Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has led to a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions being implemented around the world to curb transmission. However, the economic and social costs of some of these measures, especially lockdowns, has been high. An alternative and...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2022-01-01
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| Series: | PLOS Global Public Health |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298 |
| _version_ | 1827826494789910528 |
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| author | Cameron A Smith Christian A Yates Ben Ashby |
| author_facet | Cameron A Smith Christian A Yates Ben Ashby |
| author_sort | Cameron A Smith |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has led to a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions being implemented around the world to curb transmission. However, the economic and social costs of some of these measures, especially lockdowns, has been high. An alternative and widely discussed public health strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic would have been to 'shield' those most vulnerable to COVID-19 (minimising their contacts with others), while allowing infection to spread among lower risk individuals with the aim of reaching herd immunity. Here we retrospectively explore the effectiveness of this strategy using a stochastic SEIR framework, showing that even under the unrealistic assumption of perfect shielding, hospitals would have been rapidly overwhelmed with many avoidable deaths among lower risk individuals. Crucially, even a small (20%) reduction in the effectiveness of shielding would have likely led to a large increase (>150%) in the number of deaths compared to perfect shielding. Our findings demonstrate that shielding the vulnerable while allowing infections to spread among the wider population would not have been a viable public health strategy for COVID-19 and is unlikely to be effective for future pandemics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:12:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-afcdafaeed844f03946c1eb99c7b8044 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2767-3375 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T03:12:28Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLOS Global Public Health |
| spelling | doaj.art-afcdafaeed844f03946c1eb99c7b80442023-09-03T14:21:33ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLOS Global Public Health2767-33752022-01-0124e000029810.1371/journal.pgph.0000298Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19.Cameron A SmithChristian A YatesBen AshbyThe COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has led to a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions being implemented around the world to curb transmission. However, the economic and social costs of some of these measures, especially lockdowns, has been high. An alternative and widely discussed public health strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic would have been to 'shield' those most vulnerable to COVID-19 (minimising their contacts with others), while allowing infection to spread among lower risk individuals with the aim of reaching herd immunity. Here we retrospectively explore the effectiveness of this strategy using a stochastic SEIR framework, showing that even under the unrealistic assumption of perfect shielding, hospitals would have been rapidly overwhelmed with many avoidable deaths among lower risk individuals. Crucially, even a small (20%) reduction in the effectiveness of shielding would have likely led to a large increase (>150%) in the number of deaths compared to perfect shielding. Our findings demonstrate that shielding the vulnerable while allowing infections to spread among the wider population would not have been a viable public health strategy for COVID-19 and is unlikely to be effective for future pandemics.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298 |
| spellingShingle | Cameron A Smith Christian A Yates Ben Ashby Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. PLOS Global Public Health |
| title | Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. |
| title_full | Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. |
| title_fullStr | Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. |
| title_short | Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19. |
| title_sort | critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for covid 19 |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000298 |
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