What
a fascinating, albeit divisive period in history. COVID-19 threw everyone
off-course in some way, giving the entire world a rare shared experience.
Who would have thought that, especially in the 21st century, a virus
could hold a country as powerful as the United States hostage, demanding as
ransom both the health of entire industries and a way of life collectively
taken for granted? The people continue
to pay dearly, and everyone is invested in the best path forward. Accordingly, it feels like the appropriate
time for learning and to put egos aside to facilitate important discussions
about big picture healthcare topics.
There has been only one prominent voice in the coronavirus conversation,
though, and that voice has spoken nothing of the battle-tested human immune
system and how to optimize it, while championing largely untested concepts
(i.e. social distancing, lockdown, and universal masking) as the only viable
methods for successfully navigating this unprecedented situation. As will be demonstrated in the forthcoming
analysis of the two concepts that have shaped America’s COVID response, other
voices need to be heard who advocate shifting healthcare's focus to personal
empowerment, from being reactive to proactive.
The
current cultural climate presents a roadblock to learning and discussing healthcare
and other social issues because American society has seemingly forgotten how,
the collective having become so deeply embroiled in constant arguing that the
discussion has become a lost art; that may prove to be an important
acknowledgement given the realities of COVID about to be shared will likely be
eye-opening to readers. Nobody wins an argument and little change comes from
arguing. So, please know that the following is not intended to incite an
argument, but rather to stimulate an on-going discussion. The contents
include cited statistics and corresponding interpretations.
Rewind
the clock to March, when the novel coronavirus came to the forefront in the
United States. The initial question that had to be answered was what made
COVID-19 different enough from previous threats, such as Zika, Swine Flu, and
even the yearly seasonal Flu, to warrant a drastic shift in response to
it. After all, it had years ago become a popular trend in the media to
talk about unique viruses and their potential impact, but the public reaction
remained measured. On March 3rd, multiple news outlets
reported the World Health Organization's claim that the COVID-19 death
(mortality) rate was 3.4%, alarming considering that the death rate for
seasonal flu hovers annually around 0.1% by comparison. Granted, so
little was known about the virus at that point, but the numbers warranted
attention. The gravity of mortality set
in rather harshly and the ensuing projection models escalated the fear of what
might happen when the number of cases predictably rose.
Uncertainty
can be as scary as risk evaluation on limited data is challenging. Decision-making is at its best when the
decision-maker is at his/her best. Fear,
meanwhile, clouds judgment, and though decisive action must at times be taken
in the face of it, fear tends to spur on the increasingly common
“ready-FIRE-aim” mentality that permeates American culture by disrupting the
pathways in the brain that lead to sound judgment[i].
Epidemiological
predictions certainly begged the question as to whether there was enough
knowledge to allow the reaction to the actual data to match the fear about the
hypothetical numbers. The initial fear
was justifiable, but it was not as if COVID-19 was happening in a bubble,
isolated from the recent history of disease and health. The developed world has not dealt with an
infectious disease death rate as high as 3% in modern times[ii],
since before sanitation curbed in humanity’s favor the ratio of immune system
integrity to infections capable of overwhelming the immune system. It was perhaps a bold assumption that the
baseline strength of present-day immune systems among the vast majority of the
population was not up to the task against an opponent like COVID-19. Confidence in the immune system’s
adaptability was justifiable too, as demonstrated throughout the industrialized
world repeatedly, to the point that infectious disease has ranked well behind
its peers atop the leading causes of death list for decades. Would patience have been more prudent? Only time and contextualization via further
data would tell.
It
was an unenviable position to be the ones responsible for weighing the options
for how to initially respond, the ultimate test between fear of the virus and
faith in the immune system.
Amplifying
the fear during the early weeks of spring was a concept as novel as the 2019
coronavirus: that people without symptoms – who do not feel ill – were
spreading COVID-19 to others. White
House Coronavirus Task Force leader Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that there was
"no doubt" about asymptomatic transmission occurring. That
assertion, much like the reported mortality rate, was eye-opening. Precedents had been set for noteworthy
statistical spikes in infectious disease, but the suggestion of the silent
spreader hypothesis completely changed the game, introducing the idea that
anyone at any time could infect someone else with a potentially deadly disease,
regardless of whether a person was traditionally ill.
Before
the silent spreader premise rose to prominence in March, it was generally
accepted that the reason why people who do not exhibit symptoms of disease are
not threats to spread it is because their immune systems could be trusted to
essentially self-quarantine infections when exposed. For context, Dr.
