Herd immunity rejected as solution to COVID-19 pandemic

As one of the speakers of the 2nd round of MSTF Science Promotion Meeting, Hossein Ghanaati, head of Coronavirus think tank in Tehran province, and professor of Neurointerventional Radiology at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, talked about the advantages of utilizing AI-Med—a system drawing on Artificial Intelligence for diagnosis of COVID-19 via chest CT scan.

He asserted that in Iran we have not passed the first wave of this disease yet.

“Coronavirus is a real war; a war against the existence of human beings,” he said.

Expressing doubts about the efficiency of any COVID-19 vaccine produced in the future, he stated that “COVID-19’s behavior is different from other viruses. The amount of IgG in recovered patients is reduced after a while.”

He proposed 3 strategies which can help to control the current crisis worldwide: 1) prevention; 2) effective management by the governments; and 3) tracking.

Maintaining that the second peak is predicted to be in autumn, Ghanaati said “as people have more indoor activities in that time of the year, the risk of infection increases.”

Emphasizing the importance of wearing masks by everyone, he asserted that “herd immunity, which occurs when a large portion of a community becomes immune to a disease by getting infected, does not help to curb COVID-19.”

He said while RT-PCR test is not accurate and its result gets ready in 2 days, chest CT scan test done via AI-Med is more accurate and the result gets immediately ready.

Asked how this system can help the detection of the COVID-19 patients in crowded areas like airports, Ghanaati replied: “our new system aims to detect the infected subjects with the help of X-ray. It will not substitute the doctor’s diagnosis, but it will help detecting infected people in crowded places like airports immediately.”

“The advantage of utilizing AI in the current pandemic is that no data is missed,” he observed.

Regarding the utilization of AI-Med in Islamic countries, he said that “so far, Afghanistan and Iraq have consulted with us and have used our pieces of advice.”

Science Promotion Meetings are a series of meetings held by the Mustafa(pbuh) Science and Technology Foundation (MSTF) in order to communicate science and scientific achievements to the public.

MNA/