{"id":14362,"date":"2020-05-11T16:18:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T20:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=14362"},"modified":"2020-05-17T23:33:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T03:33:38","slug":"covid-19-herd-immunity-will-not-work-without-a-vaccine-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/covid-19-herd-immunity-will-not-work-without-a-vaccine-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Herd Immunity Will Not Work Without A Vaccine: Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As some Canadian provinces release plans to reopen<\/a> amid the <\/span>COVID-19 pandemic<\/span><\/a>, you may have heard people talking about the concept of herd immunity as a key consideration in the design of an offramp from lockdown measures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But without answers to questions about who is immune to contracting <\/span>COVID-19<\/span><\/a>, and for how long, experts say that relying on herd immunity is not a viable option for Canada right now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Herd immunity<\/span><\/a> refers to the idea that when enough people in a population become immune to a disease, it can\u2019t effectively spread. In that situation, there aren\u2019t enough uninfected people who can get it and infect others. That widespread immunity can come from a vaccine, or from enough people getting sick that they develop antibodies. But in the case of COVID-19, we don\u2019t have a vaccine \u2014 and we don\u2019t know if people who contract the disease once are immune, and if so, for how long.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection,\u201d according to the <\/span>World Health Organization<\/span><\/a> (WHO).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s part of what makes herd immunity a dangerous concept in the absence of an effective vaccine, says Dr. Patrick McDonald, a pediatric neurosurgeon at B.C. Children\u2019s Hospital and faculty member of the University of British Columbia\u2019s National Core for Neuroethics.<\/span><\/p>\n

WATCH: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada\u2019s differences precluded clear rules for reopening. Story continues below<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If Canada were to target natural herd immunity as a strategic goal, assuming a one-per-cent fatality rate, around 370,000 people could die. If the fatality rate is higher, even more people could die. The Canadian government has\u00a0increased the COVID-19 fatality rate\ufeff<\/a>\u00a0to 5.5 per cent based on current data, but Dr. Theresa Tam, the country\u2019s chief public health officer, has said it could be as low as one percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven thinking about herd immunity as a way to deal with it is a relatively dangerous concept,\u201d McDonald told HuffPost Canada. \u201cYou might be putting a whole bunch of people at risk, and frankly, [seeing] a whole bunch of people dying, and at the end of the day, there\u2019s actually no benefit to it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think from a pure \u2018how are we ever going to get out of this\u2019 perspective, we\u2019re still very much going to be dependent on the development of an effective vaccine,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are several <\/span>COVID-19 vaccines<\/span><\/a> under development around the world, but it could be months \u2014 or over a year \u2014 before one is proven effective, safe, and distributed widely. Some experts estimate a vaccine is 12 to 18 months away.<\/span><\/p>\n

And with Canada\u2019s economy tanking \u2014 the country <\/span>lost two million jobs<\/span><\/a> in April alone, according to Statistics Canada \u2014 some may be tempted to embrace a strategy that will get us on track to our <\/span>new normal<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But many experts agree it\u2019s not worth the risks to people\u2019s lives. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Relying on herd immunity isn\u2019t an option at this point for Canada, agreed Alison Thompson, an associate professor at the University of Toronto\u2019s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to really know whether that would work is whether we have the science to say that people are acquiring immunity when they contract the illness, and we just don\u2019t know that at this point,\u201d she told HuffPost.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said it\u2019s a \u201crisky proposition\u201d to base any reopening strategy on immunity acquired through contracting COVID-19.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it wouldn\u2019t be ethical to rely on that, because it does rely on people getting ill in the first place,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quebec toyed with the concept of <\/span>herd immunity in children<\/span><\/a> as a justification to <\/span>reopen schools<\/span><\/a>. Horacio Arruda, the province\u2019s public health director, said allowing children to contract COVID-19 and become immunized would help wider society.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe focus we have is on continuing to prevent spread through social distancing measures…Justin Trudeau<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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But children who contract the virus, even if they don\u2019t display strong symptoms, can still give it to parents or older relatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

McDonald points to the United Kingdom, which initially embraced a strategy of letting people go outside to <\/span>develop herd immunity<\/span><\/a>, but quickly pivoted amid criticism that the strategy would overwhelm hospitals and was already causing more infections and deaths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some countries, like Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., have floated the idea of\u00a0 \u201cimmunity passports\u201d for people who have recovered from COVID-19 to go back to work or travel.<\/span><\/p>\n

The WHO warned against such passports in a <\/span>briefing note<\/span><\/a>, saying \u201cAt this point in the pandemic, there is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an \u2018immunity passport\u2019 or \u2018risk-free certificate.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The organization added that if people assume they are immune to a second infection, they may ignore public health advice, potentially increasing the risk of continued transmission. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At a press conference at the end of April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he doesn\u2019t believe any provinces have a reopening plan that hinges on people being immune to COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus we have is on continuing to prevent spread through social distancing measures, through PPE in workplaces, through various measures of protecting Canadians as we move forward,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added that Canada\u2019s <\/span>COVID-19 Immunity Task Force<\/span><\/a> will examine the role that immunity could play in our reopening, but while the science is still unclear, it is important to act cautiously.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With files from the Canadian Press\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some Canadian provinces release plans to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have heard people talking about the concept of herd immunity as a key consideration in the design of an offramp from lockdown measures.\u00a0 But without answers to questions about who is immune to contracting COVID-19, and for how long, experts say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[120,162,161,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15311,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14362\/revisions\/15311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}