One of my 45-year-old patients does not remember taking COVID, but he has the antibodies to prove it and the amounts are quite high. He is happy to have immune protection, although he dodged the clinical bullet. Another patient, 20 years older, obese and at risk of complications, developed double pneumonia, but recovered with the help of a monoclonal antibody infusion against the SARS COV 2 virus.
What do these two patients have in common? Both developed antibodies and a degree of immunity against the virus. A recent report by the National Institutes of Health showed that this immunity can last for at least eight months.
What is still needed is a better laboratory test for this immunity, as well as permission for the recovered COVID to go to places without restrictions. Science supports this even if the government does not yet offer its permission. This delay in translating science into policy, while maintaining punitive restrictions, has been a major problem during the pandemic.
Translate science into politics more quickly
Consider that over a week ago, more than 20% of Americans and about 50% of those over 65 received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This will certainly have an impact and create pockets of immunity in the community. More than 80% of COVID deaths in the United States occurred in patients aged 65 and over. COVID vaccines have been shown to dramatically decrease the severity of the disease and more and more data show that they decrease viral load and transmission.
Well over 2 million Americans are being vaccinated daily, and that number is about to increase as Johnson and Johnson dispatched 4 million doses of its newly available vaccine on Monday. This single-dose vaccine, which can be stored in a refrigerator for three months, has been shown to be 85% effective against serious illnesses and 100% effective against hospitalization and death – with a single injection.
Why is the government not keeping up with science and translating it into policy immediately? Consider a new Harvard study of 1.2 million people in Israel, almost half of whom received the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine. After two doses, the vaccine was found to be as effective for adults over 70 as it was for younger people, with a 94% reduction in symptomatic COVID-19, a 87% reduction in hospitalization and, most importantly, prevention of 92% of all cases documented infections – even at a time in Israel when the UK’s highly transmissible variant B117 was growing.
But these results, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, did not lead to an immediate change in policy here as they did in Israel. In fact, the CDC planned to issue guidelines to vaccinated people on Thursday, but is holding back. Meanwhile, in Israel, vaccination or proof of immunity to infection has become a gateway to reopening society. The so-called green passport now allows Israelis to enter gyms, shopping malls and restaurants, and travel to Greece and Cypress.
It is worth it: I am taking the COVID-19 vaccine. I put my faith in science, Modern and me
Iceland allows travelers to present passports instead of quarantine or test requirements, why can’t we? Why was I compelled to submit a negative PCR test result to enter Madison Square Garden to watch a basketball game with a small socially distant crowd when I could have shown my vaccination card voucher from the Center for Prevention and Control? Illnesses? Science is showing that vaccination or recovery from COVID or both are far more reliable indicators than a negative COVID test, which can be done easily at the wrong time in the disease process.
Consider public health, not politics
Critics of the so-called vaccine passport say that rewarding immunity is a way of penalizing those who are not yet immune. While this may be a fair point, it is imperative to look at it more from a purely public health perspective; who is at risk and who is putting other people at risk. If you are part of the fast-growing immune group, you are much less likely to spread or get sick with the virus. This is the end result of public health. This does not mean that it is time to throw away your masks or resume crowding, but it does mean that you can see Grandma, especially if the two of you have been vaccinated.
COVID Model: No, the school cannot open like the NFL. It is much more complicated than that.
A public health perspective includes more than just the devastation of the virus, it must also consider the loneliness and isolation that have been caused by efforts to control it. Sometimes these efforts are effective, especially when they are imposed before viral spread, but sometimes they are excessive and do more harm than good. There is an epidemic of depression and anxiety here that equates to the COVID pandemic.
Our government has made many promises it has not kept. We must not allow the vaccine to become another political weapon. We need to use our immunity as a bridge to reopen society and overcome our depression and isolation now, before it is too late. If there is a tangible incentive to get the vaccine in terms of restaurants, gyms, cinemas and travel, many more people will do it.
My mother-in-law, bedridden due to multiple sclerosis, turns 80 this month. I haven’t seen her in a year, but now that we’ve been vaccinated, I’ll be on my way soon to celebrate with her.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a member of the USA TODAY Taxpayers’ Council and medical correspondent for Fox News, is a professor of medicine and medical director at Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. His latest book, “COVID: the politics of fear and the power of science,” was published last fall. Follow him on Twitter: @DrMarcSiegel
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This article was originally published in USA TODAY: Vaccines and COVID-19 immunity are our ticket to reopening US society