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There is an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that says we’re closer to collective immunity than we know. He argues that if you look at T cells – the cells that remember past infections – we will find that many people have developed immunity to COVID-19 without ever having had any symptoms.
Mercer Island MD Dr. Gordon Cohen joined the Seattle Morning News for a chat.
“One of the things that has been largely ignored among all of these terrible COVID warnings is the fact that COVID cases have declined by 77% in the past six weeks. So, this opinion piece by Dr Marty Makary – who is a well-known surgeon and public health expert – says that “if a drug reduces cases by 77%, we call it a miracle pill”. He therefore asks the following question: why is the number of cases declining? And it has to do with the different types of immunity in our body, antibodies against T cells, ”said Dr. Cohen.
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According to this theory, the numbers behind the death rate and the infection rate seem to indicate more extensive herd immunity than initially thought.
“When we do antibody tests, it doesn’t capture these antigen-specific T cells or memory T cells once they’re activated by the virus. And it’s quite interesting that he points out that the people who survived the 1918 Spanish Flu were found in 2008 – 90 years later – with memory T cells that were still able to produce neutralizing antibodies, ”he said. he declared.
“So what he’s saying is that about one in 600 Americans has died from COVID-19, which translates into a population death rate of around 0.15%. So that’s the theoretical death rate for COVID-19. But the current death rate from COVID-19 infection is 0.23%. So, these numbers actually suggest that about two-thirds of the American population have already had the infection (potentially without knowing it). “
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In other words, the tests that have been done test for the antibodies that are currently fighting infection. Once these antibodies are gone, the T cells remember this infection, and they are the ones who really protect you from future infection. But the tests do not reveal their existence.
“This is how our body naturally develops immunity. But when we test people to see if they have a response to the vaccination, we are testing for antibodies, we are not testing T cell activity. So what he pointed out is that by using a variety of mathematical models, it is possible that in April, based on its mathematical data and what we know about the disease, COVID-19 is largely gone, ”said Dr. Cohen.
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