Global News Herd Immunity Hello Royals! Welcome back to The Current Uproar! This is our November issue! Check out our previous issues from both this year and last year on the student newspaper webpage: http://www.whsactivities.org/page/ show/2139802-school-newspaper-the-current-uproar- (QR code be- low)! As always our newspaper is open to all students and open to wide variety of content, so if you have any suggestions or would like to become a correspondent, send us an email at currentu- [email protected]! Hope you enjoy this issue! Sincerely, Nikhil Jain Editor OCT ISSUE In this issue: hps://cdn.shopify.com/s/ files/1/1061/1924/products/ Earth_Globe_Americas_Emoji_lar ge.png?v=1571606063 hps://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=hps%3A%2F% 2Fcdn.technologynetworks.com%2Ftn%2Fimages%2Fthumbs% 2Fjpeg%2F640_360%2Fherd-immunity-is-a-dangerous-strategy-for -tackling-covid-19-339142.jpg&imgrefurl=hps%3A%2F% 2Fwww.technologynetworks.com%2Fimmunology%2Fnews% 2Fherd-immunity-is-a-dangerous-strategy-for-tackling-covid-19- 339142&tbnid=ChSkRcjJYyYEvM&vet=12ahUKEwjziJ6LuYjtAhUO0K wKHbRWCKsQMygAegQIARB9..i&docid=_GG8GGYOk4e08M&w=6 40&h=360&q=herd% 20immuni- ty&safe=acve&ved=2ahUKEwjziJ6LuYjtAhUO0KwKHbRWCKsQMy
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Global News
Herd Immunity Hello Royals!
Welcome back to The Current Uproar! This is our November issue!
Check out our previous issues from both this year and last year on the
Herd Immunity: why our reliance on this idea may prove to be fatal during a global pandemic By: Anika Tripathi
The term “Herd Immunity” has been thrown around by many health officials as a means of treatment for the global pandemic that is currently affecting communities all around the world. COVID-19. Many countries have opened up their economies in hope that naturally occuring Herd Immunity will take its course and defeat COVID but this utter disregard for safety precautions and this blind reliance on naturally occuring Herd Immunity can prove deadly and have dire consequences. But, before we explore how natural-ly occurring Herd Immunity can harm us we must first address what is Herd Immunity?
Herd Immunity is the idea that if many people get exposed to a particular disease and become im-mune, an entire community is protected including even those who may not have been exposed previously to the virus. Herd Immunity can be achieved either by vaccination, which is what most countries are trying to develop, or through natural infection. Herd immunity has helped us recover from a number of diseases from influenza, commonly known as the flu, to Polio. But in most cases this type of immunity has been achieved via the invention of vaccines. Because there is yet to be a safe vaccine made for distribution to the public, the type of Herd Immunity that health officials are discussing more recently in light of COVID-19 is known as naturally occurring Herd Immunity and this type of Herd Immunity can cause unimaginable loss to our human population as a whole.
I have to admit, naturally occurring Herd Immunity sounds good on paper. The idea that we can protect communities from a virus by people being exposed to the pathogens of the said virus seems good, but what it fails to take into account is the number of lives that will have to be lost in order for this protec-tion to occur. Naturally occurring Herd Immunity can only be achieved by mass infection of populations and even then it’s not 100 percent certain whether this natural immunity will work with the specific strains of the COVID-19 virus. While massive infection can prove to be good as it increases chances of immunity, massive infection comes with the cost of many more lives and it fails to take into account the unintended consequences. If many people were to be infected with COVID-19 in hopes that Herd Immunity will cause COVID-19 to dissipate, not only would it put people’s lives at risk but the economy would inevitably need to shut down as a majority of people are sick and unable to work. Also, it is not yet known what the long term effects of COVID-19 are, so if massive populations of people were to contract this virus, we would not be able to tell what problems these people would run into in the future due to contracting this virus as there are still too many unknowns of COVID-19. Recently, the country of Sweden has attempted to use naturally occurring Herd Immunity to their advantage and have resisted strict lockdown measures in hopes that Herd Immunity would solve the COVID-19 crisis plaguing their country. Data from John Hopkins University, shows that Sweden has 39.95 deaths from COVID per 100,000 people while Norway and Finland, Sweden’s neighbors who put stricter COVID measures in place, each have significantly less deaths with 4.42 deaths per 100,000 people and 5.2 deaths per 100,000 people respectively. One can see that Sweden’s reliance on Herd Immunity without a vaccine has yielded greater infection rates as well as higher rates of death from COVID.
