I don't want to offend anyone, so if interviews are sinful to you, I apologize....
Natural (God given) immunity is superior
-
mennonitemom1
- Posts: 209
- Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:42 pm
- Affiliation: Christian
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
He makes it clear that he would have taken the vaccine if it had been available. He got Covid and survived. In his opinion he believes his natural immunity is sufficient to protect him. He might be right.
Do you think I should allow myself to get Covid so that I might develop natural immunity from Covid? even at the very real risk of killing myself (very likely)? What is your point in posting this in the General Theology thread? Where is the theology in this?
Do you think I should allow myself to get Covid so that I might develop natural immunity from Covid? even at the very real risk of killing myself (very likely)? What is your point in posting this in the General Theology thread? Where is the theology in this?
0 x
-
mennonitemom1
- Posts: 209
- Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:42 pm
- Affiliation: Christian
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
What category should it be in? It's about what GOD makes being BETTER than what man makes.... I think it Glorifies God....
1 x
-
mennonitemom1
- Posts: 209
- Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:42 pm
- Affiliation: Christian
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
Well if there are people that had covid already and they're being told to get a vaccine for it, it's probably a LOT better for them NOT to get the vaccine.... the point is saving as many lives as possible...Wayne in Maine wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:03 pm He makes it clear that he would have taken the vaccine if it had been available. He got Covid and survived. In his opinion he believes his natural immunity is sufficient to protect him. He might be right.
Do you think I should allow myself to get Covid so that I might develop natural immunity from Covid? even at the very real risk of killing myself (very likely)? What is your point in posting this in the General Theology thread? Where is the theology in this?
I was really just thinking GOD is greater than any vaccine... because GOD is GREAT...
1 x
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
John Waldron
We come to the end of another week. It seems like a long time that I have been writing these updates and I am sure you all are tired of reading them. Maybe things will settle down again and I can, at a minimum space them out a bit. As usual, I want to give the disclaimer that I am a family doctor. I am trying to share real information to help people understand where things are at.
1. COVID may be ready to plateau in the United States.
Just looking at the steepness of the curve, it does look like the worst of this wave is over. We averaged 160,000 new cases a day this last week and 1100 deaths a day over the last week from COVID. It is important to remember that COVID deaths usually do lag behind new cases so that we may not see them peak for another two to three weeks. Currently there are about 100,000 patients in the hospital across the US with COVID -- our peak was around 130,00 patients in the hospital with COVID back in January, but this is till an awful lot.
In Lynchburg there are about 80 patients in the hospital with COVID. We still are seeing a lot of folks in our office that are testing positive for COVID as well.
2. The Together Trial released some data on ivermectin.
The Together Trial has been looking at a variety of different medications for COVID including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, metformin, and fluvoxamine. Prior to this study, the biggest studies with ivermectin (except for one study that was withdrawn) have had 70 patients or less.
The Together Trial had about 700 patients each in the ivermectin and the placebo arms of the trial and then followed them to see if there were any differences in need for hospitalization. They found that 12 percent of the people in the ivermectin arm required hospital stays while 14 percent of the people in the placebo arm required hospitalization. https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/.../GR ... -06-21.pdf (Slide 21)
The difference in these two groups was not statistically significant. This doesn’t say that ivermectin is useless, but it is discouraging that it is going to make a huge difference for people with COVID infections. I think there are a couple of things to take note of. First, don’t take farm grade ivermectin. Ivermectin is a safe medication when taken as prescribed, but taking large quantities of it is dangerous. Second, don’t decide whether to get vaccinated or not based on an impression that ivermectin is a magic medication that will knock COVID out.
3. Monoclonal antibodies are available in many places.
One thing that we know can help for people who are high risk is an infusion of monoclonal antibodies. We are referring high risk people from our area to UVA where they can get this infusion. It is recommended for people who are moderately ill with COVID who are over 55 with risk factors. https://uvahealth.com/services/covid19/antibodies
These infusions aren’t cheap and I think the infusion sites are pretty overwhelmed right now, but most insurances are covering them and they are cheaper than spending a few days in the hospital.
