High transmission rates will finally reduce the number of severe COVID-19 cases

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In a new study from KAIST, researchers found that high transmission rates among highly vaccinated populations of COVID-19 ultimately reduce the number of severe cases.

The mathematical model used in the study suggests a clue as to when this pandemic will turn into an endemic

With the future of the pandemic remaining uncertain, a research team of mathematicians and medical scientists analyzed a mathematical model that may predict how the changing transmission rate of COVID-19 would affect the settlement process of the virus as a mild respiratory virus.

In the current study, the team used a new approach by dividing the human immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 into a shorter-term neutralizing antibody response and a longer-term T-cell immune response and applying them each to a mathematical model.

What’s more, the analysis was based on the fact that although breakthrough infection may occur frequently, the immune response of the patient will be boosted after recovery from each breakthrough infection.

They found that in an environment with a high vaccination rate, although COVID-19 cases may rise temporarily when the transmission rate increases, the ratio of critical cases would ultimately decline.

Thus, this decreases the total number of critical cases and in fact settles COVID-19 as a mild respiratory disease more quickly.

This research did not take the less virulent characteristic of the omicron variant into account, but focused on the results of its high transmission rate, thereby predicting what may happen in the process of the endemic transition of COVID-19.

The research team pointed out that for policies that encourage a step-wise return to normality to succeed, the sustainable maintenance of public health systems is indispensable.

If you care about Covid, please read studies that nanoparticles in COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are nothing to fear, and Moderna, Pfizer COVID vaccines much stronger than Johnson & Johnson/Janssen.

For more information about health, please see recent studies that many COVID-19 survivors suffer from a new disability, lung damage, and results showing two paths toward ‘super immunity’ to COVID-19.

The study was conducted by Jae Kyoung Kim et al., and published in medRxiv.

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