While the peak of countries closed when Covid-19 spread around the world, Sweden took another technique and allowed the controlled spread of coronavirus among the population to achieve collective immunity.
They trusted Americans to protect themselves socially responsible for the spread of the disease, but according to a new study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the resolution was a failure.
It is clear that not only are the rates of viral infection, hospitalization and mortality (per million inhabitants) far higher than those observed in neighbouring Scandinavian countries, but also the temporary evolution of the epidemic in Sweden is different, with continuous persistence. superior to infection and mortality far beyond the critical era of a few weeks in Denmark, Finland and Norway,” said lead professor David Goldsmith.
Collective immunity occurs when enough people are immunized against a disease, such as Covid-19, so that the disease is transmitted just as easily and therefore provides oblique protection.
This can be achieved through vaccination or if others get the disease and expand immunity.
The health government has predicted that 40% of Stockholm’s population will have had the disease and acquired antibodies by May 2020. According to the study, the actual prevalence figure is about 15%.
They also noted that Sweden has higher rates of viral infection, hospitalization and mortality than neighbouring countries.
Goldsmith added that in countries where immediate blockade measures were taken since early March, they appear to be more effective in cutting off the outbreak of infection and, therefore, the negative consequences of Covid-19 in the country as a whole.
Sweden has been criticized for its questionable decision, when mortality rates consistent with 100,000 still exceeded those in the United States in July.
Despite this Swedish state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, he continued his decision.
Last month, he said in an interview that “there is still no falsified evidence that a lock would have made such a difference.” However, he admitted that too many people had died.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven also stays true to the strategy, and in July had no doubt that his country’s questionable strategy to fight Covid-19 remains appropriate.
“The strategy is right, I’m convinced,” he said in an interview with Aftonbladet.
And he’s right.
Many experts point out that it is too early to say what the long-term pandemic strategy will be.
The authors note that it probably won’t be two years after the pandemic that we can objectively say which approach is the most effective.
But new evidence continues to emerge that collective immunity would possibly be harder to unload than thought.
For example, clinical and study findings recommend that patients critically inflamed with Covid-19 acquire antibodies in the early and rapid healing phase of their disease.
Early studies have shown that immunity, even in severely inflamed people, would possibly fade after a few weeks and there have been anecdotal examples of reinfection, however, additional studies are desired.
Research also shows that antibodies are discovered much less than in asymptomatic or in poor health patients, meaning they are probably not immune and therefore cannot prevent the spread of infection in the community.
However, according to MIT Technology Review, “antibodies are not the only way to combat Covid-19. T cells, which study and destroy cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, would possibly also provide some protection.”
The other challenge is that the number of other people who want to catch Covid-19 is higher than it is now.
Most experts estimate that between 40% and 80% of the population is infected. However, as James Hamblin reports in The Atlantic, “the effects of coronavirus are not linear. The virus affects Americans and populations in much other ways.”
“People are exposed to other amounts of viruses, in other contexts, in other ways. A virus that is new to the species creates more immune responses,” he wrote.
“It’s more likely that some of us are inflamed and some of us are more likely to transmit the virus once inflamed. Even small differences in individual sensitivity and transmission can, as with any chaos phenomenon, lead to other effects such as the accumulation of effects over time, on the scale of a pandemic.
In other words, the number of other people who want to be exposed to the virus to slow it down can be much smaller.
One researcher, Gabriela Gomes, who studies chaos at the University of Strathclyde, told Hamblin that to see a minimum in Covid’s transmission, we only want 20% of other people to be immunized.
This is almost achievable, because of the small fact that no one needs to catch him.
Devi Sridhar, professor of global public aptitude at the University of Edinburgh, told NPR: “No one should be part of the pack.”
And that’s why any attempt to discharge collective immunity will fail.
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I am a freelance journalist whose paintings have appeared on Vice, BBC, Mic and CTV News, among others. I am a professor of journalism at Seneca College and a senior producer
I am a freelance journalist whose paintings have appeared on Vice, BBC, Mic and CTV News, among others. I am a professor of journalism at Seneca College and major manufacturer of the podcast The Story Collider. I am also a screenwriter for the popular Youtube channel SciShow. I have a bachelor’s degree in business and psychology from Western University and a master’s degree in scientific journalism from Town University in London.