How about the role of herd immunity in fighting Covid-19

                Researchers want to determine if herd immunity is a good strategy to fight the coronavirus by observing countries that have started relaxing the lockdown restrictions. Some experts believe herd immunity might not be our best option in fighting Covid-19 as waiting enough people to catch the coronavirus could lead to more deaths as a sife effect of letting everyone go out. 

So far we haven’t had evidence to truly judge different coronavirus policies. But officials were too optimistic about the possibility of flattening the curve and how close we were to reaching a flattend curve through herd immunity. Even assuming that people get sick do become immune, we have no idea how long they’ll stay immune. 

In some coronavirus, as well as with ordinary flu, the immunity lasts even less than a year. Assuming they stay immune, we have no idea how long it would take to reach herd immunity. 

Another important factor is knowing how contagious is the novel coronavirus. This is measures by R0 or the average number of people that a victim passes the virus on to. Therefore, more people need to be immune so that the infection rate R0 starts falling. Current estimates of R0 vary and suggest that half to three-quarters of the population has to catch the virus. 

Fatality rates play a crucial role in deciding how drastic the response to the coronavirus pandemic should be. Mortality rates vary between countries and periods as death toll could exceed 10% of the total confirmed cases. Covid-19 has also caused fatalities among patients under 60 and put many young people in tensive care. 

Experts are also not sure yet how many people have been infected so far. As most of the cases had no symptoms or didn’t feel sick enough to get tested. The US CDC said that 25% of infected people never have symptoms. Other studies suggested that it might be closer to 50%. 

This discrepancy in numbers is mainly because we aren’t testing enough people. Spain, Australia, Italy, China, the US and other countries are beginning to ease the coronavirus lockdown allowing some businesses to open while following social distancing guidelines. The upcoming few weeks will determine whether herd immunity works in fighting Covid-19