2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXVIII
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:

 

December 17, 2021 update Part 28
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the last phase of the COVID-2019 Pandemic:

Here Comes the Wave

 

Hello and welcome. Here's another short piece to answer all the emails and phone calls from colleagues and patients. The news is scary right now. We are seeing a huge wave of ill patients, as we enter the last super pathological morphological stage of this pandemic, which will allow us to leave the pandemic behind. As mentioned before, I think we are over the pandemic by April, though originally, I thought May. I thought I should contextualize our current situation as things are becoming confusing! I want to highlight that the below is mostly about the Omicron variant, but that is not the case all over the world yet. I will discuss this more in the next post.

 

Transmission Change

One of the points I make in epidemics, here and about the Ebolavirus, is an understanding of transmission modes. Is the virus airborne or non airborne? Is it spread by contact or non contact? And from the start, what we see with this virus is that it is mostly not airborne, though there are some situations that can make it airborne. You can read about this topic here. 

 

What I have noticed is that with every mutation that stabilizes, here focusing on Omicron, the rate of ease of airborne transmission has increased. In other words, the 2 meters distance is going to matter less, as the virus will pass in non-contact form. I think this will be acknowledged within a month, as the rates of infection could only be explained by airborne transmission (as well as an easing of public health restrictions.) A prediction I think that will also come to be. 

 

In other words, as we have spoken about in our classes, it becomes highly likely that you or your loved ones are going to be exposed to the virus, during this entry to the last phase of the pandemic. By January this will mostly be the case. There are things you can do to mitigate this, mentioned below. Thus far, we are only talking about transmission and likelihood of infection.

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXVII
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:

 

November 28, 2021 update Part 27
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the last phase of the COVID-2019 Pandemic:

A short piece

 

Hello and welcome. Here’s a short piece to answer all the emails and phone calls from colleagues and patients. The news is scary right now. As you are aware, a new more prominent variant, named Omicron was found, and has dozens of mutations. It seems to outcompete the Delta virus which has been the current dominant mutated variant. The news is daunting since countries are beginning to shut down from the news. WHO issued dire warnings and travels bans are in place. And added to this is the sad coincidence that there are numerous regions in the world with increased incidence of Delta COVID. In some places these are the worst outbreaks of the virus since the pandemic began. 

 

Let me start by saying, again, and perhaps sounding oddly, and pretty much opposite to what we are hearing today, that the pandemic will be over by sometime in April. Again, as written elsewhere, this does not mean that the virus is gone, it is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Simply, the pandemic will be called off, and switched to more confined outbreaks, depending on local conditions. I know this flies in the face of everything you are hearing right now. We discussed most of this from the start. And I will describe it more fully when describing the fifth and final phase of the pandemic which we are almost entering (and I know how odd that sentence must sound, in the face of the news). A brief recap:

 

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. 

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXV
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 10-20, 2021 update Part 25
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 4 of 5)
A piece on drug therapies

 

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 fourth piece, a piece on pharmaceutical therapies:

As I start discussing this topic, I reflect that I am about to attend a funeral in a few hours, which will have many people in attendance. And tomorrow, a wedding with 8 people present. How completely opposite these two events are in my mind. As I think about it, if one is lucky they get to have a very long, productive, useful, joyous life. And by the time they pass, most of the people they know may have already passed. And so, the funerals are lightly attended. We know this, and expect this. But when a younger person passes, the funeral tends to be more heavily attended, as family, friends and colleagues are still around. 

 

And then there are the weddings. Where in the best of all worlds, it is the community that comes to celebrate that union. It does not really matter to me what the actual celebration is, but that there is  community, and it comes together to celebrate the future. Here, we expect many. So, you can see my reflection, of how completely opposite these events are, where people die all too young. And others celebrate great joys, but with only a few in attendance. It should not be this way. More on this period of time in the next post. For now, let’s begin.

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXIV
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 1, 2021 update Part 24
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 3 of 5)
A piece on effective natural therapies

 

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 third piece, a piece on effective natural therapies:

 

Before I start discussing natural therapies, I would like to comment on an email I received. It was a kind, short, email, that said why am I equivocating on having people get the vaccine. I was a bit taken aback by this email, given the fact that I have been so clear about this, since even before vaccines were available. And also, from the hate mail, death threats, and insults I received (as well as the many, many, many, kind words and thoughts). I would say that I was pretty clear about getting the first shots last winter. I think the writer of that letter felt like I was not clear enough in the last post. She lost family members to this virus, and I think she believed I should perhaps not give any thoughts or word to those that were not vaccinated.

 

I feel deeply for her loss, and the losses in so many families, and it brings to light the difficulty in this epidemic where it is challenging to pay attention to all the different facets and easy to make errors in perception. My goal in the last post was less about people that are caught up in some political, or uneducated or misinformed moment, but rather to bring up important topics that may give people pause. And if we can actually have a reasonable conversation, I think we would all be better for it. I would like to give you one example of what I mean, to show some of the complexity.

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXIII
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:

 

August 30, 2021 update Part 23
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 2 of 5)
A piece for those who have not been vaccinated

 

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 stage 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 second piece, for those that have not been vaccinated:

While this seems like a simple category, it is far from simple. There are many reasons why someone has not gotten vaccinated. Here are some: Individuals who have a religious prohibition to all vaccinations, those who have had severe adverse events from prior vaccines, people younger than 12 years for whom the vaccine is not yet tested, those undergoing medical treatment where vaccination is not recommended at this time, people who cannot afford the vaccine, people living in regions of the world where the vaccine is not widely available, people who are too old or too infirm to mount a proper response, those who have a philosophical opposition to all vaccinations, people who do not want to be forced by the government to get vaccinated, people confused by a variety of misinformation and are therefore afraid of getting vaccinated, people who already caught the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and people who are averse to anything new.

 

2019 Novel Coronavirus (CoVID-19): Part XXII
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:

 

August 23, 2021 update Part 22
Paul Herscu ND, MPH
Herscu Laboratory 

 

Entering the third phase of this pandemic (Part 1 of 5)
A piece for those who have been vaccinated

 

Hello and welcome. It has been a while since I have written. We have just now arrived at the third phase, of my 5 phase stage 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. 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 a piece for those that have been vaccinated:

I include here all people who have been vaccinated with one of the four vaccines, produced by Pfizer, Moderna, Johnnson & Johnson, or AstraZeneca. I have some experience with several other vaccines, but my experience is too limited to discuss here. I am not avoiding those other vaccines, or being western-centric. I just do not have enough personal, clinical experience to discuss them in a practice-based fashion. For those who have taken one of those other vaccines, I hope that this discussion may still be of use to you. Also, I am leaving out adverse effects here, as that is a different topic that I have covered exhaustively for the past 30 years, and specifically again in April, May, and June of 2020, almost a year before the vaccines became widely available. Please refer to that previous writing to read about how both viruses and vaccines impact people based on underlying susceptibility.