COVID-19: At Last Some Good News
COVID-19: At Last Some Good News
There are any number of dire predictions about COVID-19, and the narrative coming from governments and the mainstream media too often focuses on these predictions rather than established facts. It is time to change this.
There are three key areas where the record needs to be set straight.
Firstly, there is a difference between people dying “with” COVID-19 and people dying “due to” COVID-19. A recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) survey concluded that only 6% of deaths attributed to COVID-19 were caused by the virus alone, while all others had two or more comorbidities. This means that in the US, while there were 193,587 COVID-19 deaths recorded during the first eight months of the year, it is likely that only 11,615 of these were caused by coronavirus alone. This is unfortunate, but not nearly as unfortunate when considered in the context of the 50,000 who die of influenza each year.
Secondly, there are ways to reduce the risk of otherwise healthy people dying due to COVID-19 from low to very low. For example Dr Damien Dowling has highlighted that people with blood vitamin D3 levels of less than 50 nanomole/L before infection have a 72.8 % probability of experiencing severe or critical symptoms. Those with blood vitamin D3 levels over 75 nanomole/L have a 7.2 % probability of experiencing these symptoms. This is a factor of ten improvement. Unfortunately, many people, particularly those living in higher latitudes, are vitamin D deficient. It is worth noting that Dr Anthony Fauci, President Trump’s Chief Medical Advisor, reportedly takes vitamins C and D supplements himself but has not recommended them to U.S. citizens.
Thirdly, the absolute number of cases is unimportant. For young people, the health risk posed by having COVID-19 is very low. According to a recent study by Dr Andrew Bostom, a professor of medicine at Brown University in the U.S., of 11,018 cases identified in 17 university systems, zero required hospitalisation. Statements like “if we stop our lockdown, there will be thousands of dead people” are quite untrue. There may be thousands more cases, but very few deaths that are caused by COVID-19.
The almost-unquestioned policy throughout this pandemic has been to implement lockdowns in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus. Such blunt measures can only work in the short-term; they are not a sustainable long-term strategy due to the destruction of people’s lives and livelihoods they have caused, not to mention the lurking mental and physical health crisis caused by locking people in their homes for up to 23 hours a day and scaring them from receiving routine screening for other diseases and illnesses.
Governments have bet the farm on locking down until a vaccine is developed. This is a fantasy, not a viable public health strategy.
We do not know how effective COVID-19 vaccines will be. As noted by Professor Guiseppe Tritto, “Given the many mutations of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), it is extremely unlikely that a single vaccine that blocks the virus will be found. At the moment 11 different strains have been identified.” This view is shared by others. Professor Ian Frazer, a successful Australian vaccine developer, said that “he would be happy if early vaccines achieved 30 % efficacy”. And AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company manufacturing the vaccine which the Morrison government have signed up for, have revealed that they are aiming for a 50% efficacy rate.
The strategy of indiscriminately locking people in their homes until a vaccine arrives inhibits the population developing herd immunity. Herd immunity is achieved when a sufficiently large portion of a population is infected by the virus, their immune systems overcome the virus, their symptoms disappear (if they were ever present), and they can no longer infect others. As a result, when an infected person enters the ‘herd’, for example an overseas traveller, the virus has nowhere to go and cannot be infectious.
A recent article by Dr Joseph Mercola highlights that herd immunity may be easier to achieve than previously believed, and that some locations have likely already achieved it. As Dr Mercola outlines, repeat mass lockdowns inhibit the transmission of the virus between healthy people, which prevents the development of herd immunity. The notable exception is Sweden, which only implemented modest lockdowns, advised high risk people to self-isolate, and pursued a strategy of herd immunity. Sweden now has a lower COVID-19 death rate per million people than the United Kingdom and the United States, both of which implemented lockdowns.
Herd immunity has also stifled a supposed second wave across Europe. In France, for example, the peak daily case rate in April was about 7,000 infected people with about 1,400 deaths. In September, the peak case rate was much higher at about 10,500, but with less than 100 deaths. The improvement is presumably mainly due to the development of herd immunity, with some assistance from summer increases in vitamin D levels.
There are other useful consequences of reaching herd immunity. Notably, it will not be necessary to do diagnostics tests and contact tracing and it will eventually become safe enough for high risk people to emerge from isolation.
That is not to say, however, that there are no treatments for COVID-19. Two treatments in particular stand out, vitamin D, as noted above, is very effective at preventing COVID-19 symptoms and high-dose intravenous vitamin C based treatment is very effective in inactivating the virus and can cure many sick people.
Dr Richard Cheng, a Chinese American doctor practising in Wuhan, China, reported on YouTube his success in treating COVID-19 infected patients with intermediate dose vitamin C. YouTube subsequently removed his video because it “didn’t meet community standards”.
The only standard that should matter is reducing the risk posed by COVID-19. Dr Cheng, like many others, agree that there are ways to effectively minimise the risk posed by COVID-19 and to treat infected patients, but this information is not being provided to the public.
Dr Gilbert Berdine, associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, has argued that “After taking the unprecedented economic depression into account, history will likely judge these lockdowns to be the greatest policy error of this generation.”
The main problem with COVID-19 has not been the disease itself, but erroneous government reactions to it which have indiscriminately locked people in their homes, inhibited herd immunity, and bet the farm on a vaccine which may initially be no more than 50% effective.
Dr Jake Ames is a trained pathologist and internist. He has successfully treated thousands of patients with viral and bacterial infections using high dose vitamin C.
Dr Douglas Mitchell is a retired medical research scientist. He has a PhD in chemistry and worked as a research scientist at the New York State Department of Health. He has conducted research on the treatment of metastatic cancer and is a former Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology.