(Fighting New Crown Pneumonia) Is "herd immunity" a science or an adventure?
China News Agency, Beijing, March 15th: Is "herd immunity" a science or an adventure?
Author Huang Yuqin Zhang Su
At present, the epidemic of new crown pneumonia is continuing to spread globally, and Europe has become the epicenter of the epidemic. Many European countries have announced the closure of borders and schools have stopped teaching activities. At the same time, countries such as the United Kingdom have proposed the establishment of "herd immunity" anti-epidemic strategies, which has caused great concern around the world.
As an academic concept in the field of epidemiological research, "herd immunity" has been used for epidemic prevention and control at the moment when the vaccine has not been released and the epidemic has not yet ceased. Its effectiveness has suddenly become the focus of debate among all parties. Huang Bo, deputy director of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, told reporters in the China News Agency that the "herd immunity" in the current context refers to the anti-virus collectively generated by natural populations without any medical treatment. reaction.
Patrick Vallance, the UK's chief scientific adviser, explained on the 13th that if very severe measures were taken to contain the virus, the epidemic would rebound at the wrong time. Britain's anti-epidemic goal is to generate "herd immunity" for the whole society, rather than completely suppress the epidemic.
In response, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the world's leading medical journal The Lancet, said on social media, "We need urgent quarantine and blockade policies, and the government is playing roulette with the public. , This is a major mistake. "
Yu Xiaohua, a professor of economics at the University of Göttingen in Germany, points out that the "herd immunity" method is divided into natural immunity and vaccine immunity. Vaccine immunization is to actively enable the population to form herd immunity and reach the threshold of herd immunity. "Because there is no vaccine, there is only one way to form an immune population: active or passive infection."
Therefore, the current "herd immunization" measures against the new crown pneumonia epidemic have also been interpreted by many media as "the epidemic prevention strategy requires people to be infected first."
Nowadays, this kind of epidemic prevention method seems to be becoming a strategy adopted by some countries. According to analysis, the reason behind it may come from different judgments on the epidemic situation.
Related parties believe that when the virus has spread throughout the world, tight control and isolation strategies may not be effective. If no herd immunity is formed, once the control is released, a pandemic will still easily form.
In an interview with media, Patrick Waslan judged that the new crown virus is likely to become a seasonal infection that occurs every year. Therefore, herd immunity will be a countermeasure for long-term control of the disease. He fears that if not enough people are infected with the virus now, it will reappear in the winter, when the national medical service system will be overwhelmed.
Scott Weese, a professor of medicine at the University of Guelph in Canada, told China News Agency that the "herd immunity" strategy is closely related to concerns about running out of medical resources, hoping to delay the peak of the outbreak and stagger winter and spring. Of seasonal flu. Delaying the peak can earn time for vaccine development and can also focus medical resources on treating critically ill patients.
As a result, it was found that some countries have adopted prevention and control recommendations that are almost the opposite of closing cities and banning social mobility. At this stage, the focus is no longer on preventing the spread of the epidemic, but on reducing losses. Some analysts believe that this strategy is waiting for two things to happen: first, it is expected that a special medicine or vaccine specifically for the new crown can be developed as soon as possible; second, it is expected that more and more healthy young and middle-aged people can pass the infection The new crown virus creates immunity, thereby establishing a herd immune barrier to protect the most dangerous old and weak.
However, as Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, said, such a policy might be like "gambling." Will the mortality rate of the virus in young and middle-aged people remain low? Will the rate of viral infection suddenly increase, breaking through the load of the medical system? Does acquired immunity still work when the virus mutates? A series of related issues all test the public health prevention system. More critically, even if the current 2.3% mortality rate is achieved, the realization of herd immunity to the new crown virus may lead to more deaths. Can society bear such a high price?
Another scholar pointed out that if different prevention and control measures are adopted, it will be more difficult for European cooperation to respond to the epidemic. "Not all countries adopt the strategy of" herd immunity ", and quite a number of European countries are still conducting border control and regional isolation, and still focus on preventing the spread of the epidemic." Tang Bei, associate researcher at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Shanghai International Studies University "If there is no synergy, it will have an impact on global epidemic prevention, especially in developing countries with fragile medical systems."
At present, in the face of the new infectious disease of new coronary pneumonia, the effectiveness of the application of "herd immunity" is inconclusive, and the global epidemic prevention outlook is still full of uncertainty. Perhaps as some comments point out, "We don't have to rush to conclusions, but we should encourage countries to respond differently according to their own national conditions." Everything that is being done now is to enable human beings to find a more efficient response in the future. (Finish)