But questions of how immune people become after recovery, how strong this immunity is and how long it lasts remain unanswered.
The researchers modelled two scenarios of the virus spreading in a population of 10 million people. In both, “shield immunity” provided by recovered cases significantly reduced deaths from the disease.
The modelling was based on blood tests to detect antibodies to COVID-19 and assumed these antibodies confer immunity.
The scenarios involved one population with a high transmission rate and one with a low rate. It also looked at what happens when a recovered person substituted for an additional two interactions or an additional 20 interactions.
In the high-transmission scenario, 71,000 community deaths were predicted. With intermediate shielding (two interactions), this dropped to 58,000 deaths. With enhanced shielding it dropped to 20,000.
This means that in a highly vulnerable population, immune people can potentially shield between 13,000 and 51,000 people from death.
In the low-transmission scenario, 50,000 deaths were predicted, with 34,000 and 8400 forecast under intermediate and enhanced shielding, respectively.
The model, led by the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, shows shielding works synergistically with social distancing to reduce interactions.
But at present, apart from questions about immunity, the reliability of blood tests that measure for antibodies is unknown.
An expert comment in the journal urged authorities to make a decision on whether to embrace this immunity strategy or not.
Dr Ole Norheim, a global public health physician and ethicist at the University of Bergen, Norway, argued through the ethical issues of immune passports.
With caveats, he foresees wide acceptance of the strategy on ethical grounds, saying “it will maximise lives saved at a lower cost and with burdens more fairly distributed, relative to most other alternative policies”.
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2020-05-08 05:31:00Z
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