One thing to note is that if you get a monoclonal antibody infusion, you need to wait at least 90 days before getting any kind of COVID vaccine.
4. There are three groups of people when it comes to COVID.
There are three different groups of people in relation to COVID and I think that the each need to be looked at differently.
The first group of people are those who have had COVID before. These people have some level of natural immunity. We are not totally sure how long those antibodies and T cells remember COVID for. Most of the studies I can find on this were done prior to variants becoming prevalent and so it isn’t clear to me what they say about someone who got Alpha 9 months ago and whether they can catch Delta at this point – or Lambda or whatever other strain will follow. Most probably will eventually be able to get COVID a second time – usually with similar symptoms to the first time around. The recommendation is to get at least a single vaccine to boost immunity and hopefully avoid that.
The second group of people are those who are fully vaccinated. Once again, with these folks, we know that they are immune, the question has to do with how long that immunity lasts, particularly versus the new strains. Because the vaccines are new, the only thing we can do is follow patients to see when there are break through infections and then recommend boosters as appropriate. Could it be that COVID vaccination becomes a semi-yearly thing? Sure, but it could be that a third shot also gives enough added immunity to last longer than that. It could be as well, that some of the vaccines do a better job lasting than others (right now, the Pfizer doesn’t seem to give the same antibody levels as the other two). I don’t think it is helpful to compare these first two groups. If natural immunity has a little higher percentage of people who remain immune at 6 months, that doesn’t really change decisions for either group. Personally, I would rather get a booster on a yearly basis than catch COVID once a year.
The third group includes everyone who has not had COVID and has not been vaccinated. These patients have to decide if they think the risk of COVID outweighs the risk of the vaccine. I do think eventually all of the people in this group will fall into one of the two above groups. They will either have caught COVID (hopefully a mild case) or will have gotten vaccinated.
I would leave it with this: I think it is not wise to catch COVID. Some people have really bad cases, some have long term symptoms, and some don’t and we really don’t know ahead of time which camp you will fall into.
5. How you respond to COVID is genetic.
There has been a lot of work done trying to look at why certain groups of people fare much worse with COVID than others. Certainly, there are differing rates of things like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in different ethnic groups. Further, there are different levels of access to medical care.
It appears there are some underlying genetic markers that can indicate if someone is going to get a really bad case of COVID. These are more prevalent in some ethnicities than others and can explain differences in how people respond to COVID. https://www.the-scientist.com/.../key-genes-related-to... This may be part of the reason that certain countries, or groups of people within a country don’t suffer as much from COVID as others.
To me, this really speaks of the reality that if you sailed through COVID, maybe it has nothing to do with that special Vitamin D you took, but rather simply because you had the right blood type and right parents. Others may not be so lucky.
6. The CDC hasn’t made any announcements about booster shots.
The expectation is that the CDC is going to recommend that people have a third shot. I am not sure what the interval is going to be between the second and third shot. I have seen both six and eight months listed as possibilities and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
This is different from the recommendation that is already out that people with weaker immune systems get a third shot.
From what I have been reading, this is probably more important with the Pfizer than the Moderna or J and J shots. For whatever reason, the Pfizer vaccine doesn’t produce as many antibodies and those seem to taper off over time faster than the other two. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2783797...
7. It is hard to give control of situations to God.
Humans want to be in control. They want to know that whatever happens to them, they will be able to do something to fix it.
Modern medicine gives us a sense of control that was not present one hundred years ago. If you have a heart attack, or pneumonia, or even cancer, there are a lot of things that doctors can do to help the situation.
I am convinced that much of the rhetoric around COVID revolves around this same thing, control. People take medications and vitamins and get infusions, believing that they are taking control of their lives and their illness. Some of these may help and some may not, but it is important to remember that we are not really in control. God is in control.
The most important thing when we are struggling with anxiety is to give control of our lives to someone who is smarter, wiser, and more powerful than we are – and someone who loves us to boot. What could be better than that?
