Sunday, May 16, 2021

Logic Should Apply

Dr. Fauci and the Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, both gave the same explanation for the change in policy regarding face masks, namely that it was not so much as change in “science,” as it was simple observation. We have now been administering the vaccine long enough, they told us, and to enough people (some 153 million), that we can now be assured that it works well enough that we can quit wearing face masks.


I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with that. We’ve been trusting these people for fifteen months or so when they are delivering bad news, why should we quit trusting them merely because they deliver some good news?


What they didn’t address is the 33 million people who have what is called “acquired immunity” due to having been infected by the virus and recovering from the resulting illness. Applying the same logic of observation to that group, we should note that an even lower number of that group has become ill a second time (effectively zero, in fact) than in the immunized group, and should acknowledge that this group’s immunity is as good, or even better, than those who have been vaccinated.


In fact, in all known viral diseases where acquired immunity exists at all, (10 out of 14) it is superior to vaccination, being essentially 100% effective, and in all those cases it is well known to last for a lifetime. Why should we assume this one is different?


Two viral diseases, the common cold and annual flu, are not a single virus in either case. Both consist of multiple viruses which combine and mutate annually, obviating any opportunity for acquired immunity. The flu vaccine is developed each year based on the best guess of what next year’s dominant flu virus will be, and in a good year is 40% effective.


The herpes virus is incurable and becomes a latent virus in the host, and since the host cannot get rid of the virus no acquired immunity can be developed.


The rabies virus has such a low survival rate that data on acquired immunity cannot be developed. Vaccines provide immunity for approximately ten years.


All the rest (smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis, polio, ebola, hantavirus, and yellow fever) provide an acquired immunity which last a lifetime. Chicken pox virus can remain latent in the host and return as shingles, but it does not cause a recurrence of chicken pox.


So, if you are going to evaluate this virus against other viruses, you cannot do so against the clod and flu because this is not multiple viruses, it is a single virus with very minor variats. If these variants are not rendering the vaccine impotent, they cannot be doing so to acquired immunity.


You cannot compare this virus to herpes, because clearly we are finding that it is possible to rid the host of the virus, that is to cure the patient.


You obviously cannot compare it to rabies. The death rate is far too low.

So you simply have to compare it to the ten other viruses, all ten of which provide lifetime acquired immunity. Why would you assume this one does not? That’s not to say the issue should not be studied, but you should start with the most likely assumption, especially when that assumption is consistent with current observation to date.

7 comments:

  1. Where'd you get your list of viruses? If you broaden your search it's not hard to find virusses where acquired immunity is incomplete or of short duration.

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  2. When you show me, jez, bear in mind that I was talking about common viral diseases, not oddball viruses which are seldom heard of and are used only as examples to prove a point.

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  3. RSV. Desclaimer: I personally hadn't heard of it, but it is not uncommon.

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  4. What part of "viruses which are seldom heard of" did you not understand?

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  5. You also seem to have misses, jez, that part where I wrote, "In fact, in all known viral diseases where acquired immunity exists at all..."

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  6. The virus hospitalises 100k in the us every year... That makes is a great deal more prevalent than, say, yellow fever which you do include. What do you mean by "seldom?" I don't assume that something is rare just because we haven't heard of it!
    Also, acquired immunity does exist for RSV. If you want you can set the threshold for "immunity exists at all" to exclude all the interesting partial cases, but I assumed you wanted your post to be more than an empty tautology.

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