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Public health strategies that rely on group immunity to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are

a "dangerous fallacy",

warns a group of 80 international scientists in an open letter published this Wednesday in the journal "The Lancet".

Allowing the virus to spread among sectors of the population with fewer risk factors, while protecting the most vulnerable people, is a route that

"is not supported by scientific evidence,"

the researchers warn.

"The evidence is very clear:

controlling

community

infections

of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies, until effective vaccines and therapeutic methods arrive in the coming months", consider the signatories of the text.

They include experts in public health, epidemiology, pediatrics, sociology and virology, among other disciplines.

In the text they emphasize that

it is

still

not clear how long immunity

against the coronavirus

is maintained

after having overcome the disease, and it is not completely understood who can suffer long-term consequences.

Betting on group immunity, they argue, can lead to a series of

new waves of the pandemic over several years

and place the vulnerable population in a situation of risk for an indefinite time.

The experience already obtained during the first wave suggests that it is "practically

impossible and very unethical to

isolate large swaths of society," say the researchers, who believe that uncontrolled transmission among young people increases the risk for the rest of the population. the population.

The authors of the letter admit that the restrictions of recent months in many countries have caused a "demoralization and loss of confidence" among citizens, which has led some governments to evaluate the possibility of relaxing the measures during the second wave, but they emphasize that it is essential to

control infections "urgently."

The letter in "The Lancet" also warns that the lack of measures to contain contagions can endanger the capacity of health systems.

This strategy also places

"an unacceptable burden on healthcare workers,

many of whom have died from COVID-19 or suffered trauma as a result of being forced to practice disaster medicine."

"It is necessary to implement effective measures to suppress and control the transmission (of the virus), and they must be accompanied by financial and social programs" that cushion the negative consequences of these restrictions, particularly for the most vulnerable layers of the population.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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