We come to the end of another week. It seems like a long time that I have been writing these updates and I am sure you all are tired of reading them. Maybe things will settle down again and I can, at a minimum space them out a bit. As usual, I want to give the disclaimer that I am a family doctor. I am trying to share real information to help people understand where things are at.
1. COVID may be ready to plateau in the United States.
Just looking at the steepness of the curve, it does look like the worst of this wave is over. We averaged 160,000 new cases a day this last week and 1100 deaths a day over the last week from COVID. It is important to remember that COVID deaths usually do lag behind new cases so that we may not see them peak for another two to three weeks. Currently there are about 100,000 patients in the hospital across the US with COVID -- our peak was around 130,00 patients in the hospital with COVID back in January, but this is till an awful lot.
In Lynchburg there are about 80 patients in the hospital with COVID. We still are seeing a lot of folks in our office that are testing positive for COVID as well.
2. The Together Trial released some data on ivermectin.
The Together Trial has been looking at a variety of different medications for COVID including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, metformin, and fluvoxamine. Prior to this study, the biggest studies with ivermectin (except for one study that was withdrawn) have had 70 patients or less.
The Together Trial had about 700 patients each in the ivermectin and the placebo arms of the trial and then followed them to see if there were any differences in need for hospitalization. They found that 12 percent of the people in the ivermectin arm required hospital stays while 14 percent of the people in the placebo arm required hospitalization. https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/.../GR ... -06-21.pdf (Slide 21)
The difference in these two groups was not statistically significant. This doesn’t say that ivermectin is useless, but it is discouraging that it is going to make a huge difference for people with COVID infections. I think there are a couple of things to take note of. First, don’t take farm grade ivermectin. Ivermectin is a safe medication when taken as prescribed, but taking large quantities of it is dangerous. Second, don’t decide whether to get vaccinated or not based on an impression that ivermectin is a magic medication that will knock COVID out.
3. Monoclonal antibodies are available in many places.
One thing that we know can help for people who are high risk is an infusion of monoclonal antibodies. We are referring high risk people from our area to UVA where they can get this infusion. It is recommended for people who are moderately ill with COVID who are over 55 with risk factors. https://uvahealth.com/services/covid19/antibodies
These infusions aren’t cheap and I think the infusion sites are pretty overwhelmed right now, but most insurances are covering them and they are cheaper than spending a few days in the hospital.
One thing to note is that if you get a monoclonal antibody infusion, you need to wait at least 90 days before getting any kind of COVID vaccine.
4. There are three groups of people when it comes to COVID.
There are three different groups of people in relation to COVID and I think that the each need to be looked at differently.
The first group of people are those who have had COVID before. These people have some level of natural immunity. We are not totally sure how long those antibodies and T cells remember COVID for. Most of the studies I can find on this were done prior to variants becoming prevalent and so it isn’t clear to me what they say about someone who got Alpha 9 months ago and whether they can catch Delta at this point – or Lambda or whatever other strain will follow. Most probably will eventually be able to get COVID a second time – usually with similar symptoms to the first time around. The recommendation is to get at least a single vaccine to boost immunity and hopefully avoid that.
The second group of people are those who are fully vaccinated. Once again, with these folks, we know that they are immune, the question has to do with how long that immunity lasts, particularly versus the new strains. Because the vaccines are new, the only thing we can do is follow patients to see when there are break through infections and then recommend boosters as appropriate. Could it be that COVID vaccination becomes a semi-yearly thing? Sure, but it could be that a third shot also gives enough added immunity to last longer than that. It could be as well, that some of the vaccines do a better job lasting than others (right now, the Pfizer doesn’t seem to give the same antibody levels as the other two). I don’t think it is helpful to compare these first two groups. If natural immunity has a little higher percentage of people who remain immune at 6 months, that doesn’t really change decisions for either group. Personally, I would rather get a booster on a yearly basis than catch COVID once a year.
The third group includes everyone who has not had COVID and has not been vaccinated. These patients have to decide if they think the risk of COVID outweighs the risk of the vaccine. I do think eventually all of the people in this group will fall into one of the two above groups. They will either have caught COVID (hopefully a mild case) or will have gotten vaccinated.
