via The Covid Capitulation - by Eric Topol - Ground Truths
May 15, 2022
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Excerpts:
The real number of cases is likely at least 500,000 per day, far greater than any of the US prior waves except Omicron. The bunk that cases are not important is preposterous. They are infections that beget more cases, they beget Long Covid, they beget sickness, hospitalizations and deaths. They are also the underpinning of new variants.
Meanwhile, the CDC propagates delusional thinking that community levels are very low (as my friend Peter Hotez called the “field of greens”) while the real and important data convey that transmission is very high throughout most of the country. Not only does this further beget cases by instilling false confidence, but it is conveniently feeding the myth that the pandemic is over—precisely what everyone wants to believe.
It’s not just about the mutations, immune escape, and potential of Omicron BA..1 vaccines (that have taken far too long) to be unhelpful. There are 2 other essential points. First, this family of Omicron variants with functional impact indicates more rapid evolution of the virus than what we have seen previously. ... Second, it is about the reduction in vaccine effectiveness that we are now encountering. ... we are seeing people with 4 shots who are getting breakthrough infections, even at 1-2 weeks from their most recent shot, when there should be the maximal level of neutralizing antibodies induced. That’s not a good sign, relative to the 95% vaccine effectiveness we had against symptomatic infections against the ancestral, D614G, Alpha, and Delta (with a booster) strains.
But it’s overly optimistic to think we’ll be done when Omicron variants run their course. ... As difficult it is to mentally confront, we must plan on something worse than Omicron in the months ahead.
To recap, we have a highly unfavorable picture of: (1) accelerated evolution of the virus; (2) increased immune escape of new variants; (2) progressively higher transmissibility and infectiousness; (4) substantially less protection from transmission by vaccines and boosters; (5) some reduction on vaccine/booster protection against hospitalization and death; (6) high vulnerability from infection-acquired immunity only; and (7) likelihood of more noxious new variants in the months ahead.
With that handwriting on the wall, how could our government legislators turn their backs on funding critical initiatives to get us through the pandemic? This is frankly absurd, staring at millions of more Americans to get infected that is happening right now (no less the Biden administration has projected 100 million this fall/early winter) that will translate to an unknown number of more hospitalizations and deaths. Ironically, the same administration, via the CDC, is downplaying the risk of our current Covid wave as reviewed above. And this is all happening when we just crossed the 1 million confirmed American deaths ...
We urgently need more safe and effective medications, preferably pills, easily administered shots (subcutaneously, not intravenous or intramuscular), or inhalation treatments. There are so many promising ones in the pipeline, yet little to no support to accelerate their progress. Ignoring all these vital needs surely represents Covid capitulation.
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Anecdotal: everyone I know who’s avoided COVID since 2020 finally got it between May and October of 2022. Completely unsurprising considering:
Layered protections have all been dismantled
Vaccine immunity wanes over time
Many peoples’ last booster was well over 6 months ago (many were not eligible for another booster until this September’s new bivalent boosters rolled out)
Some “leaders” have a financial and electoral stake in minimizing the pandemic and effects of the disease.
People who don’t follow the research get the messages that “you don’t need to mask anymore” and “it’s over” so they all relaxed and infection rates went through the roof.