COVID Numbers At A Glance:
- COVID numbers can cause a lot of confusion.
- More people have natural immunity than are aware.
- Study indicates 1/3 of all Americans had recovered from COVID by the end of 2020.
- The CDC’s method of calculating COVID deaths allows room for error.
There’s good news on the COVID front, but you wouldn’t know it to read headlines featuring the CDC or other government health agencies. With such large numbers and ever-changing definitions, it is hard for many Americans to clearly grasp what portion of the population has either recovered, been confirmed, or died from COVID. And many times no acknowledgment is given to those who have natural antibodies but have never had a confirmed case or were unaware that they even had the virus.
Studies have come out recently that are encouraging in the number of Americans who developed natural immunity within varying times of the pandemic due to these unknown cases.
The CDC explains why case numbers may actually be higher than those reported:
- Not all patients with symptoms seek care or testing services. Not all sick patients seek care or are tested for COVID-19, and therefore they are not included in national case reports. To approximate the number of symptomatic people who never sought medical care, researchers use data from COVID Near You (CNY) and Flu Near You (FNY) sites on health care seeking behaviors. While COVID Near You launched in March 2020, FNY has been collecting self-reported influenza participatory data since 2011.
- Patients do not have symptoms. Some people infected with SARS-CoV-2 never show symptoms (they have asymptomatic infection). People with asymptomatic infection are very likely to go undetected. The percentage of asymptomatic infections is reported in the literature and varies by age group. In people 0-64 years old, a range of 5%-24% is used to estimate asymptomatic infections, and for people 65 years and older, a range of 5%-32% is used.1
The First Six Months; COVID Case Numbers Through July 2020
A study was published in the Science Translational Medicine periodicial. The study reveals the widespread SARS-CoV-2 virus was far greater in the first six months of the pandemic than previously thought.2 This study was designed to give us a snapshot up to July 2020 and indicated a nearly five-fold increase in cases from 3.5 million to 16.8 million.
Our results estimate that as of July 2020, there were about 4.79 undiagnosed infections (95% CI, 2.76 to 6.82; fig. S6) for every identified case of COVID-19, suggesting a potential 16.8 million undiagnosed infections by July 2020 in addition to the reported 3.5 million diagnosed cases in the United States. These data suggest that a higher level of infection-induced immunity exists in the U.S. population than previously predicted.2
The study was designed with over 11, 363 participants aged 18 and over. Participants first answered survey questions on a phone call then followed up with a blood sample to test for antibodies submitted to the NIH lab. Participants were excluded if they had past confirmation of COVID, past exposure to COVID, or had symptoms congruent with a COVID diagnosis.3
Care was taken to ensure the participants were representative of the overall U.S. population according to recent census data:
All volunteers were emailed an initial survey to collect basic demographic characteristics. Survey responses were de-identified and aggregated by subcategory of state, type of locality approximated from zip codes, age, sex, race, and ethnicity. Target sample sizes for these subcategories were determined from the U.S. census and were updated every evening based on the characteristics of people who had already enrolled to assure that individuals in each subcategory were enrolled evenly over time.2
Six Months Later; Numbers For All of 2020
New York’s Columbia University’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, conducted a study to analyze the likely spread of COVID through the end of 2020. Their analysis showed that “one in three Americans already had COVID-19 by the end of 2020.”4 The study also revealed that 1 in 130 American’s were contagious at the end of December 2020 with a similar rate of those infected but not yet contagious.4 The number of cases would continue to climb with that many contagious people in the community, many of whom may not have been aware they were contagious or had the virus.
The Numbers of Natural Immunity Versus Vaccine Induced Immunity
A recent study showed the long-lasting, durable, and robust immunity infection offered a person versus the protection of the vaccine.
