Vaccination, not a lockdown, will defeat COVID-19 – Emergency Medicine Specialist

Jun 08, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Based on evidence gathered by Emergency Medicine Specialist, Dr. Zulfikar Bux, since the onset of COVID-19, a lockdown to help combat the disease could potentially cause more harm than good. In his column of last Sunday, the doctor highlighted the fact that “there isn’t a worldwide consensus on lockdowns since evidence has shown that it can be another form of devastation if it is poorly timed and implemented in systems that cannot support it.”
Dr. Bux has made his theory public at a time when the country is experiencing the worse phase of the pandemic thus far and a number of solutions have been proposed to help chart the way forward.

Emergency Medicine Specialist, Dr. Zulfikar Bux.

One popular suggestion, he acknowledged, is that of a total lockdown of the country with the hope that “it will enable us to regain control of the spiralling numbers of infections and deaths.” But given the prevailing evidence and the current state of affairs in the land, Dr. Bux worries that a lockdown may not sufficiently control the spread of the disease before the economy is devastated and more lives are lost.
Backed by science, he revealed that there are other solutions that may be the best way to get a better handle on the disease instead of having to “play catch up when we reopen after a lockdown.”
Citing a 2021 systemic review of studies on COVID-19 spread, Dr. Bux noted that it was deduced that a low proportion (less than 10 percent) of global infections occurred outdoors, and higher odds (18.7 percent times) compared to outdoors transmission. In fact, he noted that experts are convinced that outdoor COVID-19 transmissions may be less than one percent, a state of affairs that was demonstrated in Ireland where evidence showed only 0.1 percent of COVID-19 infections occurred outdoors.
Since COVID-19 seems to have an affinity to spread indoors, Dr. Bux opposes a lockdown given the fact that Guyana has enough active cases that will facilitate continued indoor spread for a projected period as most of the population will have to be confined indoors. “My concern is that we may see a rise in cases initially if there is a lockdown and this is a counterproductive move given the alternative options available to us,” he noted.
The data, according to Dr. Bux, shows that in closed spaces, one’s risk of acquiring COVID-19 increases with the duration they spend in the space, the smaller (dimension) the space, the more populated (density) the space is, and the lack of airflow and fresh air (draft) in the said space. A lockdown, he theorised, “will increase our chances of being exposed to the ‘4Ds’ (duration, dimension, density and draft). However, with careful planning, we can carry out our daily lives and prevent a lockdown once we design our interactions in open settings that are larger, less crowded, has good airflow, and we minimise the amount of time we are close to others in the such settings.”
In addition to these evidence-based solutions, Dr. Bux noted that there is also evidence of the negative mental health, cardiovascular and socio-economic effects of lockdowns that cannot be ignored and must also be taken into consideration given the long-term risks, which they pose to those affected.
Even as he opposes a lockdown, Dr. Bux shared his belief that “vaccination will take us ahead of the pandemic.” With Guyana poised to receive sufficient vaccines for its population before the year ends, he believes that it is on the right track to annihilate COVID-19. He qualified this by pointing to the fact that “countries with high vaccination rates have been able get ahead of the pandemic and substantially reduce deaths and infections from COVID-19. If we are proactive and get vaccinated ASAP, we can achieve the target of at least 80 percent vaccination coverage and get ahead of the pandemic before the year is out.”
A lockdown, he maintained, will only stall this window of opportunity and may hamper the vaccination drive sufficiently to leave the nation in this pandemic for the next year or more. He noted, therefore, “a wise person will look at countries with high vaccination rates like the US, UK, Israel, etc., and realise that they can contribute to a similar situation in Guyana by getting vaccinated ASAP.”
Turning his attention to treatment, Dr. Bux noted that a recent meta-analysis of the effectiveness of Ivermectin showed that 95 percent of the 57 studies reviewed, indicated a positive effect when Ivermectin was used to treat COVID-19 patients especially when it was used early. Ivermectin is a medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations. “My clinical experience with using Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients,” Dr. Bux said, “has also been excellent. It has a strong safety profile and it is a far better option to explore to help control COVID-19 infection and death rates before considering a systemic lockdown.”