Researchers See Need To ‘Pivot Pandemic Response' To Reduce Harm To Those Infected

By Editor, Times of San Diego

January 23, 2022

A new study casts doubt that the pandemic will end through herd immunity once enough people have been vaccinated or experienced a prior infection.

The research, released Thursday in JAMA Network Open, estimates that about 72% of people in Los Angeles County had either been vaccinated or had antibodies from a prior COVID-19 infection by last April.

Nevertheless, the Delta and Omicron variants ultimately caused marked jumps in COVID-19 cases.

“Given that new variants continue to result in significant surges even in a place like L.A. County, which had some of the strictest mask mandates and most expansive testing capacity in the country – we need to pivot our pandemic response from minimizing infections to minimizing the harm from infections,” said Neeraj Sood, one of the study’s co-authors and director of the COVID Initiative at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

Researchers established eight testing sites in the county, where they tested COVID-19 antibodies in 1,335 adults who were deemed a representative sample of local residents during two weeks in mid-April.

The results were adjusted for demographics and vaccination rates using statistical methodology, according to USC.

The study found that 13% of participants received a positive COVID-19 test during the pandemic, and nearly 61% of participants were at least partially vaccinated.

Almost all of the unvaccinated participants who had been infected had antibodies, giving them some protective immunity, including participants who had COVID-19 several months before the study.

The study also found that Black adults and people from lower income households had much lower rates of protective immunity, even though they had higher rates of antibodies from past infection.

“These communities were hit on both sides: they generally had lower vaccination rates, especially in the first few months that vaccines were available, and they also were harder hit by the earlier waves of COVID,” Sood said.

The research team hopes policymakers and public health officials see the results and reconsider how COVID-19 will be addressed long-term.

“Testing the symptomatic, ensuring access to new treatments and encouraging vaccinations for high-risk populations should be the pillars of our pandemic response going forward,” Sood said. “These findings indicate that preventing COVID surges may be increasingly unrealistic, but we can ensure our healthcare system and hospitals have the needed capacity and patients have the care they need.”

Public support for the study was provided by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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