I can’t say that our symptoms were more than mild and we never exhibited shortness of breath or any other life-threatening symptoms. We are both in our eighties and have been vaccinated twice with one booster. After a few days of self-imposed quarantine, we began to feel better. We were sick but did not die despite our advanced years. Over the Christmas holidays many people I knew contacted Covid and their cases proceeded much like ours.
Thank goodness we have an immune system that immediately springs into action when it detects an invading viral horde. Our mouths and nasal passages are full of warrior cells and bacteria without whose protection we would have long ago become extinct.
When the coronavirus enters our system, the battle begins. Like any war it can cause great damage while it is waging. What we call symptoms--sniffles, coughing, fever, and fatigue-- are the results of the battle. We know by now that 99% of the time our immune system wins the battle. *
We also know that most of those who have died have been elderly. Some have suggested that our immune systems get weaker with age, but others have suggested that they get stronger after a lifetime of fighting various diseases, and that they produce an overly aggressive response to the invader that leads to inflammation, pneumonia, and death.
Last year I read an article that claimed that our immune system does not get weaker or stronger with age, but a factor that mitigates or controls the immune reaction does get weaker with age. It’s as if to counter the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we launch a preventative nuclear strike.
Some scientists have argued that controlling the inflammatory response of our immune system against the virus is the way to handle the pandemic. Vaccines do not prevent us from getting infected but are designed as a kind of early warning system for the immune system, and thus prevent a deadly overreaction.
In the opinion of my scientific advisor, a master biologist, the Omicron variant might be a blessing in disguise with the potential to be much more effective than any vaccine or booster. He had this to say in an email exchange in which he calls it "Nature's Vaccine."
The vaccines are RNA based which cause us to produce a protein (Spike Protein) which the Covid virus uses to attach to our cells. However, a slight change in the spike protein due to a virus mutation could render the vaccine useless as we are seeing with Omicron. I call Omicron "nature's vaccine" because our immune system will mount a response not only to the spike protein but to other vulnerable parts of the virus. This should produce long lasting immunity not only to Omicron but to similar Covid viruses. So far, baring comorbidities, the Omicron seems to be mild, in fact, probably even milder than the booster vaccine! It is more contagious and therefore probably will lead to herd immunity. I do not buy the idea that the reason Omicron is milder is due to the fact that people have been vaccinated. To me, it is milder as the virus is going through evolution where it wants to remain "alive" and the best way to do that is not to kill its host.
Viruses have been manipulating human as well as all of the
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*Note: So far there have been over 101,000,000 reported cases in the USA, and about 1.1 Million deaths from Covid. However, most authorities agree that many cases have not been reported. Even though some estimates have been higher, if we just multiply the number of cases by 2, the survival rate is over 99%.
Looks good to me; however, you might include that more and more doctors are now routinely checking Vitamin D levels as part of typical The idea that the immune system gets "weaker" with age may have more to do with elderly having lower that healthy Vitamin D levels due to a variety of factors. The link between Vitamin D and the immune system has become more obvious. Even Dr. Fauci commented that he believes vitamins are not that important except for the one he takes - Vitamin D! RD comments from NY.
ReplyDelete"So far there have been over 101,000,000 reported cases in the USA..."
ReplyDeleteBUT...many of those have been re-infections. My daughter's boss has had 3 so far.
Another point to make is that the reported Case Fatality Rate is about 1.8%. People who want to minimize Covid look at this and truncate it to a 1% CFR with a 99% survival rate, whereas proper rounding yields a 2% CFR and a 98% survival rate.
Finally, there are likely tens of thousands of U.S. Covid deaths, perhaps over 100,000 deaths, that have been unreported. I personally know of one in my town, the mother of a fellow parishioner had a fatal heart attack one week after 'recovering' from Covid. I'd wager the odds that she died of an undiagnosed Covid complication was over 70%, but she was not recorded as a covid death. It will be a few more years until the same statistical tools we use in estimating seasonal flu will be able to give unreported covid estimates.
My guess is that Covid is going to look a lot like polio: the majority of those infected never had symptoms (so the IFR is low), and the 'long covid' syndromes will cause suffering and even shortened lifespans for years to come.
Tom