Coronavirus: how herd immunity could help India contain Covid-19

The radical proposal underscores the challenges facing poorer developing countries – including nations like Indonesia and some in Sub-Saharan Africa

The government has maintained its testing criteria gives an accurate tally of India’s number of cases, and says the disease is not spreading untracked

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A man boards an ambulance at a quarantine centre. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00am, 22 Apr 2020Updated: 12:06pm, 22 Apr 2020

Controversial given the high risk of deaths, a coronavirus strategy discarded by the UK is being touted as the solution for poor but young countries like India.

The herd immunity strategy, which would allow a majority of the population to gain resistance to the virus by becoming infected and then recovering, could result in less economic devastation and human suffering than restrictive lockdowns designed to stop the virus’s spread, a number of experts have begun to argue in the nation of 1.3 billion people.

“No country can afford a prolonged period of lockdowns, and least of all a country like India,” said Jayaprakash Muliyil, a prominent Indian epidemiologist. “You may be able to reach a point of herd immunity without infection really catching up with the elderly. And when the herd immunity reaches a sufficient number the outbreak will stop, and the elderly are also safe.”

A team of researchers at Princeton University and the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, a public health advocacy group based in New Delhi and Washington, has identified India as a place where this strategy could be successful because its disproportionately young population would face less risk of hospitalisation and death.

They said allowing the virus to be unleashed in a controlled way for the next seven months would give 60 per cent of the country’s people immunity by November, and thus halt the disease.

Mortality could be limited as the virus spreads compared to European nations like Italy given that 93.5 per cent of the Indian population is younger than 65, they said, though no death toll projections were released.

The radical proposal underscores the challenges that poorer developing countries – including nations like Indonesia and some in Sub-Saharan Africa – face in curbing the epidemic using the lockdown measures that have been adopted by advanced economies.