2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXVI
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV (first named); COVID-2019 (later named disease); SARS-CoV-2 (final name of the virus causing COVID-2019), COVID-2019 Pandemic:

 

September 27, 2021 update Part 26
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 5 of 5)
A Recap

 

Hello and welcome. It has been a while since I have written. We have just now arrived at the third phase, of my understanding of the 5 phase stages of this pandemic. I imagine many of you are feeling frightened, angry and frustrated, as well as simply confused. Things have not gone as well as they should have, as we are experiencing the next increase of incidence in the USA. The question is how to proceed from where we are. I am bombarded by questions from family, friends, patients and students. I would like to discuss several major aspects to help the general discourse. This is a difficult task as at this time as there are two paths, one for those who have been vaccinated and one for those who have not been vaccinated. As a result, I would like to break down the writing into 5 separate posts. They are: 

1. A piece for those who have been vaccinated
2. A piece for those who have not been vaccinated
3. A piece on effective natural therapies
4. A piece on other pharmaceuticals
5. A short recap

 

Herein, I begin with the last piece, a short recap.

As I write this, I think about last night, when Amy and I and some friends were making homemade pizza, outside on the deck, when one of them said that she felt so sad that her friend’s brother, in his early 60’s, suddenly, unexpectedly, was in the ICU, on a machine, unconscious, fighting for his life with this infection. At the same time, I thought about all the anxiety that exists, still, and the weariness, confusion, anger, and pretty much any difficult emotion you can think of. So, perhaps to cheer you up, or rather to shed some light on what the future holds, I wanted to start with a statement that I have been telling my patients. And even though it sometimes raises eyebrows, please hear me out here. I would like to describe a sort of framework for your consideration, that I think will help explain the news as it unfolds over the next months. 

 

The pandemic will be over sometime between middle December to early May! I say this with some confidence, so let me explain why. As we recognized from the start, this germ is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. This concept has not changed. But how do we go from where we are now to a more normal life when the pandemic designation will come to an end. I would like to describe how this is going to occur and what to expect. During this time frame, at some point we as a species will decide that the pandemic is over. Yes, there will be different justifications, here or there, but basically we are going to call it over. This means the mandates, rules, restrictions, as a species, will stop. This has to do with the numbers vaccinated, and the numbers who survived the infection and developed natural immunity. The more vaccinated, the closer we are to the December date. If we stop vaccinations completely, the date gets pushed to May. But basically, enough people will have enough immunity to the bug, in whatever mutation arrived at, we are going to stop calling this a pandemic. 

But think of this as a step-wise progression. What the pandemic will be replaced by epidemics in large areas of the world. And once more people get vaccinated, or survive the illness, then the epidemics stop and they get replaced by local outbreaks. Please be aware that there are definitions to these terms, loose definitions, but they still exist. The framework I am suggesting is that we are dropping from everyone being at risk, to whole areas being at risk, to some smaller areas being at risk, to eventually just subpopulations being at risk. 

 

With that in mind, expect to read what might seem like conflicting news, but this framework should help. For example, there are at this time, hospitals that are still overflowing in some parts of the USA and the world. And yet at the same time some countries are removing all of their restrictions. Completely. It sounds confusing, but this is the nature of a transition from pandemic to epidemic to local outbreak. 

 

One important variable nudging the dates towards December or toward May is the vaccination rate in a specific area. In those countries where the vaccination rate is very high, restrictions/mandates are dropping or completely gone. In those areas where there are very low vaccination rates, restrictions/mandates remain in force, and high rates of infection and mortality rates continue. In other words, we are no longer in the same world, all of us. We are seeing different realities, depending on vaccination rates. So too are areas that were hardest hit with COVID-19 patients. Those areas that had high infection rates and high mortality rates, the virus ran through the population, and many of those that survived have enough immunity to be safe. Meaning, soon enough, most of the species in many areas of the world will have dealt with this bug one way or another. Soon. Sadly, though, and not to minimize this at all, many of us are still not there. People, a lot of people, are still dying. And many others are getting severely ill, and some staying sick. Over time, we will get to a sort of herd immunity one way or another, where the germ continually becomes less and less lethal to us, in a practical sense. With that in mind, think of the future as bright, in terms of overall species survival and a return of normalcy. For most of the folks reading this, the latest this will be is in May. For some, normalcy will be in the next weeks. 

 

The bottom line. Do whatever you need to do to stay healthy during this time. With that in mind, I thought I would link the main takeaways from the last few posts together: 

 

1.   We know that some people become really sick from this infection, and that there are common, modifiable, predisposing health factors that you can work to change. You can read of these here and here.

