Herd immunity – benefits and costs. Sweden, UK, Netherlands, Germany. (6)

Some countries are still pursuing the herd immunity strategy versus the maximal isolations. UK starts along that path. But quickly, they decided otherwise, because of the projected models and high casualty rates. But Sweden and to a lesser degree Netherlands are still pursuing this more open strategy not shutting down their societies. What do you think of that approach? It is very challenging because you have to try and ensure that the patients that are going to be at high risk for hospitalization can be segregated from that part of the population. After all, we know that those who are older who have other medical conditions are going to have a high rate of hospitalization enough, though. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That they might collapse hospital systems. Medical second opinion is important. You want to make sure if you are pursuing a herd immunity if you have some way to cocoon those other individuals away. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That very challenging to see, herd immunity is something that we are going to eventually achieve with this virus and make it less of a threat. However, doing it in this initial stage has to be done carefully so that you don’t end up creating a problem with the industry. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. You were still needing to be taken care of in the hospital and running above your hospital capacity. Medical second opinion is important. It is it is a huge challenge. It is interesting to see how that experiment works. Such countries, like Germany, seem to have a dramatically lower death rate. Of course, it is a lot of being said about the more extensive they are testing as well as the different medical system structure. How do you assess and what lessons we can learn from Germany how to address the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic right now in the Western countries. Medical second opinion is important. What Germany did is extensive testing. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That is a lesson every country should take that they the more testing you do. The better understanding you have at the epidemiology of this virus in your region. The more you are able to then find cases and isolate them and prevent the spread. It also gives you a better idea of what the true case fatality ratio is and what the true hospitalization rate is. Because you don’t know that without proper testing, you get a severity bias sample and excuse the data. Then that creates that is used for public decision making in mind. Be not the best way to go about it when there is data that is incomplete. The other issue is that Germany remembers had a younger average age of infection. More younger patients that had no health problems were the ones infected. Medical second opinion is important. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That also has helped their fatality ratio versus a country like Italy where the average age connection was much higher than countries. Medical second opinion is important. There is a lot to learn from Germany. But we have to interpret that data in the context of who got infected in Germany. Dr. Amesh Adalja. That is true of every country.