Thursday, September 30, 2021

Global - 233,100,000/4,800,000; USA - 43,300,000/694,700 Cases continue to gradually come down as do hospitalizations. Deaths, however, are still increasing as a late indicator and lagging. Just had a great conversation with Shane Crotty of the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. I spoke to Shane because I wanted to find out his perspective on the immunological justification for booster shots to the mRNA vaccines. Shane is a brilliant immunologist and gave me some terrific insights. He feels , similar to Bob Seder, that the antibody levels are very important in preventing initial entry of the virus and seeding of the virus in the upper respiratory tract. The higher levels of antibody the more protection you have. They also taper off reasonably quickly leading to rather quick (months) waning of immunity to infection. However, he points out that B cell memory and particularly CD8 and CD4 positive T cells are absolutely critical in preventing significant disease in the lungs. These are longer duration than serum antibody. This explains why protection against severe disease (lung involvement) seems to last long and wane less than protection against infection (antibody that wanes quickly). The thing he pointed out that is interesting and important is that there is a reasonably longer period of time for people to develop pulmonary involvement and severe disease since the T cells have enough time to protect the lung. When they fail then you get lung involvement and this usually takes some time which explains the unusual finding of why it takes so long from the time a person gets infected to the time they actually wind up in the hospital on a ventilator which is usually about 21 days. This is quite different from other acute viral infections in which the lung is quickly attacked and people wind up in the hospital within a couple of days. In addition, he spoke of the long durability of the T cell memory and B cell memory response indicating that protection against severe disease will actually last for a longer period of time whereas protection against infection tends to veer off pretty quickly. It is right in line with what his pathogenic explanation is as described above. He does feel that giving a third shot boost is a good idea and that it likely will give a much longer protection against both infection and likely would enhance the durability of the protection against severe disease in the lungs. We also discussed the situation of why in late disease you have an aberrant inflammatory and immunological response. He believes it's a combination of innate immunity mediated predominantly by monocytes and polys together with robust T cell activity attempting to control virus which has made its way from the upper airway to the lung. Sometimes this attempt to control the virus leads to so many inflammatory mediators combining innate with adaptive immune responses that the effects is a profound pathogenic response that may or may not be suppressed by anti-inflammatories and immune suppressors. A group of non USA scientists and others Whom I have never heard of Are trying to get rid of Peter Daszak at ecohealth . See PDF of letter immediately below : Letter to Nancye Green.pdf I do not know who these people are but something strange is going on here. I met with Leslie Dach at my home this evening to discuss the situation of attacks upon me by far-right elements. I gave to Leslie some reprints of papers that strongly favor the natural origin of COVID. We discussed strategies of how to stay ahead of this insidious campaign to discredit me. We feel that the best approach would be to lay low and not give it any more legs than it has. In addition, Leslie spoke to me about how pleased he was about how I have mentored Rochelle Walensky. He also expressed concern about her lack of leadership capabilities and her total dependence upon professionals at CDC who Leslie feels are antiquated in their thinking and in many respects are often incorrect. He referred to the experience he had with them when he was special advisor to Sylvia Burwell when Sylvia was Secretary of HHS. Leslie understandably has very little respect for the CDC and in fact wants me to help to get Rochelle to start thinking for herself instead of depending so heavily upon her CDC team. Leslie also expressed some concern about the lack of involvement of Secretary Becerra in the entire COVID effort. PRESS: Interview with Fast Company magazine