Corona strategy: – – No longer working

A column was recently published in scalpel A number of researchers believe that the eradication strategy, or the so-called eradication strategy, may not be sustainable. This is due to the social and economic consequences involved in the strategy.

The article was written by lead author Chuan De Vu at the National University of Singapore and a number of other researchers, including Regional Director Naama Asgari of the World Health Organization.

In the article, the researchers review the situation in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore, who all followed the exclusion strategy, and suggest how to move away from it in four steps:

• A short-term, flexible approach to infection control measures.
• Vaccination as much as possible.
• Purposeful and satisfactory measures to protect the business community and vulnerable groups from the consequences of such measures.
• Simplify and shift the responsibility for infection control, among other things, by giving residents greater responsibility for self-testing and a greater understanding of when it is necessary to self-isolate.

Professor Emeritus of Social Medicine Steinar Westen at NTNU told Dagbladet that the strategy simply no longer worked.

Countries that followed the strategy of eliminating the Corona virus, such as New Zealand and Taiwan, were impressed at the beginning of the epidemic. These countries had strict controls on imported infections, and for a long time they had virtually no infections, Westin tells Dagbladet and continues:

– What changed the picture is the highly contagious delta variant. Once you have the delta variant in the country, you obviously cannot control the spread of the infection. This is why New Zealand is now moving away from this strategy, simply because it no longer works.

maybe problems

Countries that have pursued an elimination strategy have likely experienced significant problems, says Espen Rostrop Nakstad, assistant director of health.

Countries that, in the first year of the epidemic, followed the so-called zero-Covid strategy whereby they tried to completely eradicate the virus from society in the absence of a vaccine, were largely successful in maintaining a normal social life throughout 2020. However, Australia and Hong alike account for all Kong, New Zealand and Singapore have very big problems, especially with regard to the internationally oriented business community throughout this period, Naxtad told Dagbladet and continued:

– With vaccines becoming available in New Year’s times, the strategy has been less and less, and many countries may have struggled to find the best time to transition to a more normalized entry system without strict quarantine rules. It has also taken a long time for vaccination to start, including in Australia, which extended the phase of lockdown measures after infections began circulating in the community in 2021.

vaccination

Westin also highlights vaccine coverage in countries that have pursued some form of elimination strategy.

– What has been a bit problematic with the countries that have followed the zero-Covid strategy, is that many of them are later out of vaccination. Now that the delta variant overpowers the strategy, it’s important for countries to move around and better vaccinate the population, says Westin and continues:

Many would say that countries that have followed the COVID-19 elimination strategy have successfully dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, and can still boast low death rates all the time. They have handled the epidemic much better than those countries that had a more appropriate approach, such as England, the United States and Brazil.

the time

Nakstad believes that the eradication strategy is of little use when the population begins to have good immunity to the virus, and the same is true of the control strategy, which Norway followed as of May 2020.

The question is at what time one should dare leave it without causing a dangerous wave of infection with dire consequences. In Norway, we proposed the phasing out of infection control measures until the completion of vaccination for everyone over 18 years of age. I think it makes sense for the government to take such a stance, with “data rather than history,” says Nakstad and continues:

– With the increase in global immunity, the need for new lockdown measures is likely to become smaller and smaller, although there are of course uncertainties in the future developments and seasonal changes we should expect to see with this new coronavirus. Local measures and revaccination are still needed, in many places.

Perfect virus

However, we have learned something from this strategy, Nakstad points out. He thinks we’ve learned that you can succeed in eliminating the virus if you get out early enough, and that it’s possible to live fairly normally as long as there are very few cases of infection in the community.

– Perhaps the main problem with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is that it is not really dangerous enough for all countries to react equally vigorously, but at the same time not trivial enough to be able to be ignored without serious consequences. This means that the procedures were very different in many countries and were poorly coordinated. Thus, the virus had good conditions for spreading — not least because it also infects many in the asymptomatic stage, says Nakstad and concludes:

SARS-CoV-2 has largely made a perfect virus for creating a global pandemic.