STOCKHOLM, 9 August 2020 – People enjoy themselves at a lakeside beach in Stockholm, capital of … [+]
While most countries became entrenched when Covid-19 spread rapidly around the world, Sweden took a different approach and was able to allow the controlled spread of coronavirus among the population in an attempt to achieve herd immunity.
They relied on individuals at responsible social distances and slowed the spread of the disease, but, according to a new study published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, this decision has been a failure.
“It is clear that not only are the rates of viral infection, hospitalization and mortality (per million population) much higher than those seen in neighboring Scandinavian countries, but also that the time course of the epidemic in Sweden is different, with persistent persistence of higher infection and mortality far beyond the few critical period of weeks seen in Denmark, Finland and Norway, “said lead author Professor David Goldsmith.
Re-immunity is when enough people are immune to a disease, such as Covid-19, that the disease can not be so easily transmitted and thus provides indirect protection
It can be achieved either through vaccination or when enough people catch the disease and develop immunity.
Health authorities predicted that 40% of Stockholm’s population would have contracted the disease and received anti-antibodies by May 2020. According to the study, the actual prevalence form is only about 15%.
They also noted that Sweden had higher rates of viral infection, hospitalization and mortality compared to neighboring countries.
Goldsmith added that in countries where rapid closure measures have been introduced since early March, there appears to be more success in reducing the risk of infection and thus the harmful effects of Covid-19 on the country as a whole.
Sweden has received much criticism for its controversial decision, especially when mortality rates per 100,000 still surpassed the US in July.
Despite this, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has stood by his decision.
Last month, he stated in an interview that there is still “no strong evidence that a lockdown would have made much of a difference”. However, he admitted that too many had died.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven also sticks to the strategy, saying in July that he no doubt has his highly controversial strategy for his country to fight Covid-19 remains appropriate.
“The strategy is good, I am completely convinced of it,” he said in an interview with Aftonbladet.
And he could have been right.
Many experts point out that it is still too early to say which pandemic strategy will be the best in the long run.
The authors note that it will probably not be until two years after the pandemic that we can objectively say which method was most effective.
But new evidence remains that herd immunity may be harder to achieve than previously thought.
For example, clinical and research studies suggest only severely infected Covid-19 patients receive antibodies in the immediate and early recovery phase of their disease.
Early research has shown that immunity, even in people who were severely infected, can disappear after a few weeks and we have seen cases of reinfection.
Research also shows that antibodies are much less commonly found in only mildly ill than asymptomatic patients, meaning that they are probably not immune, and thus cannot stop the spread of infection among the community.
However, according to the MIT Technology Review“Antibodies are not the only way humans can fight against Covid-19. T cells, which seek out and destroy cells with SARS-CoV-2, could also provide some protection. ”
The other problem is the number of people that Covid-19 has to catch is higher than what it is at the moment.
Most experts estimate that between 40% and 80% of the population must be infected. As James Hamblin reports in The Atlantic, “the effects of coronavirus are not linear. The virus affects individuals and populations in very different ways. ”
“People are exposed to different amounts of the virus, in different contexts, through different routes. A virus that is new to the species creates more diversity in immune responses, ”he wrote.
“Some of us are more susceptible to infection, and others are more likely to transmit the virus once it has been infected. Even small differences in individual sensitivity and transmission can, as with any chaos phenomenon, lead to very different outcomes if the effects are compounded over time, on the scale of a pandemic. “
In other words, the number of people who need to be exposed to the virus to carry it can be a lot less.
One researcher, Gabriela Gomes, who studies chaos at the University of Strathclyde, told Hamblin that in order to see a decline in Covid’s transmission, we only need 20% of the people to be immune.
Which seems almost feasible, except for the small fact that no one wants to catch it.
As Devi Sridhar, a professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, told NPR: “Nobody wants to be part of the herd”.
And that is probably why all attempts to achieve herd immunity will fail.
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