Checkpoint: 'Herd Immunity' Strategy Will Cull The Herd
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Deaths from the novel coronavirus have passed 100,000 in the United States of America. The U.S. is the epicenter of the global pandemic, far surpassing China where the virus originated. Scenes of empty streets and boarded up businesses, and more disturbingly the digging of mass graves in the worst affected areas, are splashed across the news on a daily basis. People have quarantined themselves within their homes, catching up on Netflix or baking excessive amounts of bread, using video conference apps to replace the social interactions made deadly by COVID-19.
This is the reality of life in lockdown. The vast majority of countries seeing outbreaks of the coronavirus have adopted this measure, shutting down non-essential business and enacting social distancing measures in public places. The US, somewhat reluctantly, is one of those countries.
The lockdown is aimed at “flattening the curve”, meaning that its purpose is to ensure that the rate of infection remains below the point at which health services would be overwhelmed by new cases. With no vaccine currently available, flattening the curve is our best chance to keep deaths to a minimum. It is not, however, the only model for fighting the virus being considered.
The concept of ‘Herd Immunity’ is not a new one. In fact it's the basic idea that spurred Edward Jenner to infect his patients with cowpox in 1796. Jenner was an English doctor who noticed that those who contracted the relatively mild cowpox rarely went on to contract the much more deadly smallpox, which regularly killed its victims and often blinded the survivors.
His findings formed the basis for the idea that if the majority of people in a society become immune to a disease, they prevent the disease spreading to the vulnerable, non-immune members of that society. When Jenner gave his patients cowpox he not only gave them immunity to smallpox, he prevented them from being vectors to spread the virus to others.
As seen from the example of smallpox, which is now extinct, herd immunity is best achieved through the use of vaccines. In the case of COVID-19 this simply isn’t possible thus far, because as previously mentioned there is no vaccine as of now. However, this hasn’t stopped several Governments around the world from flirting with the idea of trying to achieve herd immunity in their countries ‘naturally’. In other words, doing nothing and hoping the virus doesn’t kill too many people.
The United Kingdom’s Conservative Government originally adopted a strategy of herd immunity. Although they later back-tracked, for many the lockdown came too late and the U.K. death toll currently stands at nearly 40,000, the highest number in Europe. In Sweden, a country that has persisted in refusing to initiate a lockdown, the death rate is the highest per capita in the world, currently standing at around 4,000.
In Brazil, where the right-wing Government of Jair Bolsonaro has dismissed COVID-19 as “a little flu”, Rio de Janeiro’s criminal gangs have had to take on the responsibility of enforcing an unofficial lockdown. Over 25,000 Brazilians have died of the coronavirus.
Donald Trump hasn't explicitly endorsed the idea of herd immunity in the U.S., nor can it be said with absolute certainty that he has any medium to long term plan for combating the virus. As it stands, he has thrown his weight in behind the protests springing up across America to end the lockdown and reopen the economy. This, in itself, is an admission that he would rather let COVID-19 run rampant through the population than suffer a blow to the “great economy” he tweets about incessantly.
The suffering that Trump’s unofficial herd immunity strategy would bring about would not be meted out on an equal basis, sadly. When we think of pandemics we imagine an impartial force of nature, striking all in its path equally. While it is true that the coronavirus does not pick and choose its victims, it is also true that some groups suffer far more than others.
The working class, especially those in the service industry, are in constant contact with people, increasing their risk of contracting COVID-19 substantially. While the middle and upper classes can take advantage of opportunities to work from home, the working class has far fewer of those opportunities. The protesters carrying signs declaring “I NEED A HAIRCUT” are demanding the working class be put right in the virus’ firing line.
The virus also disproportionately kills members of minority racial groups. According to the Center for Disease Control, death rates from COVID-19 among black and hispanic patients are around twice as high as they are for white patients. The CDC theorizes a number of reasons behind the disparity, however scientific data on the phenomenon is incomplete.
Regardless of Trump’s insistence over social media that his administration is handling the pandemic well, the numbers tell an entirely different story. However you view it, 100,000 preventable deaths cannot be considered a success. By advocating for the reopening of the economy, and by extension committing the U.S. to a strategy of herd immunity without the assistance of a vaccine, the President is calling for more of his citizens to die.
Whether he intends it to be or not, this is a call to cull vulnerable members of society. Without proper research into how to protect these people, it is the poor, the elderly, and members of minority racial groups who will bear the brunt of COVID-19’s rampage if the lockdown is completely lifted. Until a vaccine is developed, the idea of herd immunity is nothing more than the fantasy of leaders more concerned with the economy than the health of their citizens.