Question

How do vaccines reduce disease spread? How do quarantines reduce disease spread? Which do you think is better?

Answer 1

Vaccines

· Vaccines prevent diseases that can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines greatly reduce the risk of infection by working with the body's natural defenses to safely develop immunity to disease

· Community spreading can be avoided Germs can travel quickly through a community and make a lot of people sick. If enough people get sick, it can lead to an outbreak.

· Outbreak can be prevented When enough people are vaccinated against a certain disease, the germs can’t travel as easily from person to for infectious diseases to spread because there are not many people who can be infected.

· Immunity for children If children are not vaccinated, they could easily get diseases from a traveler or while traveling themselves and of low immune system.

· Protect against long-term complications of infection

· Eradication of disease

· Control of mortality, morbidity and complications

· Increase life expectancy by protecting against diseases against which one would not expect benefit

Quarantine

· Quarantining is done for of individuals that have a high risk of having been infected. Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.

· To reduce transmission of the virus early implementation of quarantine and its combination with other public health measures may reduce spread of the disease.

· Quarantine of people exposed to confirmed cases may avert high proportions of infections and deaths compared to no measures.So quarantine helps to prevent out break and the path of infection can be detected to some extend and control measures can be taken.

· Quarantine is more controversial. Mass quarantine can inflict social, psychological, and economic costs without resulting in the detection of many infected individuals .Negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger.

Longer quarantine duration increases fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. Uncertainities remain as to how these measures can best be adopted and when they can be relaxed.

                           Currently, there are no effective medicines or vaccines available to treat or prevent COVID-19. So restrictive public health measures such as isolation, physical distancing, and quarantine were the only option to prevent the disease.Once the vaccines are discovered complete eradication of the disease is possible. So I support the statement Vaccination is the better method than quarantine as the latter is only a precaution and prevention method.