A lot of people have noticed the rapid decline in reported COVD-19 cases starting on Jan. 8, 2021 (see below chart from CDC). According to an OP-Ed in the Wall Street Journal by Professor Marty Makary at Johns Hopkins, this rapid decline means “Herd Immunity” will be attained by April and Covid will be over. That is only a few short weeks away. Like every one else with “Covid Fatigue,” I am hoping the chart continues to decline and Professor Marty Makary is right about that.
The professor says this rapid decline is not due to vaccination nor to masking or social distancing type precautions, rather to developing herd immunity, heralding the end of a viral pandemic when enough people acquire immunity after recovering from natural infection.
Disappearing Influenza?
Don’t Worry, the Vaccine Is Safe and Effective
Many of my friends, neighbors and family members have hastened to get their Covid vaccine, and then boast in pride they have been vaccinated, contributing to the public good.The vaccine is not without its problems. One of which is vaccine induced immune enhancement for people who have already been exposed to the virus, had the viral illness and recovered with natural immunity. These people now have natural immunity and don’t need a vaccine. If they do get the vaccine, they are at increased risk for adverse immune enhancement. Increased risk to “recently convalescent or asymptomatic carriers” was pointed out by a cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm in a letter to the FDA warning of:
Reversing Position on Hydroxychloroquine
Apparently even Facebook has now reversed its position on censoring information about Hydroxychloroquine, an old drug which is now recognized as one of many repurposed antivirals effective for coronavirus. A number of repurposed antivirals such as Azithromycin, Ivermectin, melatonin, Zinc, Vitamin D3, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, etc. are available as highly effective treatment for viral illness. Another good reason to question the need for an experimental vaccine for a disease with a 99.9 percent survival rate for the under 60. If we have effective treatment, then why do we need a vaccine? None of the vaccines have been officially FDA approved. They are all being given to people based on Emergency Use Authorization as part of an ongoing clinical trial.Conclusion
Will the Casedemic be over in April? Only time will tell if the prediction by Dr. Marty Makary is correct. I hope he is correct about that, so things can return to normal.Links and References
1) We'll Have Herd Immunity by April Covid cases have dropped 77% in six weeks. Experts should level with the public about the good news. By Marty Makary, Feb. 18, 2021, Wall Street Journal. Dr. Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, chief medical adviser to Sesame Care, and author of “The Price We Pay.”But the consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since Jan. 8 can be explained only by natural immunity. Behavior didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; Americans traveled more over Christmas than they had since March. Vaccines also don’t explain the steep decline in January. Vaccination rates were low and they take weeks to kick in.
My prediction that Covid-19 will be mostly gone by April is based on laboratory data, mathematical data, published literature and conversations with experts.
3) Your Coronavirus Test is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. Published in New York Times, Aug. 29, 2020 Discussion from a hospital laboratory perspective by Marie L. Landry, M.D., director, Clinical Virology Laboratory, Yale New Haven Hospital
Top epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski says that the massive drop in influenza cases can be attributed to the fact that many are being falsely counted as COVID-19 cases.
Wittkowski, former Head of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University, cautioned that, “Influenza has been renamed COVID-19 in large part.”
Dr. Hooman Noorchashm says FDA, Pfizer and Moderna must consider the danger COVID vaccines pose to the recently convalescent or asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2—especially the elderly, frail or anyone with significant cardiovascular risk factors.
In a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer and the press, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm warns of an “almost certain immunological prognotication that if viral antigens are present in the tissues of subjects who undergo vaccination, the antigen specific immune response triggered by the vaccine will target those tissues and cause tissue inflammation and damage.”
Results of the study: COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.
Conclusions drawn from the study and clinical implications: The specific and significant COVID-19 risk of ADE should have been and should be prominently and independently disclosed to research subjects currently in vaccine trials, as well as those being recruited for the trials and future patients after vaccine approval, in order to meet the medical ethics standard of patient comprehension for informed consent.