Zeeshan shabir Srinagar India
What is Herd Immunity and How Can We Achieve It With COVID-19?
When the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 first started to spread, virtually nobody was immune.
Meeting no resistance, the virus spread quickly across communities. Stopping it will require a significant percentage of people to be immune. But how can we get to that point?
What is herd immunity?
When most of a population is immune to an infectious disease, this provides indirect protection—or herd immunity (also called herd protection)—to those who are not immune to the disease.
For example, if 80% of a population is immune to a virus, four out of every five people who encounter someone with the disease won’t get sick (and won’t spread the disease any further). In this way, the spread of infectious diseases is kept under control. Depending how contagious an infection is, usually 70% to 90% of a population needs immunity to achieve herd immunity.
How have we achieved herd immunity for other infectious diseases?
Measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox are examples of infectious diseases that were once very common but are now rare in the U.S. because vaccines helped to establish herd immunity. We sometimes see outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in communities with lower vaccine coverage because they don’t have herd protection. (The 2019 measles outbreak at Disneyland is an example.)
For infections without a vaccine, even if many adults have developed immunity because of prior infection, the disease can still circulate among children and can still infect those with weakened immune systems. This was seen for many of the aforementioned diseases before vaccines were developed.
Other viruses (like the flu) mutate over time, so antibodies from a previous infection provide protection for only a short period of time. For the flu, this is less than a year. If SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is like other coronaviruses that currently infect humans, we can expect that people who get infected will be immune for months to years, but probably not their entire lives.
What will it take to achieve herd immunity with SARS-CoV-2?
As with any other infection, there are two ways to achieve herd immunity: A large proportion of the population either gets infected or gets a protective vaccine. Based on early estimates of this virus’s infectiousness, we will likely need at least 70% of the population to be immune to have herd protection.
- In the worst case (for example, if we do not perform physical distancing or enact other measures to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2), the virus can infect this many people in a matter of a few months. This would overwhelm our hospitals and lead to high death rates.
- In the best case, we maintain current levels of infection—or even reduce these levels—until a vaccine becomes available. This will take concerted effort on the part of the entire population, with some level of continued physical distancing for an extended period, likely a year or longer, before a highly effective vaccine can be developed, tested, and mass produced.
- The most likely case is somewhere in the middle, where infection rates rise and fall over time; we may relax social distancing measures when numbers of infections fall, and then may need to re-implement these measures as numbers increase again. Prolonged effort will be required to prevent major outbreaks until a vaccine is developed. Even then, SARS-CoV-2 could still infect children before they can be vaccinated or adults after their immunity wanes. But it is unlikely in the long term to have the explosive spread that we are seeing right now because much of the population will be immune in the future.
Why is getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 to “get it over with” not a good idea?
With some other diseases, such as chickenpox before the varicella vaccine was developed, people sometimes exposed themselves intentionally as a way of achieving immunity. For less severe diseases, this approach might be reasonable. But the situation for SARS-CoV-2 is very different: COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of severe disease and even death.
The death rate for COVID-19 is unknown, but current data suggest it is 10 times higher than for the flu. It’s higher still among vulnerable groups like the elderly and people with weakened immune systems. Even if the same number of people ultimately get infected with SARS-CoV-2, it’s best to space those infections over time to avoid overwhelming our doctors and hospitals. Quicker is not always better, as we have seen in previous epidemics with high mortality rates, such as the 1918 Flu pandemic.
What should we expect in the coming months?
Scientists are working furiously to develop an effective vaccine. In the meantime, as most of the population remains uninfected with SARS-CoV-2, some measures will be required to prevent explosive outbreaks like those we’ve seen in places like New York City.
The physical distancing measures needed may vary over time and will not always need to be as strict as our current shelter-in-place laws. But unless we want hundreds of millions of Americans to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 (what it would take to establish herd immunity in this country), life is not likely to be completely “normal” again until a vaccine can be developed and widely distributed.
immunity.
Lockdown And Kashmir
As PM announced curfew in downtown
Kashmiries heard the voices of lockdown
Whole country; astonished and surprised
Everyone in state were made immobilized
From last century kashmir was in cage
All was done by the authority, mage
We have faced what are u now facing
Let you feel what happen on such pacing
Banned net, empty roads & brutality
You have heard events, now feel reality
Every kashmiri has still green wounds
Tears rolling, and huge sarrow mounds
Let world know the pain of sackless
As nature has made u to face mess.
