You probably haven’t heard of Dr. Martin Makary, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health.1 The reason is that Dr. Makary has been critical of politicians and health “experts” for not being truthful to the public about the present course of the COVID-19 virus. Unlike almost every negative COVID-19 assessment these days in the media, including the prediction of a “Dark Winter” by our current President, Dr. Makary has good news. He makes the case that the COVID-19 “crisis” as we’ve now known it for the last year will be over by the end of next month (April, 2021). Lest you believe that Dr. Makary is indulging in wishful thinking, he backs his assessment up with numbers that politicians don’t want you to know. The main number driving his prediction is the 79% drop in COVID-19 cases since the first week in January (CDC’s own numbers). Quite the opposite of a dark winter. COVID-19 vaccinations began in mid-December, far too soon for the vaccine to have had such a dramatic impact on the infection rate in January/February. According to Dr. Makary, the only other possible explanation for the precipitous decline in COVD-19 cases is herd immunity.
To achieve herd immunity for COVID-19, the generally accepted percentage of the population that must have immunity is between 60 – 70%. As of today, according to the CDC, 29 million people are reported to have been infected with COVID. That represents only 8.3% of the population, a far cry from the ~70% needed for herd immunity. So how could Dr. Makary’s prediction be valid?
We’ve all been conditioned by the media to believe that the only COVID-19 infection numbers with meaning are the numbers being reported by the CDC. However, the CDC only tabulates reported cases with positive COVID-19 test results. There are, of course, many cases of COVID-19 infections that go unreported because a person had either extremely mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Dr. Makary believes that COVID-19 testing, as widespread as it is, has been capturing only 10% – 25% of actual COVID-19 infections in the US. He backs up this estimate with evidence from two research studies which show the prevalence of COVID-19 T-cells; virus-fighting cells that have been exposed to, and ‘’remember” their interaction with the COVID-19 virus within the studied population2. The presence of exposed T-cells is not detected by current regular COVID-19 testing.
Presuming on average that only 17% of all COVID-19 infections have been reported, this means that roughly 180 million Americans (~ 55% of the population) have actually been infected. Add to that the fact that as of today, slightly over 100 million people in the US have now been vaccinated. The result is that currently, ~85% of the US population has some level of immunity to COVID-19. These numbers explain the precipitous drop in COVID-19 cases since mid-January. January is the month when the immunity percentage in the US population (infected + vaccinated) began to approach the herd immunity threshold for COVID-19.
At any other time, news like this would be a welcome relief and cause for optimism, perhaps even for celebration. To all those individuals who were physically and psychologically imprisoned by all the calamitous reporting on COVID-19 during the last year, this should herald a return to reality. So why are our leaders completely ignoring this news? The President came on TV last Thursday and extended his dire warnings about COVID-19. We can expect to be fearful, vulnerable and trapped until at least July the 4th. The CDC continues to issue ridiculous and unsound “guidance” regarding the allowable amount of physical contact among family members and how the behavior of vaccinated people is or isn’t allowed to change. Certain Governors have declared their intentions to extend some form of lockdown in their states for months into the future. We understand the desire to exercise caution, even in the face of good news like Dr. Makary’s, but these actions go far beyond simple caution.
We’ve been highly critical of just about every facet of COVID-19 reporting during the past year. The “science” and guidance has been contradictory and filled with dishonesty and false statistics. It has destroyed trust in yet another area of science. We have been appalled to see scientific “experts” and revered scientific institutions lose themselves to fame, politics, and money, right before our very eyes on national TV. Doctor Anthony Fauci and the CDC are two prime examples. We were surprised to look back and see that we’ve dedicated 10 articles to the dubious coverage and analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic since March 14, 2020.
There is no question in our minds that liberal politicians (at every level) as well as some Republicans, have grotesquely utilized the media-generated fear of COVID-19 to empower themselves. It has been just as great a disappointment to see how many American people and businesses have been sucked into this fear. They have allowed their elected governors and mayors to wield unchecked tyrannical power over them. Worse, many of these people decided to cave in to other “woke” sensitivities at the same time. The states of New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey, and Washington are the most telling examples. Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg of a government of the people, by the people and for the people has been anything but that for residents of those states.
