The collective immunity factor, in particular, if some cities and regions get it earlier than expected and have higher-than-expected coverage over covid-19, has attracted more attention in recent times.
While this assumption is true, however, it still leaves the world with really significant and demanding situations and demands a vigorous and relentless fight against the pandemic.
Evidence of collective immunity can be seen in Sweden, for example, where the number of cases and mortality rates have decreased, Swedes are not yet wearing a mask, or are still committed to excessive social estrangement.
In London, bars, cinemas and many other options are open, but the fitness scene becomes stable, with a low mortality rate.
Of course, Sweden and the southeast of England were heavily affected by coronavirus at first, so if they acquired collective immunity, it is possibly because they had a higher percentage of the inflamed population and some form of protection is emerging.
Some researchers recommend that regions obtain at least partial collective immunity to 20% exposure, while previous estimates recommended that exposure of up to 70% would be required. If this is true, this can be very clever news for the hardest-hit areas.
But there are caveats. First, many cases of collective immunity invoke the concept of “superpropators,” according to which a small number of other people are guilty of a disproportionate amount of contagion. It may have been bartenders, church choirs and bus drivers who transmitted the virus to so many others at the start of the pandemic.
Now that those computers have been fully exposed and have acquired immunity, it can be much more complicated to distribute the virus.
This logic makes sense, for a problem: namely, that the identities of potential super diffusers can be replaced over time. For example, maybe the choruses were super announcers before winter, but with most of the choral songs stopped, security guards may be the new super announcers.
After all, air travel is increasing. Or the arrival of winter and the colder weather can turn the waiters into a new set of super spreaders, as more people dine inside.
In other words, collective immunity can simply be a state of event transitoryness. The economic and social adjustments caused by the virus themselves can induce a rotation of possible superpropators, thus nullifying some of the coverage acquired.
A similar challenge is that spaces with collective immunity are vulnerable to the “invasion” of less protected parts of the country. Perhaps New York’s hardest-hit city enjoys partial collective immunity, but as the city goes months, foreigners will start passing and living there, canceling some of the existing protection points.
Meanwhile, New Yorkers themselves will be more at risk and will be exposed to higher doses of the virus. Their existing, while useful, degrees of immunity will not make them invulnerable in the face of any bureaucracy and degrees of exposure imaginable.
Again, there is no guarantee of permanence in terms of collective immunity.
Another challenge is global in nature and can be very serious. An imaginable motivation for the speculation of collective immunity is that a significant portion of the population had already been exposed to similar coronaviruses, which gives it partial immunity against covid-19.
In essence, this “tank” of Americans helped to slow down or prevent the spread of the virus earlier than expected.
However, there is a trap. If this is true, this speculation that the virus spreads even faster between computers with little or no protection. (Technically, if R 2, 5, but let’s say that 50% of the main population has protection, there is an R of something like five for the unprotected population, to get the aggregate R in 2, 5).
So, if some parts of the world have less coverage that opposes cross-immunity, covid-19 is likely to wreak even more havoc, and very quickly.
Again, all this falls within the realm of the hypothetical. But this situation can contribute to the large number of covid-19 victims in much of Latin America, and perhaps in India and South Africa. Collective immunity, as a general concept, can mean a virus more harmful to certain spaces and subgroups of the population.
Continued follow-up of Sweden, southeastern England and New York will likely reveal whether speculation of collective immunity is true. But no matter how this evidence turns out, now is the time to let your guard down.
Tyler Cowen is a columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University. His books include “Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero”.
Bloomberg
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