The US Covid death toll would be “enormous” if the spread of the coronavirus is unchecked in as the country tries to achieve so-called herd immunity.
“If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms ... a lot of people are going to die,” White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a live discussion on Instagram with actor Matthew McConaughey.
Epidemiologists point out that herd immunity is important in curbing the spread of the virus. Herd immunity happens when enough of the population is either vaccinated or survive infection and develop antibodies to avoid new infections. By then, the virus does not possess enough hosts to infect.
Several scientists believe 60% to 80% of the population must be vaccinated or develop natural antibodies to reach herd immunity, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said last month.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, the coronavirus has infected less than 2% of the US population and killed at least 166,970 people.
Herd immunity
Allowing the virus spread irrepressibly to reach herd immunity would worsen the US Covid death toll and bring it to a level that is “totally unacceptable,” Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said. Americans may have more existing conditions, like obesity and diabetes, that contribute to higher death rates from the coronavirus.
“If you look at the United States of America with our epidemic of obesity as it were, with the number of people with hypertension, with the number of people with diabetes, if everyone got infected, the death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable,” Dr. Fauci noted.
“And that’s the reason why we’re against saying ‘Let it fly! Let everybody get infected and we’ll be fine.’ That’s a bad idea,” he stressed.
WHO officials have also warned authorities against aiming for herd immunity by allowing Covid-19 to spread quickly throughout their communities. Organization officials claimed it would add to the burden of hospitals and lead to more deaths.
“We’re nowhere near close to (herd immunity), which means this virus has a long way to burn in our communities before we ever reach that,” Ryan said.
Infectious disease experts like Fauci assert that eradicating the coronavirus is not possible, though nations can lower the level of infection.
“I think with a combination of good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity and a good vaccine, which I do hope and feel cautiously optimistic that we will get, I think when we put all three of those together, we will get control of this, whether it’s this year or next year. I’m not certain,” Dr. Fauci said on July 22.
Deaths among children
The coronavirus outbreaks are not only targeting adults but also children. According to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, more than 97,000 children in the US tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July.
One study revealed that older children can pass the virus just as much as adults. Another study showed that children younger than 5 carry a higher viral load than adults.
Another report disclosed that at least 86 children have passed away since May. Last week, a 7-year-old boy without pre-existing health conditions became the youngest Covid-19 victim in Georgia. Moreover, two teenagers died earlier this month in Florida, making the state’s death toll of minors seven.
