The CDC keeps the pandemic goal away from reaching herd immunity

Since the early days of the pandemic, there has been one collective goal to end it: Achievement of herd immunity.. At that time, so many people are immune to the virus, resulting in a shortage of potentially infected hosts and outbreaks.

Many Americans have accepted the new farm phrase, so if 70% to 80% or 85% of the population is vaccinated against COVID-19, the virus will disappear and the pandemic will end. predict.

Now the flock is restless. Experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also set herd immunity as a national goal.

Outlook Achievement of clear herd immunity goals Said it was “very complicated” Dr. Jefferson Jones, CDC COVID-19 Epidemiological Task Force Medical Officer.

Jones admitted last week to a member of the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccines that he “believes that he can reach certain thresholds that eliminate the transmission of the infection.”

Vaccines are very effective in preventing cases of COVID-19 that can lead to serious illness and death, but there is nothing reliable in stopping the transmission of the virus, Jones said. Recent evidence has also revealed that the immunity provided by the vaccine can diminish within a few months.

As a result, even if vaccination is universal, the coronavirus will probably continue to spread.

“We will discourage thinking in terms of’strict goals’,” he said.

NS Dr. Oliver Brookes, As a member of the CDC’s Immunization Implementation Advisory Board, this message was a cool new message with potentially disturbing implications.

Brooks, Chief Medical Officer at Watts Healthcare in Los Angeles, said that only 58.5% of all Americans are fully vaccinated and “need to increase” their intake of COVID-19 shots. Unfortunately, Jones’ unexpected hospitalization “almost discourages more people from being vaccinated,” he said.

Dr. Oliver Brookes of the center sees Lucy Arias checking the patient’s temperature at the COVID-19 screening station outside the Watts Health Center in Los Angeles.

(Irrfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Brooks said he was worried that the CDC could deflate certain targets of herd immunity. Efforts to raise immunization levels..

And when public health officials stop talking about “herds,” people may lose sight of the fact that vaccination is not just an act of personal protection, but a way to protect the community.

Public efforts away from herd immunity promises may go further Impair the reliability of the CDC When it comes to fighting the coronavirus.

Authorities made a dramatic appearance during the pandemic on issues ranging from the use of masks to the spread of the virus. These reversals were fueled by new scientific discoveries about how the new virus behaves, but also provided ample fuel for COVID-19 skeptics, especially those in the conservative media.

“that is The problem of science communication. ” Dr. John Brooks, CDC Chief Medical Officer for COVID-19.

“Based on my experience with other illnesses, I said that when you reach 70% to 80%, you often get herd immunity,” he said.

Dr. John Brooks, Chief Medical Officer of the CDC’s COVID-19 Response, works with the cat Cosmo in his office.

(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

However, the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not receive any notes.

“It has a lot of tricks on its sleeves, and it challenged us repeatedly,” he said. “Until we reach herd immunity, it is impossible to predict what the new pathogen’s herd immunity will look like.”

CDC’s new approach reflects this uncertainty. Instead of specifying vaccination goals that promise an end to the pandemic, public health officials want to redefine success in terms of new infections and mortality. And if both remain low for a long period of time, we speculate that herd immunity has been achieved.

“We want clean and easy answers, and sometimes they do exist,” said John Brooks. “But I’m still learning about this.”

Herd immunity was not as simple as many Americans think. Kathleen Hall Jamison, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, an expert on the challenge of communicating science to increasingly skeptical and often conspiracy-minded citizens.

That is the idea Appeared about a century ago From the field of livestock medicine.Epidemiologists are currently calculating it by standard equation.. But like many tools for modeling complex processes in mathematics, it makes some simplified assumptions.

For example, we assume that there is unrealistic uniformity in the behavior of individuals and groups and the ability of the virus to spread from person to person.

So, for example, it does not reflect the diversity of population densities, living environments, transport patterns, and social interactions that make Los Angeles County significantly different from Boise County, Idaho. It also does not explain the fact that Boise County, where less than 35% of adults are fully vaccinated, is not protected from the 73% vaccination rate of adult LA County.

“Human beings are not herds,” said Jamison.

She said public health leaders should have been better served by organizing vaccination campaigns around the need for “community immunity.” That would have made people think more in the local language — it’s really important regarding the risk of human infection, she added.

Changes in the coronavirus itself have also targeted herd immunity.

The calculations that generated 70% to 85% herd immunity estimates are highly dependent on the innate immunity of SARS-CoV-2.However, with the advent of new strains of viruses such as alpha and delta variants, the ability of viruses to jump from person to person has increased. Dramatically escalate last year.

In addition, herd immunity calculations assume that when people acquire immunity, they maintain immunity for a known period of time.However, it became clear that there was no vaccination or natural infection. Give permanent protection.. Booster shots or “breakthrough” cases can occur, but the duration is still unknown.

I said that’s how science works Large Bhopal, Former Professor of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, written About the awkward complexity of group immunity.

“It’s very difficult to convey uncertainty and maintain authority,” said Bhopal for any institution engaged in public messaging. “It’s a shame we can’t take the masses with us on an uncertain road.”