“De vermaarde Italiaanse professor in microbiologie en virologie Roberto Burioni, verbonden aan de San Raffaele universiteit in Milaan, kraakt de Nederlandse aanpak van de coronacrisis. „De Nederlandse regering neemt een heel groot risico.”
Er is geen enkele wetenschappelijke basis om te spreken over groepsimmuniteit”, stelt de Italiaanse arts. „Het is een heel groot risico dat de Nederlandse regering neemt. We weten namelijk nog helemaal niet of er wel immuniteit voor dit virus kan ontstaan. Dat is nog onbekend. Bovendien is er nog geen vaccin.””
“When I first heard about this, I could not believe it. I research and teach the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.
The stated aim has been to achieve “herd immunity” in order to manage the outbreak and prevent a catastrophic “second wave” next winter.
This is an actual pandemic that will make a very large number of people sick, and some of them will die. Even though the mortality rate is likely quite low, a small fraction of a very large number is still a large number. And the mortality rate will climb when the NHS is overwhelmed.
Second waves are real things, and we have seen them in flu pandemics. This is not a flu pandemic. Flu rules do not apply. There might well be a second wave, I honestly don’t know.
You should instead look to the example of South Korea, which, through a combination of intense surveillance and social distancing, appears to have gained some semblance of control over the virus.
We can learn from South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of which have so far done a good job mitigating the worst outcomes despite having reported cases early in the pandemic, and in the case of South Korea, suffering a substantial outbreak.”
The UK should NOT be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself.”