By Noah Bergam (V)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first night my dad came home from treating COVID-19 patients at Newark Beth-Israel Hospital, I asked him what the situation looked like.
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His immediate response: \u201cNo one knows anything.\u201d
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Ground zero, according to him, was a welter of confusion. In the midst of a growing influx of cases and a narrowing supply of masks and ventilators, it made sense: no one working there had seen or been prepared for this kind of situation before.
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The situation at the hospital has since improved, but confusion has continued to sweep the entire population as we realize the power of our quarantine, and the fact that, if we break it, we risk restarting a vicious battle on the front lines.
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We have a long road ahead of us, and we\u2019re all looking forward to the day when we can walk away from this pandemic. But when will that day be? How do we reach it? And how do we make sure this never happens again?
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These are the core questions I seek to address in this investigation.
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To truly put down the virus at this point, we have to reach a status called herd immunity<\/em>. Herd immunity occurs when a significant majority of the population (about 70%) have been exposed to the virus, developed antibodies, and reached a point where they are no longer contagious. This creates a situation where those who cannot survive the virus (i.e. the immunocompromised) are surrounded by a \u201cherd\u201d who can act as a buffer from outbreaks. Life can then go on as normal. Herd immunity can either happen naturally or artificially (i.e. through a vaccine). According to the WHO, \u201cthere is not enough evidence\u201d to suggest that surviving COVID-19 will naturally grant long-lasting immunity. But even with that assumption, the death rates we have seen so far suggest that it might take well into 2021 and over half a million American deaths<\/a> before we reach that point, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If. The vaccine time-table we have been hearing from government officials, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, is 12 to 18 months, which would have us waiting through mid-2021 \u2026 but there\u2019s no guarantee that we will remotely follow this timeline, or that we will even be able to develop one<\/a>. And if we do, we will have to develop a much stronger global supply chain<\/a> to satisfy an exceptional demand. In any case, we have a long road ahead of us. But that doesn’t mean we won\u2019t progress. Reopening the economy can happen in steps; Governor Murphy has outlined a six-part plan that includes gradual reopening of specific businesses, as well as significant expansion of contact tracing and testing. The position we find ourselves in reflects what I like to call the Fundamental Theorem of Public Health: the fact that ad hoc treatment is a more expensive and more painful alternative to prevention. Keyword is prevention. How do we prevent a virus from wreaking this kind of havoc in the years to come? To get answers, I talked to my sister Scarlett Bergam, a candidate for a Master\u2019s Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Global Infectious Disease at Brown University. One of the main things she stressed was quicker action. When asked what contributed most to the situation at hand, Scarlett pointed to a lack of testing and the ramifications thereafter. \u201cWhile this was not completely in our control, it led to many people infecting others without knowing. To combat the inevitability of not knowing who was infected, we should have shut down our economy much sooner.\u201c It\u2019s important to understand that testing alone is not enough\u2013\u2013those who test positive need to immediately be isolated from the general population, as well as those who they came into contact with in the meantime. Hence, contact tracing<\/em>: a tool that, if used on a wide enough scale, can turn a virus\u2019 growth rate upside down. According to Scarlett, \u201cThis would be incredibly efficient if people consented to it. However, ethically, there is always a fear of giving up one\u2019s data.\u201d She acknowledged the fact that most contact tracing would probably have to include GPS information, and that tracking of people\u2019s locations could discourage signups (mandatory contact tracing, of course, would invoke some hefty constitutional issues).
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And then there is a vaccine\u2013\u2013a scalable treatment that can give someone a \u201cdumbed down\u201d version of the virus and allow their immune system to develop the necessary antibodies to protect themselves. If we develop a vaccine, it can accelerate us to herd immunity with much more certainty than the natural route.
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nBeating Future Outbreaks<\/strong>
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