Fauci had confirmed in late January 2020 interviews the long-held standard that
“asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks.” What changed?
The
immune system is innately built with a catalogue of all types of cells that
should be there and the capability to recognize and swiftly deal with foreign
invaders when they arrive and attempt to replicate. Such is why, with respect to the focus of
infectious disease commentary being the small percentage of people who get
diagnosed and/or perish, it is of paramount importance to remember that, by an
overwhelming margin, people recover and/or do not get sick; as of this writing,
for instance, there were 11.8 million confirmed COVID cases worldwide, which
means there would need to be an additional 66 million confirmed cases just to
equal 1% of Earth’s population.
Conceptually,
asymptomatic transmission crafted a horrifying new narrative that, in
conjunction with the originally reported mortality rate of 3.4%, created the
controversial public health protocols, including the lockdowns, and all the
accompanying turmoil. In the United States
and beyond, the response to COVID was as extreme as the projections. Few countries played the role of the
pragmatist, as an unprecedented spread of fear demanded its terror be mirrored
worldwide. In the United States, the
unemployment rate consequently saw its greatest month-to-month increase in the
history of the statistic, 3.5% to 14.7%[iii];
millions of small businesses were forced to shut down; many lives were changed
forever. The validity of both the
hypothesis of silent spreading and the accuracy of the projections based on the
death rate, therefore, must be determined to figure out the best way to
proceed, now and in the future.
Perception
is reality, which is another important acknowledgement in this discussion. Opinions are shaped by worldviews. In this age of social media and 24-hour news,
confirmation bias – interpreting information in a way that matches an existing
viewpoint – runs rampant. Nobody is
unaffected by it. So, this is the point
when things can get tricky. Industries have been ravaged. Airlines are down 81%, a quarter to half of
all restaurants are facing permanent shutdown, construction had its worst
financial quarter since the housing crisis of 2008; the list goes on and on[iv]. This is dire, ladies and gentlemen. It must be clear and obvious that COVID-19 is
the threat it was feared to be, and so the following data must be shared and
understood for everyone to be fully cognizant of the situation at hand.
Interestingly,
the “no doubt” suggestion by Dr. Fauci regarding asymptomatic transmission was
based on the testimony of just one person, who initially said she was
asymptomatic, but later admitted to being ill[v]. To
date, only a few studies have been published about silent spreading, yet none
of them confirm the hypothesis and the current hallmark study outright refuted
it[vi]. How revealing, considering that silent
spreading is one of the core tenets of social distancing, mandatory masks, and
the continued restrictions.
Asymptomatic
transmission nevertheless remains the backbone of the explanation for the
number of cases continuing to rise, which is the driving force behind the
recent re-escalating fear. Should it,
though? The key question remains whether
the intense reaction to the virus was/is necessary. Anywhere from 40%[vii]
to 80%[viii]
of all confirmed cases are symptom free.
Regarding infectious disease, these people are perfectly healthy, yet
due to the lingering panic they are being tested, often multiple times, skewing
the data in spite of the lack of evidence to support that they can spread the
virus. Dr. Zach Bush, a worldwide leader
in understanding immunity, has said that if a random person was tested for a
panel of known-viruses, of which thousands among the presumed millions have
been named, he/she would test positive for dozens of them, even without
symptoms[ix]. Typically, these people would have been
living their lives, unaware of the virus present because their immune systems
handled it already; presently, they are being treated like sick people.
The
number of cases is really not the concern, which is a statement that may seem
confusing since so much attention has been given to the so-termed spike. Obviously, when you increase the number of
tests given five-fold[x],
the number of positive tests will naturally increase too. Again, though, most of the cases are
asymptomatic and the silent spreader hypothesis remains at best a gray
area. Furthermore, 85% to 95%[xi]
of all symptomatic (traditionally ill) cases experience only mild symptoms; 60%
of the elderly, the highest risk group, experience only mild symptoms; children
are hardly being affected at all by the virus itself[xii].
Studies
conducted by Penn State[xiii],
Stanford[xiv],
and Southern Cal[xv]
(among others) have deduced that there may be upwards of 80 times more cases
than currently reported, research endorsed in part by the possibility that the
origins of the 2019 coronavirus date back to last August[xvi]. On the surface, that too is alarming, but it
is actually good news. These studies are
based on the presence of antibodies to COVID-19 and other forms of coronavirus
(which cause about 20% of common colds) that help develop immunity to
COVID-19. The immune system is like a
super navy, with stations set up throughout the body to alert of foreign
invaders. An anti-body is the memory of an old battle fought against
infection stored by the immune system so that defenses will kick in immediately
upon re-detection, swarming the virus and quarantining it; the second line of
defense then comes in once the admiral in the brain is made aware of the
significance of the threat and destroys it. That system is a well-oiled
machine; it has quietly been working against COVID-19 all year, and it can be
trusted.
