Coronavirus: Doctors warn herd immunity will lead to surge in deaths

Doctors have warned against easing social restrictions too soon, saying herd immunity will lead to a surge in COVID-19 deaths.

Doctors have slammed NSW government plans to ease restrictions and allow more people to become infected with COVID-19, saying the resultant deaths would be unacceptable.

Intensive care physician Greg Kelly, who co-ordinated a letter by thousands of doctors calling for stringent lockdowns, said the strategy would place unacceptable pressure on hospitals and lead to widespread loss of life.

“We’ve seen that it’s a strategy that completely fails,” Dr Kelly said.

“When the actual death starts they realise how horrible that is to see the news full of critically ill people, to talk about burying people in parks, to have a health system that’s completely overwhelmed and then they realise it’s a tough-guy strategy that won’t work.”

The Australian revealed on Wednesday that senior officials in NSW were floating a long-term plan to ease social-isolation restrictions and expose Australians to COVID-19 in manageable doses in an effort to boost herd immunity in the population.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt poured cold water on the plan, insisting “our goal is for people not to be infected”.

The NSW plan envisaged that increasing levels of community immunity through exposure to the virus could provide an answer for society to return to a state of normalcy, particularly given the uncertainty about when or if a vaccine can be developed for COVID-19.

Dr Kelly said the plan should be discounted: “We have seen that herd immunity is a failed strategy in other countries and leads to catastrophic levels of death and disability. There is no way that the Australian public or the Australian health system could put up with that.

“Death is not something that we should dismiss lightly.

“It’s easy for someone who is sitting in an armchair in a comfortable house to say let’s build up some herd immunity, but when the deaths come there has been no country that’s been able to tolerate the death rate that they said they would be able to put up with.

“Nothing like it.”

The UK government briefly toyed with a herd immunity plan before backflipping and instituting tough lockdowns. But it’s feared that leaders acted too late in the UK, which is now experiencing massive death rates.

Sweden is also pursuing a controversial herd immunity plan, with very high death rates.

Benjamin Veness, another doctor in favour of tough lockdowns, said any herd immunity strategy would have devastating impacts on people who needed to go to hospital for reasons other than COVID-19.