Mark Weinreb: We need to wait for a vaccine; keep things closed for now

To The Daily Sun,

Recently, discussion about the concept of “herd immunity” have been in the paper regarding the Covid-19 infection. Many of trump’s supporters are misapplying this concept as a reason for Trump to “open up” our economy and America sooner than many scientists recommend. Most of them don’t understand this concept and how they are risking millions of American lives if we follow Trump’s recommendations.

My experience with this concept is from my health care experiences. In addition, before my brother (also a doctor) passed away last year, he wrote an editorial for the New York Times (“For The Herd’s Sake, Vaccinate”, Dec. 28th 2011 edition) discussing this concept. In his piece, he wrote about the urgency of having healthy people vaccinate themselves and their families against infectious diseases. He wrote this as my brother was in pain, experiencing the complications from his cancer treatment.

“Herd immunity” is that when a certain percentage of a population develop immunity against a certain infectious agent — either through natural disease as with Covid-19 as when no vaccine is available, or against measles, when a common vaccine is available as with measles (measles disease can cause a brain infection, pneumonia or in rare cases, even death ) then the remaining population will also be protected.

Researchers and scientists have done good studies regarding the herd immunity from the measles infection, which is also caused by a virus. If greater than 90 percent of the population have immunity against the measles virus, it is highly unlikely that a measles epidemic will occur. This is because the measles virus will be unable to spread. Unfortunately, if less than 90 percent of the population fails to have immunity, usually by refusing immunization, than an outbreak can occur.(this instance occurred in a recent measles epidemic in California). Every separate infectious agent, whether it is a virus, parasite or bacteria, has its own “Herd Immunity Threshold” (HIT) that will protect the population based on the agent’s infectivity rate. ( Mumps HIT 75-80 percent, Whooping cough, HIT 92-94 percent).

Researchers are still determining the HIT for the Covid-19 virus. Some early estimates are that the HIT is between 70-80 percent. (from “Here’s Why Herd Immunity Won’t Save Us From the Covid-19 Pandemic” - Science Alert, March 30, 2020). The population of the United states in 2019 was about 330 million. 70 percent HIT calculates to 230 million Americans getting sick from the Covid-19 disease. Mortality rates from this disease is about 4 percent. That calculates to 9 million American people dying from Covid-19 infection, three million more than Jews that died in the Nazi Holocaust.

We cannot let that happen. Wait for a vaccine. Keep the county closed, at least until at least very few infectious people remain in it.

Mark Weinreb

Laconia