When
accounting for those who have immunity to COVID already, the death rate, as it
turns out, is right on par with the seasonal flu after all, at around 0.2%[xvii]. Plus, the overwhelming majority of the people
dying from the novel coronavirus have comorbidities (i.e. other major health
problems)[xviii],
which is consistent with the data collected on other respiratory infections,
and over 40% of the deaths from coronavirus are coming from nursing homes[xix]. Also, it bears mentioning that the
over-inflation of COVID deaths has been a hot topic from the outset[xx],
spurred on by the vague CDC language[xxi]
of what constitutes a COVID death and the first-person accounts[xxii]
of the unfortunate practice of misrepresenting causes of death. Incorporating the regrettable 25%
over-estimate, of course, lowers the mortality rate even further.
If
life were a football game, a replay would be in order to re-assess the public
health policies enforced. All Americans
have had their worlds turned upside down.
A once thriving economy was plunged directly into a recession and
government-imposed restrictions continue to slow the establishment of a new
normal, with the possibility of longer-term restrictions strangling the hope
that life can get back into balance sooner than later. Yet, this is not football, when the ruling on
the field stands if replay evidence cannot indisputably overturn the original
call. In life, decisions and their
makers are held accountable by assessment of proof beyond a reasonable doubt,
of which there is plenty in this case it would be fair to conclude.
The
statistical realities thus far mentioned greatly call into question the
necessity of the contentious lockdown.
Though much vitriol has been sparked by the topic, it is important to
explore it to learn a better response down the road. The lockdown has had massively negative
socio-economic ramifications, as once warned by Dr. D.A. Henderson, credited as
“the leader of the international effort to eradicate smallpox” and a staunch
detractor of the lockdown concept when it was introduced in the mid-2000s. Dr. Henderson promoted allowing viruses to
spread so that immunity could naturally be built. Michael Levitt, a 2013 Nobel Prize winner and
professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, has observed that, regardless of
restrictions imposed, there has been a short-term peak of significant cases
followed by a sharp decline everywhere in the world. He called the lockdowns a “huge mistake,”
advocating instead for approaches like the ones mentioned below[xxiii].
Japan
and Sweden were the most prominent countries of the pragmatic few, and they did
not lock down so much as they suggested practical restrictions. Both nations were heavily ridiculed for not
following the global trend, but it has become clearer over time that the rest
of the world can learn from them[xxiv]. Japan has just 20,000 cases compared to 3
million in the USA, adding just 4,000 cases since removing its restrictions in
late May.
Sweden
took the most rational approach to COVID of any developed nation, keeping
businesses and grade schools open and asking the elderly to shelter in place. It has a similar population as the state of
Illinois, yet half the number of COVID cases and 30% fewer deaths; Illinois locked
down tight, while Sweden was relatively wide open. Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist,
referred to the lockdowns as “madness” that ignored everything known about
pandemic containment.
The
data also demands an explanation as to why officials have continued
implementing panic-driven restrictions based on March projections that
fortunately proved inaccurate. The
elderly are being kept away from their families even though the approach has
not made them less susceptible to COVID[xxv]. Massive hoops through which families must
jump for kids to go back to school are being created when so little evidence
exists that children are spreading the virus[xxvi]
and while experts around the world maintain a position that schools should go
back to normal[xxvii]. Suicide rates, alcohol and drug related
deaths, child abuse, and domestic violence have all increased. Quality of life has practically been deemed
inconsequential, as savings and retirement accounts have been drained. These are just a few examples of how living
life around fear is a dangerous path.
What began as a conscious exercise to reduce risk has become an
unsettling journey to create an impossible-to-achieve no risk scenario.
