{"id":107526,"date":"2020-10-12T16:52:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T23:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107526"},"modified":"2020-10-12T16:52:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T23:52:51","slug":"letting-coronavirus-spread-freely-for-herd-immunity-is-unethical-says-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/12\/letting-coronavirus-spread-freely-for-herd-immunity-is-unethical-says-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Letting coronavirus spread freely for \u2018herd immunity\u2019 is unethical, says WHO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy RT<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"Letting<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\n\nThe World Health Organization has warned against the idea of allowing Covid-19 to simply spread through society, calling this herd immunity\u201d approach to fighting the pandemic unethical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,\u201d<\/em> WHO chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said during a virtual briefing on Monday, calling the idea unethical.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tedros added that herd immunity to a virus is usually achieved when the vast majority of the population \u2013 80 percent, in the case of polio \u2013 is vaccinated, rather than deliberately infected.ALSO ON RT.COM<\/strong>Your chances of dying from Covid-19? If you\u2019re healthy & under 65, a 40-mile daily commute by car is more likely to kill you<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus,\u201d<\/em> he said, adding that allowing a dangerous virus that we don’t fully understand to run free is simply unethical. It’s not an option.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tedros\u2019 words came days after the WHO\u2019s Dr. David Nabarro warned world leaders against using lockdowns as their primary control method\u201d<\/em> against the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nabarro explained that lockdowns only buy healthcare systems time to reorganize, regroup, [and] rebalance your resources,\u201d<\/em> and have disastrous economic consequences that worsen poverty and inequality in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WHO did not always oppose lockdowns, but it cautioned at the outset of the pandemic that, unless accompanied by proper systems of isolation and contact tracing, they would only pause the spread of the virus. Additionally, the organization advised against travel restrictions back in January and February.ALSO ON RT.COM<\/strong>A scientific review of the science behind lockdown concludes the policy was a MISTAKE & will have caused MORE deaths from Covid-19<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, localized lockdowns are one tool currently being used in an effort to get a grip on the rapidly resurging virus. In the UK on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a three-tiered system of local restrictions, dependent on the rate of infection in different areas, while the French government last week declared that some local restrictions would remain in place until at least the end of 2020. In Ireland, disease specialists have warned<\/a> the public that Dublin could be under lockdown for years, though official advisers haven\u2019t made any such bold statements yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all have followed the same approach though. In Sweden<\/a>, the government never implemented a lockdown, and while cases there have begun to rise in recent weeks, deaths remain extremely low, with none reported since Friday. However, deaths were high in Sweden at the outset of the pandemic, with the majority occurring in nursing homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worldwide, nearly 38 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded, along with more than a million deaths. The United States has seen the highest number of cases and deaths in the world, with 7.7 million and nearly 215,000 respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy RT The World Health Organization has warned against the idea of allowing Covid-19 to simply spread through society, calling this herd immunity\u201d approach to fighting the pandemic unethical.\u201d Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,\u201d WHO chief Dr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}