Herd Immunity, you might have heard this term before or maybe not, negligible of this fact, today we will be discussing whether or not can this be a method of flattening the curve of COVID-19 in India.
But first let’s jump on the meaning part.
So, Immunity is an organism's ability to fight off infection. This happens when antibodies or special white blood cells spring into action to defend the body from infection. Herd immunity is more complex and has to do with protecting the whole population from a disease by immunizing a threshold number of individuals. After a certain level of immunization is reached, there are not enough people with the infection to spread it to other people. Once that threshold (about 60% of the population) is reached, the disease stops infecting new people.
Or to put it in a lot simpler way, it means, letting a large percentage of the population get infected so that they can recover, develop antibodies and become resistant to it.
Sweden is already said to achieve this herd immunity as early as this month. It did so by imposing some restrictions like no public gathering of more than 50 people, no bar service and so on even though the restaurants and all schools and universities remained open with a decent level of social distancing being practiced.
Though all this is possible in India, this shouldn’t be done until we have a vaccine for this virus. For herd immunity to be achieved successfully, the country needs to be opened partially and because of which the seniors and other vulnerable populations with suppressed immune systems would be at risk, and hospitals would be overwhelmed. This could even trigger an outbreak that our country might not be able to restraint. Without a vaccine, more than 800 million people have to get infected to reach the threshold and with even 1% of mortality rate, over 8 million people would die. But as new cases of ‘A symptomatic’ patients- patients who have the virus but are not showing any symptoms- coming up are increasing and with a steady pace the lockdown is also being lifted, we should prepare ourselves and our immune system naturally to fight off against this virus. According to health experts, we should increase protein and content of vitamin c in our diet and minimise fat in our body by exercising daily. This should be enough in case we catch the virus to develop antibodies against it.
Blog Written By:
Vedang Rastogi
Co-Founder, InTech.
Comments