I don’t understand the Delta Variant
COVID19 is a virus, which means it constantly undergoes mutations. Everything containing DNA and/or RNA does, including humans. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution teaches us that mutations that provide an organism with an advantage, especially a survival advantage, will be passed on to the organism’s offspring, while mutations that don’t provide an advantage tend to disappear. Some don’t, and may become recessive genes, but that’s for another article I’m not writing today.
The Delta variant evidently underwent a mutation that gave it a survival advantage. In this case, the advantage was becoming more contagious. That means that it is more likely to infect more hosts (people). A mutation may affect more than one attribute of an organism. Despite claims of increased danger from the variant, it does not appear to be any more deadly than the original, wild, version of the virus. In fact, mutations that make a virus more deadly to its host don’t confer an advantage. The faster a host dies, the less opportunity to infect other hosts. Becoming less deadly confers a survival advantage. More chances to spread.
We know a lot about the Delta variant, just not nearly enough. It can cause a breakthrough infection in someone who is vaccinated. Which vaccine? If some vaccines are allowing breakthrough infections more frequently than others, that will be a huge leap forward. We can then focus investigative efforts where they’re needed.
It turns out that the messenger RNA vaccines apparently guard against hospitalization with about 90% effectiveness. We’re making the same mistake we made when the pandemic started, focusing on infections; most corona viruses are common cold viruses, and infection itself is almost meaningless. The real focus needs to be on hospitalizations. Every practicing physician with whom I have spoken agrees that hospitalizations are the critical point, not infections. If the patient is never hospitalized, serious consequences of the virus are rare. On the other hand, public health officials learn to treat all infections as equal
There are no data available on breakthrough infections in those with immunity arising from surviving the Delta variant. Public health officials treat all infections as equal, but we know that about 90% of the infections occur among the unvaccinated. What portion of that 90% is attributable to those with acquired natural immunity? We don’t know.
One of the strangest things to emerge recently has been social media platforms labeling those claiming that convalescent plasma – that is, plasma from the blood of those who have survived the disease – is an effective treatment as purveyors of misinformation. The very first Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded for its discovery. My own discussions with medical scientists in 2020 led me to believe that the most effective treatment available was convalescent plasma. Other apparently viable treatments, Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, have been exiled from the public square. Hydroxychloroquine is an exceptionally safe medication useful against malaria and autoimmune disorders, the latter by way of down-regulating the immune system. It has been portrayed as highly dangerous by people who do not understand what they think they know, and state governors have attempted to outlaw prescribing it. Treatment is not allowed, only vaccinations.
What is the duration of hospital stays for those vaccinated, by vaccine, for those with natural immunity, and for those with no immunity? We don’t know. This is only a partial list of things we don’t know, don’t understand, and no one in the medical bureaucracy is attempting to answer. I don’t understand the Delta variant because meaningful data have not been made available to understand it.
The country has once again been put into a mild panic, with medical bureaucrats issuing one-size-fits-all orders without the data needed to understand them. Some of the orders make no sense. The Delta variant is able to break through some vaccines, so all schoolchildren must wear masks. That is a non-sequitur. The risk of hospitalization for people under the age of twenty with no known comorbidities is virtually nil. I cannot in good conscience recommend that someone younger than 20 be vaccinated. For those six and younger, there is a real threat of hypercapnia from masks worn more than three minutes. We expect them to wear masks more than four hours a day. Depression and anxiety are markedly up in the U.S.; isolation and lack of socialization are blamed. Children pick up at least half of meaning from facial expressions.
By all reports, the sum of vaccines is protecting the vaccinated from hospitalization and/or death very effectively. We don’t know what protection is afforded by natural immunity because that may not be discussed under the rules of medical bureaucrats. That is not how science or medicine works.
There is a movement to vaccinate the immune-compromised. That is insanity itself. Vaccines work by prompting the immune system to produce antibodies. If the immune system is damaged, it produces few or no antibodies. If there is no immune system, the antibodies cannot be created. Vaccines in the immune-compromised is not something that any practicing physician would recommend.
As I said, I don’t understand the Delta variant. Medical bureaucrats insist that it is yet the latest reason to alarm the public, but will not make available the data to support their warning. That is unacceptable.
thank you for this thought provoking article. The lack of answers suggest one of the greatest threats it poses, authoritarianism. Dialogue is missing and many that have questioned the measures imposed have been removed from useful platforms. That scares me more than the virus
I am a Covid survivor (moderate discomfort), from March of 2020 when 7 of us were exposed in Florida, over the following few months, most of my direct family (at least 20 of us) including my 83 year old mother caught it and thankfully, we had no severe cases. Because of my experience, I have paid extra and constant attention to any science about the natural immunity post Covid. If anything, the evidence is on the side that natural immunity has broader and longer protection than the vaccines. The utter lack of attention given to this incredibly important subject in it's self is enough for me to question the brains and the motives of the CDC, WHO and nearly all mainstream media. Natural immunity and and less deadly variants have provided a natural solution to all of the raspatory infections in the world from the beginning till Covid. Also, the speed that the same scoundrels continue to discount any prophylactic treatments in favor of the vaccine, even before their was a vaccine is another scientific red flag. The message that "the vaccine is the only path through Covid" is a lie!