There
is a lot to sort out once the above breakdown is digested. Each of the other components of the COVID
response hinge on the validity of the previously discussed, highly flawed
concepts. Social distancing is another
poorly researched hypothesis without peer-reviewed support[xxviii];
at face value, the hashtags for stopping the spread, flattening the curve, and
staying home to save lives made sense, but when their foundation was shaken,
they no longer carried weight and are no longer logical, especially considering
the socio-economic downsides. And if
quarantining healthy people is unfounded, then what does that say for mandatory
masking of healthy people, another notion with little to no support[xxix],
as confirmed by the US Surgeon General[xxx]
and the New England Journal of Medicine[xxxi]. On the contrary, masks can slow down the
immune system and have other detrimental side effects[xxxii]. And if there is already a massive natural
immunity to COVID-19, then why is the dominant theme of the expert commentary
still that a vaccine is needed to propel America beyond the crisis? It takes a decade to properly develop a
vaccine[xxxiii]
and it is very dangerous to rush that process[xxxiv].
COVID-19
is one of the most emotional topics in modern history. It is hard to have a conversation about it
without an argument occurring. Let that
be the last of the important acknowledgements made as the end of this article
draws near. Unfortunately, the
asymptomatic transmission hypothesis has made it that much more challenging to
avoid conversations about the coronavirus becoming circular arguments, which
tend to spiral out of control and accomplish nothing more than upsetting all
parties. If it is generally accepted without
the critical element of it becoming a supportable scientific theory, Americans
could be forced to live their lives around infectious disease indefinitely; it
opens Pandora’s Box. While maintaining
an unjustified undercurrent of fear, church, football games, vacations, movies,
etc. could forever be lessened in their inherent ability to help you grow,
escape, or destress. Life might never be
the same.
The
bright side of this is that it offers the chance to make change and
rebuild. The caveat is that change only
happens when there is a realization that it needs to be made. COVID has opened the
door for conversations about the systemic problem that America has been dealing
with for decades. Healthcare has been
designed around fear and around removing personal responsibility, and the last
four months have shown how deep that rabbit-hole can go. System wide, it has been assumed that human
immunity was too weak to be trusted. People,
as a direct result of modern American healthcare’s educational shortcomings, do
not understand health or the immune system.
Such is why it “shocks” the general public and its leaders when they
learn that you cannot run and hide from viruses[xxxv]. American healthcare, as a system, has done
the equivalent of tune into one radio frequency, then ignored the existence by
and large of all other frequencies and taught the people that there is only one
frequency that matters. It is hard to
hear hope on the frequency that only plays fear’s greatest hits. So, change the frequency.
It
is not 1918, when the water supply used for elimination was also used for
rehydration and bathing. The baseline
strength of the immune system today is immense, a fact being proven repeatedly
in the age of COVID. That cannot be
downplayed, ignored, or dismissed as conspiracy theorist jargon. Japan swiftly dealt with COVID. They suggested (not forced) the biggest
restrictions on Tokyo, which is home to 5 million more people than New York
City, one of the most locked down cities in the world, but Tokyo has 250 times
less COVID deaths. Why? The Japanese are generally much healthier
than Americans, their system ranking among the top 10 in the industrialized
world, whereas the USA ranks at the bottom.
Their immune systems are stronger.
The
immune system is the key to all of this.
Understanding it and the responsibility that everyone has to their own
health offers the path to hope.
Unlocking the immune system’s full strength is as simple as keeping the
body structurally balanced and functioning properly[xxxvi],
making sure that nutrition is constructive and not destructive[xxxvii],
staying physically active instead of being sedentary[xxxviii],
and keeping a positive attitude to better manage stress[xxxix]. Viruses are everywhere and humans encounter
millions of them every day; they negatively impact people who are either
generally unhealthy or in a state of weakened health. It is time to shift the focus of American
healthcare from disease to health. When
that happens, life will not only be different, but it will be better.
So,
to recap, the reaction to COVID-19 was based on the death rate and hypothetical
asymptomatic transmission, but the mortality rate is 94% lower now than it was
reported originally and there is presently no quantifiable indication to
support silent spreading, the burden of proof for which is on laboratory
science to supply evidence that would unseat biological scientific observations
of the human immune system as the enduring standard. Quarantining healthy people remains a bold,
disputed, and limitedly tested approach with its own paltry origins[xl]
that other countries and even seven American states have shown to be
needless. As America continues to feel
the aftershocks from the equivalent of a terrible earthquake, it is important
to look at all of the relevant data and recognize that the coronavirus itself
may actually be a tremor while the response to it – and the mindset driving the
response to it – is the earthquake.
[iii]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics
[v]
The New England Journal of Medicine
[vii]
Various sources from April to June 2020
[xvi]
Harvard Medical School
[xxviii]
Oxford University Center for Evidence-Based Medicine
