{"id":83612,"date":"2021-02-22T11:20:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T05:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=83612"},"modified":"2021-02-22T11:37:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T06:07:37","slug":"why-complete-elimination-strategy-of-covid-virus-is-not-feasible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-complete-elimination-strategy-of-covid-virus-is-not-feasible\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Complete Elimination Strategy of COVID virus is\u00a0not feasible?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>The empirical evidence shows that the idea of the complete elimination of COVID viruses in a selected few countries is not feasible. Rather, it will only increase the <strong>socioeconomic disparities<\/strong> thereby making the goal of elimination infeasible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A recent article published in <strong>The Lancet<\/strong> has advocated for \u201celimination strategy\u201d, it is also known as the <strong>zero-COVID-19 strategy<\/strong> for eliminating the virus.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zero-COVID-19 strategy <\/strong>means that the replication of the virus will be reduced to the least so that no new cases will occur in a defined geographical area.<\/li>\n<li>The elimination strategy has the following three elements,\n<ul>\n<li>Rapid reduction in the number of infections to zero.<\/li>\n<li>Creation of virus-free green zones and<\/li>\n<li>Prompt <strong>outbreak management<\/strong> when new cases occur occasionally.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Rich countries are working on this strategy by vaccinating each and every citizen.<\/li>\n<li>However, this strategy of the complete elimination of the virus is not suitable for every country.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Why this strategy is not suitable for all countries?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Complete elimination of the virus by vaccination is only suitable for <strong>geographically isolated countries<\/strong> such as <strong>New Zealand. <\/strong>It can afford strict border control measures. Even here, it is difficult because of the following reasons,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First,<\/strong> the virus will be in circulation in the countries from each other. So, the threat of a Virus outbreak will stay for a while.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second<\/strong>, the Virus is mutating at a very fast pace. U<strong>niversal vaccination<\/strong> will not be helpful against new variants. It is difficult to consistently upgrade vaccines.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third<\/strong>, a zero-COVID-19 strategy will worsen <strong>global health inequities<\/strong>. The idea of creating green zones for free travel will benefit richer countries and alienate poorer nations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fourth, <\/strong>the experience from the elimination of other diseases shows that the complete elimination of the COVID virus is not possible. For example,\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Measles and neonatal tetanus<\/strong> are present for more than 20 years. It caused nearly 25,000 newborn deaths in 2018. Despite the global efforts for vaccination it still remains a major public health challenge in the developing world.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Polio,<\/strong> eradicated from Southeast Asia, is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.<\/li>\n<li>Also, according to immunologists surveyed by the <strong>science journal Nature<\/strong> the Covid virus will become endemic in certain countries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are the Solutions?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Instead of isolated strategies for a few countries, <strong>global leadership and resources<\/strong> to vaccinate the vulnerable population are required.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First,<\/strong> disease control measures should be implemented globally. The vaccine coverage for vulnerable populations across the globe should be increased.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second,<\/strong> the current pace of vaccination needs to be increased by 4.3 times to vaccinate 6.4 million persons per day.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third,<\/strong> along with this, mapping of elderly and persons with comorbidities needs to be done on a priority basis for vaccination.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fourth<\/strong>, there is a need to strengthen <strong>epidemiological and genomic surveillance<\/strong> for COVID-19.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fifth, <\/strong>a plan for the goal of achieving Universal<strong> Health Coverage <\/strong>(UHC) is required.\u00a0Because<strong>\u00a0t<\/strong>he COVID-19 pandemic has reversed the gains made in other health programmes like tuberculosis control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Thus, <\/strong>the idea of eliminating virus in a selected few countries should be replaced with a pragmatic goal of controlling COVID-19, not elimination. Since the zero-COVID-19 strategy comes with zero evidence of feasibility, focusing on it will result in wastage of our attention, funds, and time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The empirical evidence shows that the idea of the complete elimination of COVID viruses in a selected few countries is not feasible. Rather, it will only increase the socioeconomic disparities thereby making the goal of elimination infeasible. Background A recent article published in The Lancet has advocated for \u201celimination strategy\u201d, it is also known&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/why-complete-elimination-strategy-of-covid-virus-is-not-feasible\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why Complete Elimination Strategy of COVID virus is\u00a0not feasible?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1289,1456],"class_list":["post-83612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-soc_0","tag-soc_01","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704796087},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}