'Ignore the CDC': Top doc says we've reached herd immunity
Arguing for people who choose not to be vaccinated, a Johns Hopkins professor estimates that nearly half the country has natural immunity due to prior infection that protects them from COVID-19.
Dr. Marty Makary, in an interview Tuesday with "The Vince Coglianese Show" on WMAL in Washington, claimed the United States already has achieved the objective of herd immunity, combining the vaccinated with those who have been infected. He estimates 85% of the population is immune to the novel coronavirus.
"Please, ignore the CDC guidance," he said, calling it the slowest "most reactionary CDC in history."
"Live a normal life, unless you are unvaccinated and did not have the infection, in which case you need to be careful," he said in the interview, which was spotlighted by the Daily Caller.
"We’ve got to start respecting people who choose not to get the vaccine instead of demonizing them," Makary said.
But that's contradicted by empirical study data, Yale University epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch told WND.
He pointed to a massive study in Israel finding that people who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the previous three or more months had at least as much protection against new infection, hospitalization and death as vaccinated people.
"People become immune by surviving infection," argued Risch, professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.
In an email to WND, he explained that serum antibodies and T-cell antibodies – the white blood cells that attack infections – demonstrate past history of infection.
Risch said the FDA is correct that antibodies from infection are not the same as post-vaccination antibodies. But this is irrelevant, he contended.
"These natural antibodies are proof of past infection," said Risch. "Past infection is extremely strong evidence of immunity."
Makary believes that both immunity through vaccination and through infection are probably "life-long" and can be maintained without boosters.
"There is more data on natural immunity than there is on vaccinated immunity, because natural immunity has been around longer," Makary said. "We are not seeing reinfections, and when they do happen, they’re rare. Their symptoms are mild or are asymptomatic."
New findings reported Tuesday in a University of Louisville study challenge what has been the prevailing belief that mask mandates are necessary to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. The study notes that "80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic" and while "mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima)." Among other things, the study—conducted using data from the CDC covering multiple seasons—reports that "mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states."
"Our findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use," notes the U of L report. Researchers stated that "masks may promote social cohesion as rallying symbols during a pandemic, but risk compensation can also occur" before listing some observed risks that accompany mask wearing:
Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day) promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk. British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision. Survey bias notwithstanding, these sequelae are associated with medical errors. By obscuring nonverbal communication, masks interfere with social learning in children. Likewise, masks can distort verbal speech and remove visual cues to the detriment of individuals with hearing loss; clear face-shields improve visual integration, but there is a corresponding loss of sound quality.
The study also noted that the mandates put in place by many states in line with CDC guidance at the time were "poor predictors of COVID-19 spread," according to the research:
In summary, mask mandates and use were poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Case growth was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves. Strengths of our study include using two mask metrics to evaluate association with COVID-19 growth rates; measuring normalized case growth in mandate and non-mandate states at comparable times to quantify the likely effect of mandates; and deconvolving the effect of mask use by examining case growth in states with variable mask use.
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