2.     Aside from the above, we know that one very important variable for people that have gotten neither the bug nor the vaccine, is the overall viral exposure quantity. Just to be simple about it, it matters how much of the virus you are exposed to. And the reason it matters is that your immune system needs time to recognize the bug and mount an appropriate response. The more virus there is, the more the virus has a ‘head start’, on the immune system, and the more damage can be done. This is straight forward. Now we get into the politics. Where do masks fit in? Do they work? It is, in fact, almost the wrong question to consider. If the bug travels by water droplets, then a good cheap mask can knock out all or almost all of the virus. If the bug travels by aerosolizing, then it traps some, but not all of the bug. But that is fine. Remember what I said above, cutting down the viral exposure is important in itself. This we have spoken of before, in detail, so will skip it here. It is important to note that the succeeding mutations of the virus have become more airborne, which would lessen cheap mask success. As well, it matters what the mask is made of. For example, we have been really harping on the idea of copper infused masks that kill germs on contact as one solution. We wrote on this in 2017 here, but interestingly, there is a company that reported that their silver-infused mask doesn’t just block, but kill most of the germs.

 

Relatedly, as we discussed, you can also try to stop the virus from going into the nose in the first place, by different substances, or even try to knock down the viral load exposed or just inhaled. For example, here you can read about a company in other countries doing it with the use of nitric oxide into the nose. But the idea of all of the above is to cut down in a reasonable amount the virus exposure you have This is common sense and politics should not fit it here. But don’t put thing in your nose that are going to hurt you.

 

Another way to cut exposure is not just to be outside, or inside with the open windows, but to filter the air in the room, to remove the virus particles, so that you either do not get exposed OR if you do get exposed it is a smaller number of particles, as described above, so that your immune system has a chance to be ahead of the virus. This is simple, and as we enter the winter months in the northern hemisphere, and as restrictions lift, please consider doing this, since it is relatively inexpensive and effective. We describe how to make an at home fan here. That is the exposure part, above.

 

Please continue to be tested regularly. In this way, you can keep from spreading the virus to others in your family or at work, or friends, especially unknowingly. This remains a key component to limiting spread. Let’s just say this part went poorly. People did not believe the tests were real, or valid, and the government de-emphasized tests and testing, and in general, still seems a bit confused about the importance of testing. If you want to see which tests are available, please see the FDA site here. You can find many versions of many kinds of tests. There is a sort of confusion of how to use some of the tests, what action some of the tests should lead to and moreover, they can be difficult to access.

 

But let’s stay on this topic for a second, and how it relates to vaccinations. When patients had asked me about vaccinations, and which one they should get, the Moderna or Pfizer, I said it depended on a few things, but basically it came down to this. Those with really robust constitutions I recommended to take the Moderna and those with less robust constitutions I suggested take the Pfizer. So, I got Pfizer and Amy got Moderna. The science was not there yet, there was no proof yet, just what I was seeing with patients, but my sense was that the Moderna had an extra ‘kick’ to it and I wanted to match that kick to a constitutional state that could handle it. We now know more and have a sort of proof around this. It seems as though the antibody load is greater and lasts longer with the Moderna shot than in the Pfizer shot. Or put it differently, those who took the Pfizer shot have lost antibodies sooner than those who had the Moderna shot. Which makes sense. It was a smaller push to the immune system. It’s kind of cool to see a small proof of a hypotheses. It seems to me odd, to then turn around and say that these results, that you just did all the math around, do not matter when it comes to answer the questions about vaccination boosters. In other words, who needs a booster and when should relate to testing and antibody capacity, not based randomly on the dates of the vaccine.

 

Back to testing. There is now, finally, a move in science to have more at-home testing. At least people are starting to discuss this in earnest, which I entirely support.

 

3.     Next is your immune system: I hope you have taken the suggestions to try and address any  chronic health conditions, and  to modify health habits, including better sleep, less alcohol, less refined carbohydrates, consistent exercise etc. For those adolescents and the college-aged people, and the 20-40 year olds, those who feel invincible, take some extra care for now. Good health habits are always important. But for now, here, they are really important.

 

I think getting your first vaccine is one of the greatest steps you can take to diminish the severity of your illness should you get sick. Ideally the vaccine would be shifted to better match the current variant, but it still works well enough. More on this below, on where this fits with natural immunity. If everything I have written up to now, as well as the number of hospitalizations, severe illness and mortality that reflects how the unvaccinated are at so much more risk, with a greater chance of illness being worse, with more sequelae….. if you are not encouraged to seek the vaccine , I am pretty sure there is nothing else I can say, so I will keep this part short.

 

There are all the supplements we discussed to maintain some semblance of normal healthy functioning. Again, we do not sell these, and these do not have enough validation, which I believe is an unfortunate bias of the health care industry. These are inexpensive and could be found at any large grocery or health food store. Here, the way I think of the supplements is that different ones knock down the viral load, some are antiviral, some help the immune system function well, and some help the mucus membranes, some, are decongestant, and some help with normalizing clotting. We need more studies here!

