Will be disastrous: Telangana rules out herd immunity bid to fight COVID-19

HYDERABAD: Even though people are getting impatient over the current restrictions, a high-level State health department official told Express that lifting the lockdown anytime soon to experiment with the concept of herd immunity will be disastrous for the State.

Therefore, the Telangana government will not consider herd immunity as a strategy to combat COVID-19 in the current scenario, due to lack of evidence-based research, he emphasised.  

Herd immunity is when an infectious disease stops spreading in a community, either because the people in the community may have developed a natural immune system to the disease, or enough number of people have been vaccinated against the infection for the spread to be restricted.

No concrete research is available across the globe to justify herd immunity without a possible vaccine, as a measure against COVID-19.

Speaking to Express, a top-ranking official from the Department of Public Health said, “If we were to rely on herd immunity, we would be risking the lives of people, especially the older population. There is no evidence-based research, specifically for COVID-19, to imply that herd immunity can be achieved, especially without a vaccine. The UK tried it and failed miserably. There is enough evidence that it is better to follow isolation and lockdown procedures.”

Another popular narrative has also pushed for rapid testing of random groups of people to identify affected areas and use the data for achieving herd immunity.

However, officials mapping the pandemic in the State have denounced claims connecting rapid testing and herd immunity.

The ICMR too has asked all the States and UTs to stick to ‘isolate-and-test’ with RT-PCR tests, after rapid-testing kits acquired by the government threw up faulty sensitivities.

Another official in-charge of mapping the pandemic said, “The rapid antibody tests are not confirmatory procedures. They are screening procedures. Rapid testing could also throw up a lot of false negatives, thus missing out on positive cases.”