There’s been some talk lately of saying to heck with the idea of developing a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is currently causing the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, and simply allowing the virus to spread freely among the population, infecting each one who comes in contact with another infected person. This would certainly infect a much larger number of people than are currently infected, and in a much shorter amount of time. It would also bring the epidemic in the US to a halt much sooner, too. Throw away the masks, they say. Get close to one another. Go out to eat. Get in large gatherings. Go to football games. Quit washing your hands. This type of activity would eventually produce what is called “herd immunity” in the population. That refers to the fact that a very large percentage of the population would (hopefully) become immune, and the virus would not be able to infect enough people to maintain its spread, and would die out. (Or more likely, die down. See my previous post.) In other words, the “herd” becomes immune. Achieving full herd immunity is good, and that is what we’re trying to do with a vaccine, even though a vaccine takes much longer to achieve the same level of immunity. (If we ever get there in the first place.)
But there are several drawbacks to that method of handling the pandemic in the US. First, we don’t know much about the immunity that COVID-19 gives to a person when they recover. They may be immune for a short time, maybe several months, maybe a year, but there’s no guarantee that a population will be immune for long enough to allow a “herd immunity” to develop. By the time the later people are infected, the earlier ones may have lost immunity. I have heard reports of one or two people being re-infected. Not good.
Second, infection with SARS-CoV-2 isn’t a simple infection, like a cold, where you just get over it, and then you have some immunity. There can be serious long-term consequences following the infection, consequences I would never want to inflict on another person. Just because someone leaves the intensive care unit (the ICU) and goes home, doesn’t mean he/she is back to normal.
Third, it’s just plain cruel. Let people get infected and die? Just so the rest can go about their daily business and not have to put up with the restrictions? I don’t think so.
But fourth, and most personal to me, is that I am in one of the highest risk groups for COVID-19, and I have done everything I know, short of getting a vaccine (which isn’t an option right now anyway) to avoid getting infected. For example, I’m type A blood, and apparently us type A’s are more susceptible to infection, and to a more serious infection. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a guinea pig for a method of handling the pandemic that simply throws up its hands and says, “We give up. Just let the damn virus spread. Who cares?”
I care.