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There is an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that says that we are closer to collective immunity than we know. He argues that if you look at T cells – cells that remember previous infections – we will find that many people have developed immunity to COVID-19 without ever having any symptoms.
Mercer Island doctor Dr. Gordon Cohen joined Seattle’s Morning News to discuss.
“One of the things that has been largely ignored among all these terrible COVID warnings is the fact that COVID cases have dropped 77% in the past six weeks. So this opinion piece by Dr. Marty Makary – who is a well-known surgeon and public health specialist – says that ‘if a drug reduces cases by 77%, we call it a miracle pill’. So he raises the question: why is the number of cases plummeting? And it has to do with the different types of immunity that our bodies have, antibodies versus T cells, ”said Dr. Cohen.
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According to this theory, the numbers behind the death rate and infection rate seem to indicate broader collective immunity than was originally thought.
“When we are doing antibody tests, it does not capture these antigen-specific T cells or memory T cells, as they are activated by the virus. And it is quite interesting that he points out that the people who survived the Spanish flu of 1918 were found in 2008 – 90 years later – with memory T cells that were still capable of producing neutralizing antibodies, ”he said.
“So what he’s saying is that about one in 600 Americans died of COVID-19, which translates to a population death rate of about 0.15%. So this is the theoretical mortality rate for COVID-19. But the current death rate from COVID-19 infection is 0.23%. Therefore, these figures suggest that about two-thirds of the United States population has already had the infection (potentially without knowing it). “
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In other words, the test that was done tests the antibodies that currently fight against the infection. After these antibodies disappear, T cells are left to remember this infection, and they are the ones that really protect you from future infection. But the tests do not reveal its existence.
“This is how our body naturally develops immunity. But when we test people to see if they have a response to vaccination, we are testing antibodies, we are not testing T cell activity. So what he pointed out is that, using a variety of mathematical models, it is possible that until April, with Based on your mathematical data and what we know about the disease, most of COVID-19 has disappeared, ”said Cohen.
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