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With no treatments available, interventions have focused on contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing . A mathematical model by a group of American epidemiologists assures that the Wuhan coronavirus will need Public Health care for at least two more years, until 2022, with intermittent distancing measures .

The required intensity, duration and urgency of these responses will depend both on how to develop initial pandemic wave as the dynamics of subsequent transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 . Raúl Ortiz de Lejarazu, virologist and former director of the National Flu Center, assures that "we have to consider the possibility that the virus stays with us for longer than we want . So we must train unconfinement well."

In the middle of the national debate on the de-escalation of measures, while other countries lengthen their confinement, the borders between countries remain closed and only China seems to take steps towards that return to normality, a study emerges that puts on the table the need for whether we will return the strict insulation measures in the new waves . Science publishes the work of the departments of Epidemiology and Immunology and Infectious Diseases of Harvard of the Boston School of Public Health that stresses that this period is only one of the battles against a virus that has come to war and to remain among us, until a vaccine can send you to oblivion, as it already happened to polio, for example.

Stephen Kissler, the main person in charge of the work, explains to AFP that "we have discovered that it is probable that the social distancing measures used once are insufficient to keep the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 within the limits of the attention capacity criticism in the United States. "

This is research that has employed a computational model that has established that SARS-CoV-2 will behave like the closely related coronaviruses that cause the common cold, with higher transmission rates in the colder months . Therefore, they estimate that the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 could resemble that of pandemic influenza by circulating seasonally after having caused the current global wave of infection. "What seems to be necessary in the absence of other types of treatments are the intermittent periods of social distancing, " added Kissler.

Such a scenario could reflect the previous appearance of known human coronaviruses of zoonotic origin , for example, human coronavirus (HCoV) OC43. Therefore, the distinction between these scenarios is important to formulate an effective and sustained Public Health response to SARS-CoV-2. In the paper, they state that, after the initial pandemic wave, SARS-CoV-2 could follow its closest genetic relative, SARS-CoV-1, and be eradicated by intensive measures after causing a brief, but intense, epidemic. Although, they also point out that public health authorities consider this scenario to be unlikely.

Checks for the presence of the virus

The authors of the work assure that generalized viral tests would be required to determine when the risk thresholds have been crossed to reactivate the distancing . Epidemiological surveillance becomes vital to act on time. "By allowing transmission periods that reach a higher prevalence than would be possible, they allow for an accelerated acquisition of collective immunity," argue co-author Marc Lipsitch.

Conversely, too much social distancing without respite can be a bad thing. Under a modeled scenario " social distancing was so effective that practically no population immunity is built ." Hence the need for an intermittent approach.

The duration and intensity of blockages can be relaxed as treatments and vaccines become available . But in its absence, intermittent distancing would give hospitals time to increase critical care capacity to cope with the increase in cases that would occur when the measures are alleviated.

Test immunity

Currently, the best closely related coronavirus-based assumptions are that it will confer some immunity, for about a year . There may also be some cross-protective immunity against COVID-19 if a person is infected with a common cold that causes coronavirus.

The antibody tests that have just landed on the market [remember that Spain Health claims to have bought six million and have distributed nearly two] serve to know if a person has previously been infected and become a crucial tool in response to the ace vital questions about immunity, they argued, and a vaccine remains the ultimate weapon. But much of this is still unknown: what is the level of immunity acquired by a previous infection and how long does it last , as the authors emphasize.

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