Unheard, un-herd immunity against COVID 19

 

The debate over either herd immunity against COVID 19 or a vaccine alone would protect humanity from the pandemic is happening at global level but unfortunately the scientific community seldom recognize the abundant truth that exist in India and which wards off the virus called unheard, un-herd immunity. 

The above terminology is never used in immunology nor would be accept also.  Human mind always fantasise over illusionary or mirage images and possibilities than what really exist next to us, so cruelly and brutally. 

We must analyse and accept the existence of unheard, un-herd immunity in India.  The world had already claimed that the newly emerged coronavirus is new and that is why it is named as novel coronavirus and the disease thus caused by the virus is called COVID 19.  

The virus is new, meaning, no one knows anything about the virus and hence everything our scientific world describes about the virus are mere personalized observations and may not be the real consequence of viral infection/invasion or can be a mere co-incidence.  Today the world has created such a scene wherein nothing exist on earth; nor any pathogen other than novel coronavirus and only disease – COVDI 19 and people die only due to novel coronavirus and not by any other means. 

May be due to some strange reason the Lord of death, the so called YAMA would have cut down his staff working for YAMA and were executing the task of causing death of people.  It looks like YAMA has given wholesale tender to novel coronavirus to kill human being and has also subdued all the other deadly pathogens and diseases like cancer, heart attack etc., to assist and serve the novel coronavirus and even if someone dies not due to coronavirus, must be claimed as COVID 19 death because the credit for death in this year is exclusively reserved for novel coronavirus and not for any other diseases or pathogens.

The point of unheard, un-herd immunity against novel coronavirus is quite scientific and real.  In India, besides seeing plenty of asymptomatic carriers of the virus, many have not even shown the viral presence in the given exposure cohort; although such claim is authentic but still scientific data is lacking to deny or authenticate such possibility.  Now the question is why many people despite having a possible exposure to the virus have not contracted the virus?  Was the inoculum size too low to infect or the rate of viral elimination in certain individuals was extremely high? 

When the virus is said to be new, prior exposure to such virus by people is quite impossible.  Then how certain people are showing defence against such a new pathogen? Such possibility is quite unheard in immunology.  Or else, the generalized, innate level of immunity itself may be enough to protect people.  Does that mean all those who have developed COVID 19 suffer from compromised innate immunity?  If the innate level of protection itself is weak means, should we really worry about the underlying cause that had paralyzed even the innate immunity or about the virus?

Interestingly the people who showed resistance even to contract the virus cannot be due to herd immunity because herd immunity requires viral exposure.  Then such possibility has to be named only as un-herd immunity against the virus. 

The big question is how we can dismiss unheard, un-herd immunity that had offered great protection to vast majority of people against novel coronavirus in India.  When un-herd immunity itself can offer such great level of protection means, the coupled effect of herd immunity may even make the virus a marginal player in our health care delivery system.  We would have gained great protection from the virus and the possibly that the virus may have been even eliminated by now, if we had let people to move freely with the virus instead of forcing lockdown. 

The question of the duration of exposure and viral load required for a healthy person to show least clinical symptoms of COVID 19 is although unknown, but still we can predict the truth that the novel coronavirus has gone unharmed and unnoticed in vast majority of population must be due to ‘un-herd’ immunity. 

But the fractured and fearful approach of science in dealing the pandemic has really killed the nation more brutally than by the virus.  Considering the vast population in India and social and cultural fabric, at least 80% of Indians should have contracted the virus by now.  But at best only 10 or 15 percentage of Indians seems to have had exposure to the virus as revealed by several sero survey findings.  The question is why a virus of such communicability and Ro time has limited itself to just 15 percentage of population and not 50 or 60% of the population. 

The possibility is that the virus would have reached more than 50 percentage of the population but could leave some of its trails only in 15 percentages of people and the rest did not even contract the virus, may be due to unheard, un-herd immunity.  Rest of the 50% of the population may have been protected by those who exhibited unheard, un-herd immunity (did not even contracted the virus) and hence did not transmit the virus, which we must recognize.   

India’s sandwich effect due to our population dynamics and the possible existence of unheard, un-herd immunity, the scientific community many not recognize and accept because such acceptance may expose their ignorance.  Already danger over the virus and the disease has been disproportionately hyped and to some extent and also it is being celebrated by our medical and scientific community.  Therefore our medical and scientific community may try to dig out more bones and skeletons to prove the virus is the terminator number one and COVID 19 is the disease with high degree of death certainty.

Novel coronavirus is a secondary pathogen, meek and toothless, but we made everything out of the virus and destroyed economy and hopes and aspirations of people by adopting bizarre and cynical measure called lockdown, social distancing, wearing mask etc.

Time has come we must accommodate and respect the niche and the role of novel coronavirus to rebuild confidence in people to push them back to pre-corona period of enthusiasm.