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The issue of resistance to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a topic where there are still more unknowns than answers. According to scientists, the chance to control the epidemic is to create herd immunity. What is the so-called herd immunity?
What is herd immunity?
Group immunity is defined as population, herd or group immunity. It should be understood as protection of non-immune people because the greater part of the population has already produced antibodies, either by vaccinating as many people as possible, or by having a large number of people suffering from the disease.
Observing large populations, scientists observed that the risk of developing a given disease in non-immune people is significantly reduced due to the presence of immunized people in a given population. The term herd immunity refers to diseases that are transmitted from person to person.
What is the herd immunity threshold?
This concept describes the percentage of people immunized in the scale of the entire population, which causes the number of new cases to decrease. To achieve this effect, usually a minimum of 90-95 percent is needed. resilient people in society.
The amount of the herd immunity threshold depends on the disease in question. The immunity threshold for measles is, for example, 95%, and for mumps only 75-86%. population. This means that such a percentage of the population must be resistant to the disease in order to prevent infections on a larger scale.
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What are the advantages of herd immunity?
The greatest advantage of herd immunity is that it offers protection, not only to the vaccinated person, but also to the unvaccinated person. It is worth remembering that some people cannot be vaccinated for various reasons. Contraindication to vaccination is, inter alia, age and chronic diseases.
The high number of vaccinated people increases herd immunity. Thus, the entire population begins to be protected against infectious diseases. Herd immunity can eliminate or at least reduce the presence of a given pathogen in the environment.
How is COVID-19 treated?
Treatment of COVID-19 is symptomatic. So far it has not been invented lek na coronavirusnor a vaccine to prevent disease.
Symptomatic treatment consists of administering commonly known medications to relieve troublesome symptoms. These are drugs that lower fever, soothe cough or reduce runny nose. Moreover, in the course of COVID-19, dyspnea and respiratory problems also occur, which require the administration of oxygen and even connecting the patient to a respirator.
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