I would leave it with this: I think it is not wise to catch COVID. Some people have really bad cases, some have long term symptoms, and some don’t and we really don’t know ahead of time which camp you will fall into.
5. How you respond to COVID is genetic.
There has been a lot of work done trying to look at why certain groups of people fare much worse with COVID than others. Certainly, there are differing rates of things like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in different ethnic groups. Further, there are different levels of access to medical care.
It appears there are some underlying genetic markers that can indicate if someone is going to get a really bad case of COVID. These are more prevalent in some ethnicities than others and can explain differences in how people respond to COVID. https://www.the-scientist.com/.../key-genes-related-to... This may be part of the reason that certain countries, or groups of people within a country don’t suffer as much from COVID as others.
To me, this really speaks of the reality that if you sailed through COVID, maybe it has nothing to do with that special Vitamin D you took, but rather simply because you had the right blood type and right parents. Others may not be so lucky.
6. The CDC hasn’t made any announcements about booster shots.
The expectation is that the CDC is going to recommend that people have a third shot. I am not sure what the interval is going to be between the second and third shot. I have seen both six and eight months listed as possibilities and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
This is different from the recommendation that is already out that people with weaker immune systems get a third shot.
From what I have been reading, this is probably more important with the Pfizer than the Moderna or J and J shots. For whatever reason, the Pfizer vaccine doesn’t produce as many antibodies and those seem to taper off over time faster than the other two. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2783797...
7. It is hard to give control of situations to God.
Humans want to be in control. They want to know that whatever happens to them, they will be able to do something to fix it.
Modern medicine gives us a sense of control that was not present one hundred years ago. If you have a heart attack, or pneumonia, or even cancer, there are a lot of things that doctors can do to help the situation.
I am convinced that much of the rhetoric around COVID revolves around this same thing, control. People take medications and vitamins and get infusions, believing that they are taking control of their lives and their illness. Some of these may help and some may not, but it is important to remember that we are not really in control. God is in control.
The most important thing when we are struggling with anxiety is to give control of our lives to someone who is smarter, wiser, and more powerful than we are – and someone who loves us to boot. What could be better than that?
0 x
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
mennonitemom1 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:13 pmThat is such illogical reasoning - think about it. You truly believe that adding vaccine immunity to natural immunity is bad? Where did you learn math. I'm sorry to say, you try my patience up there on your hobby horse and I am trying hard to not say something that would be construed as unkind. A certain Jethro Tull song come to mind...Wayne in Maine wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:03 pm
Well if there are people that had covid already and they're being told to get a vaccine for it, it's probably a LOT better for them NOT to get the vaccine.... the point is saving as many lives as possible...
I was really just thinking GOD is greater than any vaccine... because GOD is GREAT...
0 x
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
That's what they said in the beginning, but every large study so far has found the opposite to be true. Reinfection risk is statistically 0, even against the delta and other variants. In fact, previous infection is 27x times more protective than recent vaccination (vaccination > 6 mos ago provides no statistical protection against delta).Wayne in Maine wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:52 pm Most probably will eventually be able to get COVID a second time – usually with similar symptoms to the first time around.
While I don't personally know this man, he should not repeating conjecture that we now know is untrue.
3 x
-
Wayne in Maine
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:52 am
- Location: Slightly above sea level, in the dear old State of Maine
- Affiliation: Yielded
Re: Natural (God given) immunity is superior
Post the source of "every large study" -- ah, I didn't think so.nett wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 5:01 pmThat's what they said in the beginning, but every large study so far has found the opposite to be true. Reinfection risk is statistically 0, even against the delta and other variants. In fact, previous infection is 27x times more protective than recent vaccination (vaccination > 6 mos ago provides no statistical protection against delta).Wayne in Maine wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 4:52 pm Most probably will eventually be able to get COVID a second time – usually with similar symptoms to the first time around.
While I don't personally know this man, he should not repeating conjecture that we now know is untrue.
0 x