It is estimated that the 1918 flu pandemic killed more than 40 million people, the same people who could die from the COVID-19 disease if measures had not been taken to contain the virus. They are the results of a report published by Imperial College London on March 26 and prepared by a team of experts in mathematical modeling.
The report also indicates that, without preventive measures, 90% of the world’s population would have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For its authors, the way in which the different governments respond to the health emergency in the coming weeks will be fundamental when it comes to stopping the trajectory of the epidemic in each country.
The analysis
We must bear in mind that we are facing an unknown virus and that there are still many details that we do not know about its form of transmission and evolution over time, as well as the very different social, economic and demographic circumstances that occur in each country, for so there is always a high degree of uncertainty in the predictions of the developed mathematical models. In any case, the results of this and many other analyzes always point to the need to implement prevention strategies to avoid health collapse in the most affected countries.
In this study, the team of experts combined the data available for each age on contact patterns and disease severity to be able to project the impact of the pandemic in 202 countries. Specifically, the predicted impacts of mortality in the absence of interventions were compared with those that could be achieved through policies aimed at mitigating or suppressing transmission.
The authors caution, however, that “estimates of mortality and demand for health care are based on data from China and high-income countries. Differences in underlying health conditions and the capacity of the health system will likely lead to different patterns in low-income settings ”.
Mitigation Scenarios
The report analyzes the impacts of the implementation of different strategies to contain the virus. Those that focus on protecting older people by reducing their contacts by 60% and slowing but not interrupting transmission (40% reduction of social contacts of the entire population) could cut mortality in half (in a global scenario we would speak of 20 million deaths). However, the authors emphasize that, even in this scenario, health systems around the world would quickly be overwhelmed. Furthermore, the lowest-income countries would, of course, be the hardest hit by the collapse.
If we project a scenario in which more forceful measures are adopted, which imply social distancing, early detection of cases and isolation of infected people and which are also carried out when the mortality rate in each country is 0.2 for each 100,000 people per week, 38.7 million lives could be saved. If these strategies were initiated when the number of deaths is higher (1.6 deaths per 100,000 people per week), 30.7 deaths would be avoided.
“Therefore, our analysis suggests that the demand for health care can only be kept within manageable levels through the rapid adoption of public health measures to suppress transmission, similar to those being adopted in many countries today. ”, Summarize the experts.
Another point on which the report affects is the need to maintain containment measures in some way until effective vaccines or treatments are available, or else new COV-19 outbreaks could occur. “Our analysis highlights the very difficult decisions that all governments will face in the coming weeks and months, but it also shows the extent to which rapid, decisive and collective action could save millions of lives,” they conclude.
