Dr. Marty Makary of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was bold in his projection that we will have immunity to herds by April. This is disputed by those who are nowhere near his public health expertise, but I am getting the backlash for tearing the Democratic Party’s COVID lockdown regime to shreds. In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Makary says we underestimate natural immunity and with the pace of vaccinations we will reach that crucial measure of regaining normalcy by tax season.
About 1 in 600 Americans has died from Covid-19, which translates to a population death rate of about 0.15%. The death rate for Covid-19 infection is approximately 0.23%, ”wrote Dr. Makary. With those figures, he estimates that two-thirds of the country is already infected. We are rapidly approaching 100 million vaccinations. It’s not a crazy projection, but he says other health experts are afraid to push for fear of influencing vaccination coverage. That’s not their job, he said. Good health news should be spread, not buried. There was backlash, and more will come when he recently wrote about the vaccine protocols.
The good doctor cited an Israeli study showing that those who received the Pfizer vaccine are practically “bulletproof” four weeks after the first dose. That’s the keyword there. So we can get back to normal if the CDC weren’t so preoccupied with exaggerated threats about the virus and being struck with fear, which Makary noted with their latest guidelines. Is it ‘follow the science’ or ‘be scared, be very scared’?
Get the chance, wait a month, and start rebuilding our lives. That is fair. That seems to be based on science, which the CDC may be ignoring. You’re the judge (via WSJ):
Parts of the new guidelines are absurdly restrictive. For example, the CDC has not withdrawn its advice to avoid air travel after vaccination. A year of pre-vaccination experience has shown that aircraft are not a source of spread. A study conducted for the defense department found that commercial aircraft have HEPA filtration and airflow that exceed the standards of a hospital operating room.
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An unpublished study conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Health and Pfizer found that vaccination reduced transmission by 89% to 94% and almost completely prevented hospitalization and death, according to press releases. Immunity starts fully about four weeks after the first vaccination dose, and then you are essentially bulletproof. With the added safety of wearing a mask indoors for a few more weeks or months – a practical necessity in public places, even if it’s not medical, as you can’t tell right away if someone is immune – there’s little that a vaccinated person should be. discouraged to do.
On the positive side, the CDC said fully vaccinated people who are asymptomatic don’t need to be tested. But that obvious recommendation should have come two months ago, before we wasted so many tests on people who have high levels of circulating antibodies from vaccination.
In its guidelines, the CDC says the risks of infection in vaccinated people “cannot be completely ruled out”. Admittedly, we do not have conclusive data to guarantee that vaccination reduces the risk to zero. We never will. We operate in the field of medical discretion based on the best available data, as practicing physicians have always done. The CDC highlights the astonishing success of the vaccines, but is ridiculously cautious about their implications. Public health officials are short-sighted about transmission risk, while virtually ignoring the broader health crisis that results from isolation. The CDC recognizes “potential” risks of isolation, but does not go into details.
It’s time to free vaccinated people to mend their relationships and rebuild their lives. That would encourage vaccination by giving reluctant people a vivid incentive to take the shot.
During the pandemic, authorities missed the precautionary mark. Hospitals blocked family members from being with their loved ones, gasping for breath, gagging on a breathing tube – what some patients describe as the worst feeling in the world. In addition to the strength to hold a hand, family members coordinate care and serve as a valuable safety net, a partnership much needed when many hospitals were short of staff. The separation of family members was excessive and cruel, driven by narrow thinking that focused solely on reducing the risk of viral transmission, without regard to the damage to the quality of human life.
He added the mental health problems that have exploded as a result of the lockdown regime ignoring teacher unions, Democrats and the liberal media. Children commit suicide. Anxiety and depression have also increased among college students. Loneliness and isolation will be the real ‘long-term’ symptom of this pandemic, which could be partially alleviated if our experts gave us real advice that wasn’t so covered in nonsense.