 

In my work with patients, whole person homeopathy has been essential. But that is difficult to describe here as remedies must be individualized to the patient. Please send your COVID patients to someone who can identify a pertinent remedy, who can follow the person over time, as remedies may shift as the illness shifts.

 

All of the above are about your immune system being in good shape to meet the virus. If you are exposed or if you are asymptomatic, doing all of the above is useful. I believe it may keep you from becoming symptomatic, and if becoming symptomatic, hopefully having a shorter version of the illness.

 

4.     If you get sick, depending on the severity of the illness, you might consider:

a.  All the supplements we discussed. And all the health habits we discussed.

b.    Personally, I have also found that if you catch these folks early enough not much develops if we do the above and give them a homeopathic remedy.

c.   Track all the important signs of severe illness, which includes blood oxygen levels, the SPO2 with an oximeter. But also keep a lookout for potential clotting issues.

d.    If more severe, if it becomes severe quickly, aside from the above, you might need medications. Here, I think of the stage that you are in. Early on, antivirals. Early and severe and predisposing factors, monoclonal antibody infusions. If it is later on and severe, steroids, all of which I discussed in more details previously.

e.    And really through this whole period of time, I use homeopathy with these patients.

f.    And while we have treated folks on ventilators, in ICUs, doing the above, we have patients who have not ended up in such dire situations.

g.    After the crisis passes, there is a change of natural medications to help the body resolve, or clean up, the effects of illness. For example, I have many times used NAC as well as botanical medicines, and honey to resolve the cough at the end of the infection.

 

I have 3 people under my care that have lingering symptoms doing the above. They are the exception rather than the rule. If you can help your body and your brain be in good shape, prep your immune system by doing the above, and take care of it early on, things will go well enough, even when the presenting symptom is a serious one, like double pneumonia!

 

5.     After the vaccine, or after being ill with the virus, some things to consider.

a.     When was I ill? or when was I vaccinated? In both instances, you have some level of protection, which wanes over time. As your protection wanes, you may fall sick, but most likely not seriously so.

b.    If vaccinated and a long time ago, boosters are going to be offered to you eventually. Ideally, these are designed to fit the current mutation. While this has not been done with Pfizer vaccine, I believe Moderna is moving in that direction.

c.   The basic issue is do most people need a booster or not? And as importantly, and this is something we discussed often in this series, might we be better off with a sort of SAFE, (DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME BY YOURSELF) fashion by having both the vaccine and the illness, though not at the same time. In that way, we have a strong antibody response when we need it, and we have the rest of the immune system helping in many other ways. More and more studies are coming out to describe the advantage of this hybrid approach. Highlights include, less severe re-infections, and a reduced likelihood of chronic sequelae.

 

If you take this last point, it may be that those who are vaccinated who then have the illness at some point, will fare the best as an overall population. With that in mind, if you have a lot of people vaccinated, and you open up society, you are likely to find episodic high infections, but with less and less corresponding severity or mortality. In other words, people get sick, but don’t die. And if this hybrid scenario is correct, then the chronic problems that some people developed would also be less common. In other words, with a sort of protection that the vaccine affords, society is going to say, okay, go do your life, and let’s see how many get really sick. This is a kind of hybrid approach, even though no one is going to call it so. That is what I see as the way through. That is what, de facto, the government is doing. And this is how the pandemic will come to a close.

 

Last comment. Just as we know this virus impacts people in an uneven fashion, so too do vaccines. We will continue to find people who had no side effects, people who had, minor side effects, people who had severe side effects, and people who have developed lasting injuries from them. And once we draw down from the pandemic, to local outbreaks, I imagine people are going to forget that one in 500 Americans died from COVID in the past 18 months. And that with every math projection we show that number would have been so much worse without vaccines. I mention this not to highlight its benefit here, but to highlight the comments I made when discussing vaccinations. What we need is a mature exploration to identify the subgroup of individuals who are responding poorly to the vaccine. And I personally believe that by doing this we might gain great knowledge that would help protect our children from harm. I look forward to that discussion. 

 

I wanted to end with one sad comment which I made earlier in this pandemic. There is going to have to be some sort of reckoning in the future. In general, more affluent countries have this level of hybrid protection open to them than less developed countries. But even in the USA, more educated, more affluent people received the vaccine and are prepared for the hybrid protection compared to less affluent people and communities. We have seen this already when looking at mortality rates, and severe ICU stats. We will see this inequality also in the chronic sequelae, including in long term cognitive injuries. In many parts of the world, including the USA, access to health care is not distributed evenly and this pandemic, along with many other things has really laid bare those inequities. At some point this has to be reckoned with.

 

See you in a few months!