Coronavirus: Uruguay targets collective immunity

Text by: Théo Conscience

The Uruguayan authorities want to take the path of collective immunity to fight against the coronavirus. Uruguay, which now symbolically has more people healed from Covid-19 than sick people, wants to modulate the circulation of the virus without saturating hospitals.

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Thanks to a massive screening strategy, inspired by South Korea , Uruguay currently has only eight deaths out of 492 cases of Covid-19 contamination. The authorities now want to move towards collective immunity, by allowing the resumption of certain activities.

► Read also: Coronavirus: in South Korea, despite sanitary measures, the fear of a second wave

The objective: to increase the number of individuals with antibodies

The building sector has been operating again since Monday April 13, and schools in rural areas are expected to reopen next week. The policy of encouraging the containment of the population is maintained. The government wants to "modulate" the spread of the virus. Its strategy: lift certain restrictions, even if it means temporarily restoring them in the event of a coronavirus resurgence, all without saturating the health system.

To ensure this follow-up, the country can count on a large capacity for diagnostic tests. Since the virus will spread until a vaccine is developed, the idea is to gradually increase the number of people with antibodies present in people who have recovered from Covid-19. The question of how well these antibodies effectively protect against further contamination is, however, still debated, both in Uruguay and within the World Health Organization.

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