Herd Immunity can be beneficial to the human population as a whole, but only when it is imple-mented with a vaccine and not done by mass infections. The globe has already lost 1.19 million lives. Im-plementing Herd Immunity without a vaccine can raise that number to be even higher. Instead, we must rely on safety precautions like: wearing a mask, staying 6ft apart and avoiding social gatherings to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus and to protect ourselves and others because Herd Immunity without a vac-cine is most definitely not an answer to the global pandemic we are currency facing. Herd Immunity without a vaccine, may sound promising, but in reality it equates to more lives lost and more funerals to be planned and that is simply not an option.
Season For The Ages By Nikhil Jain
Coming into the year, high school sports were in doubt. Soccer players were going to captains prac-tice throughout the summer without knowing whether or not there would even be a season. So much had changed due to the pandemic. The state basketball tournament had been cancelled. Spring sports had been cancelled. Even sports outside of school were forced to cancel most of their activities. The decision for whether or not we would have fall sports came down to one vote. Fortunately, the vote passed for soc-cer and a season was planned. This was not the case for football, who had to delay their season a few months. With the soccer season now in place, the Royals soccer players were eager to get on the field. In a year with so many uncertainties, soccer was certain to bring everyone joy. The season started off well with the Royals winning their first game. From there, things went south. They went 0-1-1 in their next two games and things were looking bad. Next up was a battle against our rials, East Ridge. East Ridge had gone 3-0 coming into the game and were looking really good. They had not given up a goal yet. That would change. In an extremely hard fought game, the Royals came out on top behind a last second penalty kick by En-rique Rios. This was the first win that the Royals had against East Ridge in years and it meant a lot to the team. After this, the Royals rattled off a few wins and took 1st place in the conference. Everything was look-ing good hedging into a battle with CDH. Normally, CDH was not a very good team but they were decent this year. The Royals went to CDH and lost 2-1. This dropped them out of 1st place. After this game, the Royals went on to win their next few games and seemed to be playing well again. Unfortunately, the lead-ing goal scorer received a red card in the last game before the conference tournament and sections. This led to the Royals falling out of sync as they would finish off the season by losing the last three games. While it was not the finish that the Royals wanted to the season, it was a blessing to even have a season. All of the players cannot be disappointed with the result when they consider the alternative, having to sit at home and play video games instead of the sport they love.
Give Golf A Chance By Nikhil Jain
Recently, my friends and I started to play golf. It all started when we were hanging out in someone’s pool and my friend’s older brother offered to take us to the range. None of us had golfed much before that so we decided to go and have a little fun. At first I could barely hit the ball. I would whiff at least two or three times before I even made contact with the ball. If I wasn’t just there to have fun, it would have been embar-rassing. After a bit of practice, I began to whiff less. Soon, I was making contact with the ball most of the time. Then, it happened. I hit my 6-iron extremely clean and it went crazy far. The feelings that rushed through my body after that hit are indescribable. That single shot made me come back to the range within the next two days. Eventually, my friends and I were going almost everyday either to the range or to the ac-tual course. Everytime we go, my score improves and I hit the ball better. It is extremely motivating when you can see your own progress in something. Now, golf has become a stress reliever for me and a way to hang out with my friends. To anyone who is looking for a hobby, I would definitely recommend golf. It can be played by those who are competitive, relaxed, or just looking for a good time. Try it and you might just hit that one shot that keeps you coming back for more.