Farhan zeeshan
Digital world and Kashmir
As the advancement in technology, the world has become a global village, means that we can coonect to the any part of world by just sitting at our home, on seeing the massive benifits of modern technology, all constitutions of the globe has make the use of modern technology as the fundamental right of there citizens. India being the developing and democratic country too joins the race and make the use of technology as the fundamental right in their constitution. Now india claims that itz illegally occupied part jammu and kashmir enjoys all of rights of constitution of india and shows the world that we cosider the right of every citizen equally. But the ground situation is somewhat different from showoff, high speed internet has been barred in IOK for last 8 months, we have been isolated from rest of world. Our students are suffering the worst that can't take the online classes on 2G network. Where is world and where are the organizations of world like UN, UNESCO, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, they claim that they are preacher of justice of human rights. Do we kashmiris not need the internet ? Are we not the humans who should enjoy every right of constitution ?
We appeal the world to look into the matter, why we are not allowed to use technology. Is it like the indians will voilate the human rights and rest of world will remain silent.
Modi and Muslims of india
The sudden change in india polity catched everyone's eye before 6 years, when the non-ruling party BJP came into existence. It almost astonished every person on this planet, because it was facing a lot of criticism due to brutal nature of its members, whose role was dominant in Gujrat roits, the same leaders massacred many muslim families, their followers burnt, rapped, killed the innocent muslims of gujrat. Still they managed to become the ruling party of india.
Muslims have faced a lot of problems under the leadership of Mr Modi, apart from triple talaaq, ram mandir issues, muslims are being used as references for spreading covid 19, even WHO was very much anguish over the propaganda of indian govt regarding that.
Diseases don't see the religion, caste or creed. Whole world is trying to combat with covid 19, so should our country do.
Plzzz itz my humble request to all my brothers and sisters plzzz don't troll muslims for covid 19, we can fight with it. United we stand, divided we fall.
A brief view of covid 19
An The 2019-20 coronavirus outbreak is an ongoing global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 that has been declared a public health emergency of international concern
CAUSATIVE AGENT
It is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus first identified at wuhan china. It is a postive sense RNA virus having four structural proteins S (spike) E (envelop) M (membrane) N (nucleocapsid). In simple terms the S protein of virus binds with ACE-2 thus destroys the respiratory cells.
EPIDEMIOLOGY
As of 6 March 2020 there were 100,645 confirmed cases of infection of which 80,573 are from china and others from rest of world. The total no of deaths attributed to this virus are 3411. Thus fatility rate as of now is .
TRANSMISSION
The primary mode of transmission is via respiratory droplets, these remain suspended in air for a shorter period of time but may stay viable and contagious on metal, glass or plastic surface. However they remain viable on clothes or surfaces for about 6-12 hours. It can infect the person at the distance of 3-6 feet from infected person if he sneezes or coughs.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
The infected may be asymptomatic or symptomatic. The main symptoms developed are on the basis of ion = 33.4%
Shortness of breath = 18.6%
Muscle pain = 14.8%
Sore throat = 13.9%
Headache = 13.6%
Chills = 11.4%
Nausea and vomiting = 5%
Nasal congestion = 4.8%
Diarrhea = 3.7%
Heamoptysis = 0.9%
Conjuctival congestion = 0.8%
MANAGEMENT
- Wash your hand frequently
Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with a alchol based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.
- Maintain social distance
Maintain atleast 3 feet distance from the person who coughs or sneezes.
- Avoid touching mouth, nose and eyes
Hands touch many surfaces contaminated with viruses once contaminated they can transfer it to mouth and eyes. From these viruses enter you body.
- Practice respiratory hygiene
Make sure people around you practice very good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your nose and mouth with bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose the used tissue immediately and wash hands.
- Remain hydrated as viruses easily penetrate the dry mucous membrane. So ensure that you are taking enough water.
- Maintain the body temperature as the virus is heat sensitive gets inactivated at higher temperature.
- Eat ginger and do more excercise as it helps to increase body temperature keeps you healthy and warmer. CORONAVIRUS gets inactivated at 26-27 degrees.
- Consult the docter if above symptoms appear.
WHEN TO USE MASK
- If you are healthy you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person who has been infected with 2019- nCoV infection.
- Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing.
- Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent handwashing with soap and water or with alchol based hand rub.
HOW TO USE, TAKE-OFF AND DISPOSE MASK PROPERLY
- Before wearing mask clean your hands by using above said method.
- Cover mouth and nose with mask and make sure there are no gaps between your face and mask.
- Avoid touching mask while using it , if you do wash hands with soap and water.
- Replace the mask with a new one as soon as it is damp and don't use single use masks.
- To remove the mask remove it from behind, don't touch its front side, discard immediately in a closed bin, clean your hands.
Written by;
Zeeshan shabir
Bsc nursing
