So there is positive news about the dreaded Covid Virus that is not being reported in the mainstream media and is not being considered by our Governor or his task force. The good news is that for young healthy people like me—I am 70 years old—and people who do not have co-morbid conditions we should open up our society, families, and business, and get on with the business of living. Why do I say this? Because if you are less than 70 years old and you become infected with the Covid virus you have a 99.9% chance of recovering completely without sequel. If you are over 70 years of age that number drops to 99.0%. These numbers can be found in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal.
As infections are going up 150%, deaths are going down 88%. Why the increased numbers and decreased deaths?
It is not because the tests are more sensitive and it is not because there is increased cross reactivity with other Covid Virus. It is because the original virus has slowly mutated—called the D (614) g mutation making the virus more transmissible and less deadly. This is good news because for young people like myself we want the virus to spread quickly. The idea that in the end of the pandemic we could control the number of people exposed and infected was never a consideration. If you will remember controlling the rate of transmission spreading out the curve so that health care providers and hospitals wouldn’t be overrun was the goal, not limiting the spread of the disease in the long term.
The conceit of those nonscientists who felt we could defeat the virus was never shared by the public health or infectious disease communities. As the disease progressed—we have done a very good job of mitigating the disease, the cries of panic from the press who have their own agenda have become more inappropriate. We can only mitigate against the effects of nature—controlling this type of virus is for future scientists. Type 3 mitigation—protecting the vulnerable and elderly should be our priority. If the virus was becoming more virulent our strategy may require a different approach, but the virus is becoming less deadly. WE should take advantage of this situation and try to develop herd immunity as quickly as possible and young healthy people—particularly school-age children and young adults are no more at risk for dying from this disease now since the mutation than they are from previous select seasonal flue epidemics.
We are also taking care of those better who do develop more severe symptoms. Early use of therapeutics are keeping people out of the hospital. Aggressive medical treatments and the early use of steroids helps. Using ventilators as a last resort has saved lives and by using a different set of metrics for determining the need for ventilatory support has helped tremendously.
The general healthy population can probably do more to secure their wellness by getting a flu shot than any other form of mitigation strategy and this goes for the at risk population also. This current pandemic is a disease of the indoor environment. ASHRAE and CDC web sites can be interrogated so that nursing homes and work environments can upgrade their air filtration systems. Simply opening classroom doors and windows will significantly help with closed spaced ventilation. Gymnasiums and indoor swimming pools who have in addition to closed spaced ventilation strategies, should also keep windows and doors open.
Not enough has been discussed about strengthening the immune system. Vid D metabolism is critical in this regard and people especially the elderly and those at risk should try to spend at least 1 hour under the sun everyday even in winter.
Some notes of caution. Two weeks ago in THE LANCET—the British Journal of medicine there were described 2 people that had become reinfected with the Covid virus. Two out of many millions is not much but the virus that reinfected them had mutated in a way that previous immunity did not confer protection. Secondly, there has never been a successful RNA virus vaccine and Covid is an RNA virus. Finally, in a very small group of people who developed an acute inflammatory syndrome and were identified as being Covid positive, they all had lowering antigen levels and accelerated and high antibody levels. An immune system run amuck can be problematic in these types of cases.
In 1980 the military unsuccessfully tried to develop a vaccine to HIV-1 virus also and RNA virus, but because of the hyperimmune response—2 out of 5000 patients developed a Guillen Barre syndrome—the vaccine was never released.
It is crazy to say like Joe Biden says that we can defeat the virus. We can manage the virus and mitigate and protect the vulnerable. The lessons learned today will help us maybe defeat the next viral pandemic or the next. That is the way science works.
Let’s start living and open up—now.
2 replies on “Open Up Now!”
IF you believe in the germ theory of infection (PASTEUR). However, IF you believe in the terrain theory (BÉCHAMP), then keeping your body and immune system healthy is the key to preventing and fighting dis-ease. Healthy foods with the proper vitamins and minerals, sunshine when available, Vitamin D supplementation when not. Detoxification and cleansing of the liver and kidneys go a long way toward helping make your immune system strong.
Do not take the flu vaccine! It has been proven to cause vaccine derived viral interference. It actually causes you to be MORE susceptible to other respiratory viruses! Studies have shown that with each flu vaccine, you actually become more susceptible to the flu. https://www.brmi.online/post/vaccine-viral-interference
In Italy, just prior to the “outbreak”, their elderly and vulnerable population had been vaccinated with a new flu vaccine, an new H1N1 strain, and BOOM, all the deaths from the “COVAIDS-1984”.
Wake up. Everything we have been taught is a lie, a lie to benefit big pharma.
President Washington in 1775-1776 required all new conscripts to the Continental Army to be inoculated against small pox. This was 20 years early than Edward Jenner’s publication and development of a more humane method. The British and other European troops had already developed herd immunity from previous European pandemics and were using soiled bed linens and dish towels to infect American troops. Washington had personally contracted the disease at age 19 while visiting Barbados. He had also been inoculating his slaves and family members against small pox.
When George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775, America was fighting a war on two fronts: one for independence from the British, and a second for survival against smallpox. Because Washington knew the ravages of the disease firsthand, he understood that the smallpox virus, then an invisible enemy, could cripple his army and end the war before it began.
That’s why Washington eventually made the bold decision to inoculate all American troops who had never been sickened with smallpox at a time when inoculation was a crude and often deadly process. His gamble paid off. The measure staved off smallpox long enough to win a years-long fight with the British. In the process, Washington pulled off the first massive, state-funded immunization campaign in American history.
Finally with seasonal flue—only 60% herd immunity is required to suppress the disease. You are correct that the R0—infectivity rate is low for attenuated viruses, but it accomplishes suppression. Measles, mumps, polio, and small pox have all been subdued —-we learned from small pox that viruses can never be completely defeated, but with a 30% death rate small pox vaccination has saved hundreds of millions of lives.