Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, believes that the coronavirus will be “mostly gone” by April, as reported by Katherine Fung on Newsweek.
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal on Friday, Makary argued that half of the U.S. has already reached herd immunity because there are more coronavirus cases in the country, possibly 6.5 times as many, than the 28 million that have been reported. Of note, in the U.S., more than 490,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.
Combined with the 15 percent of Americans who have already begun receiving the vaccine, the doctor argued that normal life will return by the spring.
“There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” Makary wrote. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”
Herd immunity has been a controversial subject over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. The term is used to describe what happens when the virus can no longer widely spread because a large proponent of the population is no longer susceptible.
Markary argued that while the topic of natural immunity has often been rejected by most experts in the medical field due to a lack of data, the observational data is showing the majority of Americans may already be protected not only from COVID-19 but also its new variants.
“But the consistent and rapid decline in daily cases since Jan. 8 can be explained only by natural immunity,” Makary wrote. “Behavior didn’t suddenly improve over the holidays; Americans traveled more over Christmas than they had since March. Vaccines also don’t explain the steep decline in January. Vaccination rates were low and they take weeks to kick in.”
“Many experts, along with politicians and journalists, are afraid to talk about herd immunity. The term has political overtones because some suggested the U.S. simply let COVID rip to achieve herd immunity. That was a reckless idea,” he added. “But herd immunity is the inevitable result of viral spread and vaccination. When the chain of virus transmission has been broken in multiple places, it’s harder for it to spread—and that includes the new strains.”
His viewpoint has been disputed by other experts like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Wallensky, who said on Wednesday that the U.S. has not vaccinated nearly enough Americans to reach herd immunity.
During the briefing, Wallensky attributed the decrease in COVID-19 cases to the lack of travel and large gatherings that were more common over the holiday season.
Fauci said if normal means “getting back to a situation where you can have theaters that might be able to have below capacity, that restaurants, indoor dining can be happening, but with moderately diminished capacity,” then “that’s going to be somewhere between the fall and the end of the year.”
Joe Biden has also discussed a similar timeline to Fauci’s.
However, Makary continued to defend his opinions in a Friday interview with Fox News.
“There’s a 76 percent reduction in daily cases over the last six weeks,” Makary said. “You, as a scientist, have to ask why. And we cannot explain that by vaccinated immunity. We can’t explain it by a sudden change in behavior. It’s natural immunity, and it’s now over 50 percent of the population.”
What say you Def-Con News readers? We’re all ready for this damn mess to be over, yes? I intend to resist the vaccination as long as possible. Hopefully, until its no longer an issue. I intend to continue being careful, limiting my contact with people from outside my immediate circle, social distancing, excessive hand washing, and wearing a mask when businesses require me to do so, but I’m eager for a life change.
