Posted on 05/07/2021 1:19:37 PM PDT by lightman
Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, disputed CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky's contention that COVID-19 variants could set back the march to herd immunity from COVID-19 during a Thursday afternoon appearance on Fox News' "The Story."
Walensky on Wednesday called the various COVID-19 scariants, er, variants a "wild card" that could "reverse" the progress made so far.
In an op-ed for the New York Post published Tuesday titled "Don’t buy the fearmongering: The COVID-19 threat is waning," Makary argued against buying into the "fear" that variants could "evade vaccines."
Look at the facts: About 57 percent of adults are vaccinated and approximately half of unvaccinated people have natural immunity from prior infection. That’s why US cases have been plummeting, down 31 percent over the past 18 days.
To put things in context, during the mildest flu season in the last eight years, there were 24 million cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control, and approximately 447,000 daily cases during its peak week. By comparison, we’re averaging 49,641 daily COVID cases. That same mild flu season resulted in 280,000 hospitalizations. By comparison, current COVID hospitalizations as of May 1 are 34,905.
Let me be clear: COVID is not the flu, and we should not downplay the risk among susceptible people. But for the millions of Americans who are immune and live where the cases are low, the public-health threat is now defanged and below seasonal-flu levels. Given the harm of social isolation, we need to abandon the goal of absolute risk elimination at all cost.
"Look, we’ve had dozens of variants and they’re all entirely encompassed by the vaccine and preventing serious outcomes," Makary told Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher. "So, we've got to be careful right now and not scare people. People need something to look forward to and if you look at the numbers, we’re doing well right now."
The Johns Hopkins surgeon went on to debunk the desire among some health officials, sometimes referred to as "zero COVID," that COVID-19 can be eradicated completely.
Well, unfortunately, we have this perception now that's being created by some public health leaders that we need to reach total eradication. We're not gonna get to total absolute risk elimination. That is a false goal and quite honestly it’s being used now to manipulate the public. We heard today again from our public health leaders that if we get to 70% vaccination, then we can start seeing restrictions removed. That’s dishonest. Most of the country is at herd immunity. Other parts will get there later this month. San Francisco had 12 cases yesterday, most asymptomatic. What do you call that? I call that herd immunity. And I think what's happening is our public health leaders are dismissing natural immunity from prior infection, which changes the path to get to more population immunity. It invokes mandates, it means kids may have to get it and it demonizes those that are hesitant rather than respecting their decision.
Blue-state lockdown-lovers drunk on their own power like Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who insist on a 70 percent vaccination rate in order to ease up on mandates and restrictions are ignoring the science completely in order to hold their people hostage to an unobtainable, unnecessary goal.
Indeed, you don't have to have a medical degree to know that the formula for herd immunity has always been vaccinated plus natural immunity, but then again, when have Democrats ever been good at math?
Vaccination is the only thing that counts.
Thanks, WHO.
/s
Oh dear, does this means “the science” is not settled?
What happens if two “scientists” get in an argument? How do we “follow the science” in that case?
“Let me be clear: COVID is not the flu,”
Uh oh.
The government bully scientist always wins those arguments. The dissenting scientists are labeled kooks and sent to re-education camp. This apprach has the effect of reducing dissent and settling the science.
When you come to a fork in the road, take it…
the moment our government opened our border, invited, and continues to distribute thousands of “disease carrying invaders” across our country during a “global pandemic” is the moment of proof that this so called “deadly virus” is a scam...
Anyone paid attention to Walensky and noticed something.....wrong .... with her?
Elevator does not go to the Penthouse....
The longer we stretch this out the worse it will be. It sucks but crap happens in life, in the world. Many will die. But let’s get it over with. Do it for the children.
“Flatten the curve” = prolong the misery.
Exactly correct.
Protect the vulnerable. Everyone else, nothing may happen, or you might get sick. But you get to live your life. Unless you don’t.
In the first four months last year the annualized death rate was five times higher than normal. But, by the end of the year, it fell back down to about average.
This was more than the flu, but I think a good argument could be made it has killed most of the people that were really susceptible to it.
Oh yeah? Show me “the science”!
“Johns Hopkins Doctor Dismisses Walensky Fear-Mongering”
Since when did Monica become a public health expert?
“Anyone paid attention to Walensky and noticed something.....wrong .... with her?”
After what she did with President Clinton in the White House, yea, I’d say there was something wrong with her.
Not science, statistics.
They are easy to find. The pandemic is basically over.
We could have achieved HI before the winter spike - with NO INCREASE IN DEATHS (and probable reduction in those who HAD died) - had they not projected simultaneous fear of the virus and confidence in so-called ‘mitigation measures’.
But OH, no: They had to make it a ‘crisis’.
Most expensive fraud in American history, second only to ‘WMD’ and the ‘existential threat of the Taliban’ a few short months ago.
But as I continue to quantify the damage, it’s clear that the ‘virus crisis’ is now #1.
The virus will be number one until they pass the current $1.9T Recovery Bill
Actually, Dr. Walensky is completely correct on this. It is not unusual for viruses to alter themselves so as to escape the existing immunity. Influenza is notorious for this; this is why we have new influenza vaccines every year.
Before automatically believing someone's opinion just because they are an expert, you need to do a bit of homework to see if their expertise matches the topic they are opining on. From Wikipedia: Makary completed a surgical residency at Georgetown Universityin Washington D.C. where he also worked as a writer for The Advisory Board Company. Makary completed sub-specialty surgery training at Johns Hopkins in surgical oncology and gastrointestinal surgery under surgeon John Cameron, before joining Cameron's faculty practice as a partner. In his first few years on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, Makary researched and wrote articles on the prevention of surgical complications.
While he may absolutely be an expert in oncological surgery, nothing about that expertise would make him an expert in immunology, virology, biochemistry, molecular biology, infectious disease, or any other of the specialties where the expertise might actually give competency to speak on the subject of viral immunity.
As a comparison, I am a Ph.D. biochemist/molecular biologist who spent the majority of my career in assignments related to some aspect of infectious disease. I even spent part of my career doing pandemic preparedness. So, while I do have the expertise needed to discuss the ongoing pandemic, this does not make me an expert on oncology surgery. Any opinions I might offer about oncology surgery would be no more informed than the opinion of just about any person picked at random. Similarly, the oncology surgeon's opinion on Covid-19 biology is no more informed than that of a random person.
Notice that in almost every discussion of herd immunity COVID-recovered folks do not count.
That is because their immunity has not been fully studied. It is common for immunity to coronaviruses to last for a few months (why do you think people get colds repeatedly). On the other hand, immunity from vaccine has been very systematically studied. In addition, for herd immunity to become a factor in eliminating disease, everyone must be immune at once. You can't get that from the natural circulation of a disease. People who had Covid-19 a year ago might not be immune now. Some of them may even be more likely to have severe life-threatening or disabling disease than they were the first time they caught it. There are simply too many unknowns for anyone to confidently say that Covid-19 survivors can be counted in herd immunity calculations.
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