The virus that caused the original Sars no longer haunts us, but the characteristics of today’s coronavirus mean it’s unlikely to disappear in the same way.
Karl Schmedders, International Institute for Management Development (IMD); Jung Park, International Institute for Management Development (IMD), and Robert Earle, University of Zurich
Starting to feel a little more optimistic? Look away now.
Of the four broad options for coming out of lockdown, a controlled building of ‘herd immunity’ in the population may be our best hope of recovery from the pandemic if a vaccine is not found soon.
Stray cows rest on a New Delhi street during a one-day civil curfew to combat coronavirus. Cattle may have been central to a coronavirus outbreak in 1890.
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Letting the virus ‘pass through the community’ is not a good public health strategy.
Commuters jam a Toronto subway platform. Widespread adoption of habits that help prevent infection may boost behavioural herd immunity.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Large-scale adoption of simple, individual actions — like disinfecting our germ-laden phone screens — can limit the ability of COVID-19 to get a foothold.
The WHO withdrew measles-free status from the UK after there were 991 reported outbreaks of the disease last year.
Sascha Steinbach/EPA
When a certain percentage of a population has been vaccinated, it prevents an infectious disease from spreading. But that threshold depends on the disease.
Several parents do not want their children vaccinated, for religious or other reasons.
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Measles cases in the US have reached their highest in 25 years. A bioethicist argues why parents opposed to vaccination are not just wrong about the science, but about the morals.
Many parents object to vaccination for religious reasons, while others may file for exemptions for convenience.
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Recent measles outbreaks show the dangers of not vaccinating – and the importance of vaccination. Is there a way to accommodate those religiously opposed to vaccination and minimize other exemptions?
Vaccine work because they help create herd immunity.
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Billboards spreading misinformation on the risks of vaccination have popped up around American cities. A bioethicist explains why decisions not to vaccinate children are indefensible.
The flu shot decrease the risk of heart attacks in healthy individuals, according to research. Here, pipettes containing immune cells for testing against possible flu vaccines are seen at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., in 2017.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Your risk of a heart attack increases 600 per cent within a week of catching the flu. The flu shot decreases that risk, whether you catch the flu or not.
Everyone has to be vaccinated for immunisation programs to work.
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The flu vaccine isn’t perfect but it’s the best way to protect against these potentially harmful viruses. Most children aged six months to five years are eligible for a free vaccine in 2018.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand