As ZeroCovid proponents get Covid, when will we reach herd sanity?
What happens when zero-covid becomes everyone COVID?
Each week comes with more announcements that, despite doing everything right, I or someone close to me got COVID-19. From celebrities, to congresspeople to vocal zerocovid advocates, eventually, every single person will get COVID.
Somewhere along the way it became fashionable to claim, often based on weak evidence, that covid results in permanent brain, heart, or lung damage even if one has a mild or asymptomatic infection. Recently I saw someone claim asymptomatic infection even results in erectile dysfunction.
It is certainly a bold claim that a respiratory virus you have and not feel anything from can result in erectile dysfunction. Of course, anything is possible, but it's interesting that in the history of respiratory viruses, and all of medicine, no scientists in prior eras were capable of making such a daring claim.
As we move from zero covid to everyone COVID, it might be good to take it easy with extremely incredulous claims that asymptomatic COVID infection can lead to all sorts of distant malady. The scientific burden is very high to take seriously such associations, and is often not met. Mostly due to inadequate controls.
The other thing we must acknowledge is that even though we can agree it is better to meet COVID after vaccination than before vaccination, we don't know much about when. Could it be better to meet COVID soon after your last dose rather than when it is merely a distant memory? Breakthrough is inevitable, but when does it provide the most durable immunity, with the least risk?
Being vaccinated and boosted is all that a healthy person can reasonably do to lower their risk of covid19. Avoiding social gatherings and wearing masks might delay the inevitable, but then again, it might merely cause inconvenience without achieving these goals.
Recently a randomized trial found that home pulse oximetry use after a covid diagnosis did not improve outcomes. Imagine if we applied this design to all other questions, including whether asymptomatic testing helps.
As zero covid advocates recover from covid we may eventually reach herd sanity. That is when we stop treating mild covid infections like the boogeyman, and realize that living with others means that there are many infections we cannot avoid.
Hi Vinay, you wrote: "Being vaccinated and boosted is all that a healthy person can reasonably do to lower their risk of covid19."
This is completely untrue. Most people who do not properly supplement vitamin D3 cholecalciferol have circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels between 5 and 25 ng/mL, when they need 50 ng/mL for their immune system to mount strong innate and adaptive responses, and to reduce the risk of hyper-inflammatory, cell destroying, cytokine storm response which drive severe COVID-19. There numerous research studies showing low 25(OH)D levels cause much worse outcomes in severe COVID-19. The same is true of influenza, Kawasaki disease, MIS-C, sepsis and numerous chronic inflammatory diseases.
Do you read these comments? For months, I have been urging you here - and in a direct email - to read the most pertinent research articles on vitamin D and the immune system, which you can find at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/05-mds/ My comments to this effect have been liked by many people.
Many doctors do not understand the intracrine (AKA autocrine) and paracrine signaling mechanisms by which multiple types of immune cells use 25(OH)D for signaling within each cell and to nearby cells, respectively. This is unrelated to hormonal signaling. Good, 50 ng/mL, 25(OH)D levels enable these systems to work, so individual immune cells can respond fully and rapidly to their changing circumstances. For 70 kg 154 lb bodyweight, it takes about 0.125 mg (5000 IU) vitamin D3 a day to attain these levels, after several months. There's very little vitamin D3 in food (fortified or not) or multivitamins. UV-B skin exposure can produce plenty of vitamin D3 but is not available all year round and always causes DNA damage, so raising the risk of skin cancer.
Since the liver takes some days to hydroxylate cholecalciferol, even a bolus (10mg 400,000 IU) vitamin D3 dose may be too slow for acute medical emergencies such as sepsis and severe COVID-19, though it is likely to be of significant benefit of administered early enough. By far the best early treatment for those who have not been properly supplementing vitamin D3 for months is a single oral dose of 0.014mg calcifediol per kg bodyweight. This is about 1mg for 70 kg. "Calcifediol" is the pharmaceutical name for 25-hydroxyvitamin D. https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/calcifediol-to-boost-25-hydroxyvitamin
I don't know. For 2 years folks on "team reality" have believed that once everyone starts getting it or knowing people who got it (and were fine) the hysteria would fade. That would make sense, but I don't see it. Lots of people don't seem meaningfully less afraid of Covid even after getting over a mild case. To the degree the hysteria has faded lately it has been sadly almost entirely on the other side's terms... because "cases are low", not because cases don't matter. The underlying problem is a continued belief that all the NPI nonsense "worked" in some nonfalsifiable way. (I took my mask off to eat, that's why i got a mild case of covid!) Wish I could be more optimistic.