The Biden administration is every bit as guilty as the above-mentioned states of using COVID-19 to benefit itself. Their first and most obvious effort was to co-opt the COVID-19 related achievements of Donald Trump. Operation Warp Speed, with its entirely unanticipated (by all the “experts”) lightning-fast development cycle for a highly effective vaccine was too good to resist. The Biden Administration now claims ownership of the program and all its successes. Next came Biden’s vitally important “American Rescue Plan”, otherwise known as the 1.9 trillion-dollar COVID-19 relief bill. In a strictly partisan effort, Democrats pushed through a bloated cash cow of a bill for their favorite progressive initiatives. They disingenuously and brazenly pretend that the package is designed to aid the average citizen. The COVID-19 “relief” that is to come to people whose lives have been upended by the pandemic is miniscule in comparison to the bennies given to unrelated progressive ambitions.
To add to the hypocrisy, Biden has consistently told us since he was elected that COVID-19 relief was the highest priority and ultra-critical for the whole country. However, it was apparently not as critical as the pointless post-Presidency impeachment proceedings for Donald Trump. That useless charade took precedence and provided no tangible benefit to anyone. It had the net effect of delaying government action on COVID-19 relief by almost a month. We heard over and over from Dems and the media about how desperate the need has been for more COVID-19 relief. However, it was clearly a lower priority for them than continuing to invalidate Donald Trump.
On a positive note, credit must go to all those state Governors who dealt with COVID rationally. While smartly managing the impact of the same number of COVID-19 infections and deaths as in most other places, (including those with the most Draconian of lock-down measures), these Governors also managed to save their states from economic ruin. Their balanced approach and sensible public safety policies made their states eminently livable during the pandemic. Many of these states gained new citizens and businesses (and their tax dollars) as people voted with their feet by moving out of poorly managed states. The state of Florida, (where we have resided for 5 years) and its governor Ron DeSantis, stands out in our minds as one of the best examples.
A final observation – if Dr. Makary is correct, many of the things we thought were effective protections against contracting COVID-19 were not. Because of that, many of the restrictive actions that were taken to supposedly “combat” the virus never made much of a difference and only caused unnecessary hardship. Take mask wearing. In the reality Dr. Makary presents, well over half the US population (55%) had been infected with COVID-19 by the end of 2020. Given this number, did wearing a mask during the previous seven months3 make any difference at all in checking the spread of the virus? Probably not. We suppose someone would argue that had we not been wearing masks we might have had 80% or 90% of the public infected by December instead of “just” 55%. Well, if that were the case, then we would have reached herd immunity much earlier, possibly by the end of the summer, and could have released the public from punitive and ineffective lockdowns much sooner. Additionally, since the overwhelming number of infections in this reality present with little or no symptoms, more lives may have been saved had we reached the herd immunity point sooner. This earlier attainment of herd immunity would make it much less likely that the unexposed high-risk folks still present in our population would get the disease. Dr. Makary’s reality also means that social distancing, while it may have helped some last year, provides little to no benefit from this point on with 85% immunity presently in the population. There is no reason not to fill a stadium or any other sports/entertainment venue to full capacity as early as tomorrow.
The pandemic (at least in the US) may in fact be over as we write this. It is unlikely that we will get any hint of that from the Biden Administration or Democrat Governors. Having this tragedy continue with everyone living in fear has served them well. They won’t want to give that up anytime soon.
1 In addition, Doctor Makary completed subspecialty training in surgical oncology and gastrointestinal surgery at Johns Hopkins, is widely published, has served various roles at W.H.O. as an expert with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. Served as Credentials Chair and Director of Quality and Safety for Surgery at Johns Hopkins. He was the youngest named Endowed Chair at the University at the time of his appointment.
2 Swedish and UK research studies on T-Cells and COVID-19 immunity:
Robust T Cell Immunity in Convalescent Individuals with Asymptomatic or Mild COVID-19 (Swedish study)
Are we underestimating seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2? (UK study)
3 It wasn’t until April 3, 2020 that the CDC changed their guidance and recommended people begin wearing a mask to prevent COVID-19 spread. Then it took a month or more for enough masks to become available for everyone in the US who wanted to wear one. Don’t get us going on the downsides of wearing a mask – increased face touching in public settings, wearing the mask with nose exposed, wearing a mask that has been stuffed into pockets, purses, dropped on the ground, touched with unwashed hands, etc. And then there are the completely illogical rules for when they must be worn or can be taken off.