Those who hadn’t had a natural infection but had been vaccinated showed a 13-fold increase for a breakthrough compared to those who had been infected and recovered. Rates of symptomatic disease as well as COVID-19 related hospitalizations was also significantly greater than those who had been previously infected.5
The paper concludes:
This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.5
CDC’s Death Count
The CDC uses a model in which COVID-19 is specifically listed as a contributing factor or cause of death to consider the death count number:
Coronavirus disease deaths are identified using the ICD–10 code U07.1. Deaths are coded to U07.1 when coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 are reported as a cause that contributed to death on the death certificate. These can include laboratory confirmed cases, as well as cases without laboratory confirmation. If the certifier suspects COVID-19 or determines it was likely (e.g., the circumstances were compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), they can report COVID-19 as “probable” or “presumed” on the death certificate. COVID-19 is listed as the underlying cause on the death certificate in 92% of deaths.6
The CDC also utilizes a statistical model to consider cases that hadn’t been attributed with any connection to COVID-19 to reach its total COVID-19 related numbers:
CDC uses a statistical model to estimate the number of expected deaths from all causes assuming that there was no circulation of COVID-19 (that is, those deaths expected in the absence of any COVID-19 illnesses). Researchers then use the model to predict the number of all-cause deaths that would have occurred taking into account information on COVID-19 circulation. To obtain the number of unrecognized COVID-19 deaths, the number of expected all-cause deaths (without COVID-19 circulation) are subtracted from the number of predicted all-cause deaths (with COVID-19 circulation). The model is used to calculate estimates by state and age (for six age groups: 0-17, 18-49, 50-64, 65-74, 75-84, and ≥85 years).
Once investigators estimate unrecognized COVID-19 deaths, they add documented COVID-19 deaths to the unrecognized deaths to obtain an estimate of the total number of COVID-19-attributable deaths.7
Hold the Phone — Doc’s Thoughts:
There are a lot of numbers surrounding the SARS-CoV-2 narrative. In fact, so many of those numbers are so big, it’s hard for most people to get their minds around what is actually being reported in the news.
I want people to be able to read through the statistics and get to the bottom of the story. We’ve been told the only way to the ever-elusive herd immunity with ever-changing criteria, is for more people to get vaccinated.
But if over 9 months ago, over 30 percent of the U.S. population had natural immunity, and we continue to see positive cases, how high is that number in reality? The U.S. population is 332.9 million people. According to the WHO’s website, there have been 42,163,561 confirmed cases8 in the U.S. Those are confirmed. That’s not the asymptomatic recovered who also have natural immunity and don’t even know it, like the ones those studies picked up!
That death count number. What we have is a case of data manipulation, not science. Doctors have spoken out about the questionable directions they’ve received in regard to how they are to complete and file death certificates.
“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Benjamin Disraeli
Between using the number dumps, due to delays in reporting resulting in an appearance of a dramatic rise for a single day that may be attributed to several days earlier (think a weekend), and neglecting to recognize natural immunity, it’s easy for them to keep the scary narrative rolling.
Speaking of data manipulation, we could also talk about the 6,000 deaths the CDC deleted from the VAERS database that were legally required to be reported.
Unfortunately, so many of the people who have recovered from COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus are also getting the vaccine due to illegal mandates. They are absolutely wiping out their robust, durable, scientifically relevant immune response for the sake of a vaccine that is neither safe nor effective. In fact, people who recover from an illness rarely get the vaccine offered for that illness after recovery. Think chickenpox! Why are we telling people, in many cases mandating them, to line up without regard to their immune response? That’s a good way to create even worse adverse reactions due to the challenges it creates in the immune response and mixed messages. This is unethical, sloppy science and absolutely destructive to health.
Recently, a law professor at George Mason University filed a lawsuit in regard to the university’s vaccine mandate. Zywicki’s natural immunity proved robust after several positive antibody tests. He won the lawsuit.
Zywicki’s own immunologist, Dr. Hooman Noorchashm, advised him to forego a coronavirus vaccine based on his personal health and immunity status, rendering vaccination medically unnecessary and a violation of medical ethics.9
Your natural, innate immune response knows what to do and how to take care of the challenge when you’ve supported it properly. At The Wellness Way we have doctors who are knowledgeable on how to test your antibodies and immune response. We can help you get a broader picture of where your body stands and how to best support it.
I recently had my tests and my wife’s done to be sure we are making the best healthcare choices we can. Healthcare freedoms are crucial to a free society. How do you know how to make those informed decisions without all of the information? You can’t. Inform yourself, it will help you better care for yourself and your family.
1https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html#whycdcestimates
2https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/scitranslmed.abh3826
3https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT04334954
5https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
6https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/tech_notes.htm
7https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html#whycdcestimates
