lower risk of complications from the Corona virus, maintaining the flatness of the curve. The situation did not spiral out of control in the country’s intensive care units, either, and medical personnel were not overburdened.
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The dark side
But also in Sweden, the homes of the elderly were the most affected by the Coruña epidemic, which led the country to recognize that it had not protected its elderly.
“We have not been able to protect the elderly … It is a failure of the entire community … We must learn from it, we have not yet finished this epidemic,” Swedish Health Minister Lina Hallingren said in a statement to television. state.
When Sweden crossed the 3,000 death threshold with the emerging coronavirus, almost half had occurred in nursing homes.
And local media have spoken in recent weeks about working conditions in nursing homes that lack means of protection, to the point that some preferred not to work, and some homes suffered from shortages of employees.
The testimonies showed that some of the elderly became infected upon entering the hospital to receive other treatments, and then returned to the house where they transferred the virus without their knowledge.
And in an opinion essay by Carl T. Bergstrom and Natalie Dean published in “The New York Times,” Sweden has already seen far more deaths than its neighbors.
The authors said that achieving herd immunity without a vaccine would kill millions. Even after gaining access, this does not mean that the virus has stopped, as the number of infections will continue to increase.
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Arabian countries
And about herd immunity and its applicability in the Arab world, Dr. Alia Abu Kiwan, researcher at Heidelberg Hospital in Germany, said in previous statements to the organization “Deutsche Welle” that the application of this methodology is a great risk, especially for the elderly and people with weak immunity, and therefore in many countries. She opposes the implementation of this strategy because she does not want to sacrifice those critical groups.
Dr. Alia added that this matter will lead to a large number of injuries, which can put pressure on the health sector, noting that Germany, despite all its enormous potential, preferred to disable the economy for an entire month, because He does not want to risk the health or life of the elderly or the weak, just the opposite. I decided to do more to protect and treat them.
In turn, Professor Badran believes that the idea of collective immunity will not be beneficial now and added: “I do not accept that we sacrifice the death of a million to live 100 million. But perhaps this strategy will be beneficial in the future if the virus mutates and becomes seasonal or endemic, then its time will gain public immunity against it, It becomes a simple disease. “
We need a vaccine
Therefore, experts believe that, based on current data, it is not possible to achieve herd immunity without developing a vaccine, which was confirmed by a recent French study.
The study was conducted by the Pasteur Institute and found that only 4.4% of the French population (2.8 million people) was infected with the Corona virus, which is much more than the official case count, but it is much less than the number necessary to achieve collective immunity.
The Pasteur Institute monitored the infection rate starting May 11, the day France began easing its general isolation measures of nearly two months.
The researchers said, in the study published last Wednesday in the journal “Science,” that “almost 65% of the population should be immune if we want to control the pandemic with immunity alone.”
“As a result, our results show that without a vaccine, the herd’s immunity alone will not be enough to prevent a second wave at the end of general isolation, so effective control measures must be applied after May 11,” they say. investigators.
The Pasteur Institute said the general isolation that France began on March 17 led to a sharp decrease in the rate of reproduction of the Coronavirus, as it decreased from 2.9 to 0.67 during the 55-day shutdown there.
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Spain too
A Spanish study published on Wednesday concluded similar results and said that around 5% of the population was infected and that there is no collective immunity in Spain, which in turn began to gradually reduce general isolation measures. The study was published by the Spanish government.
“The study found that 5% of Spaniards were infected with the virus, just over two million people,” said Health Minister Salvador Ella. Some studies have shown that some of the affected people will not have any symptoms, but can still transmit the disease.
Therefore, the currently available data does not encourage the application of the collective immunity strategy, and it seems that its price will be high in terms of deaths, especially among the elderly, as happened in Sweden. There are also doubts that herd immunity could originally be achieved without developing a vaccine for SK.
