Herd immunity or suppression strategy to combat COVID-19

Abstract

Some months ago, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) broke out in Wuhan, China, and spread rapidly around the world. Some states, such as the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the USA initially focused on keeping the restrictions for economy and society as low as possible. The responsible authorities were of the opinion - and still are e.g. in Sweden - that it is sufficient enough to protect particularly vulnerable persons such as the elderly or people with pre-existing conditions. The idea behind this is that as soon as 60 to 70 percent of the population is infected with a pathogen, a so-called "herd immunity" has developed. However, the increasing numbers of deaths and modelling studies showed the expected overload of the hospitals. Therefore, most countries decided for a temporary lockdown with the exception of Sweden.Based on the number of the total population, three times more people died from COVID-19 in Sweden (2679 deaths per 10 million inhabitants) compared to Germany (6848 deaths per 80 million inhabitants). The comparison Sweden versus Taiwan is even worse because 1072 times more people died in Sweden based on the number of the population (6 deaths per 24 million inhabitants).In the face of the lack of an antiviral treatment and the lack of a protective vaccine one must state Taiwan has made the best out of the pandemic situation whereas Sweden failed completely.

Keywords: COVID-19; Germany; Sweden; Taiwan; strategy.

Fig.1

Daily SARS-COV-2 infections per respective number of inhabitants for Sweden (blue line), Germany (grey line) and Taiwan (orange line) Data were obtained from the following source: ECDC (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide). The data obtained from the above listed sources is put in to a context described herein with. Our policy regarding the information format is prioritizing Open Source and Free Software. We therefore make all data retrieved and analyzed hereby available at corona.milliways.online.

Fig.2

Cumulative case numbers of infections in Sweden (blue line), Germany (black line) and Taiwan (orange line) in relation to 1 Mill people Data were obtained from the following source: ECDC (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide). The data obtained from the above listed sources is put in to a context described herein with. Our policy regarding the information format is prioritizing Open Source and Free Software. We therefore make all data retrieved and analyzed hereby available at corona.milliways.online.

Fig.3

Cumulative deaths of SARS COV-2 infected patients in Germany, Sweden (blue line), Germany (black line) and Taiwan (until day 134 (2020/05/13) 6 cases. Cannot be shown in this representation. Data points lie almost on the x-axis). Data were obtained from the following source: ECDC (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide). The data obtained from the above listed sources is put in to a context described herein with. Our policy regarding the information format is prioritizing Open Source and Free Software. We therefore make all data retrieved and analyzed hereby available at corona.milliways.online.