Summary of the article
If at the end of an article about people who have not yet had a Covid-19 infection it is stated that it is best to get vaccinated, I am strongly reminded of the Roman statement, which was repeatedly repeated “And incidentally I think Carthage should be destroyed.”
Read full article: What Carthage has to do with C-19-v@ccin$
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Like the ancient Romans
During the time of the Punic Wars of the Romans, Cato always said at the end of all his speeches, “And besides, I think that Carthage must be destroyed”. (Courtesy of Wikipedia….). This rhetorical approach is also regularly used today. Marianne Thieme, for example, ended all her speeches in the House of Representatives with “Furthermore, I believe that factory farming should come to an end.”
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately when it comes to the new round of vaccinations, which started on Monday. For example, there was an article by Maarten Keulemans in the Volkskrant yesterday that was about the question of why there are people who have not been infected with Covid-19 once in the past 2.5 years. The headline was “Still no Corona, maybe you are naturally immune?”.
The article described some factors, such as people with blood group O-, who would have a smaller chance of Covid-19 (let me have that blood group now….).
The Dutch researcher Spaan, who is researching it at a University in New York, describes that there are indeed people who, wherever they have been, have not been infected. He made an appeal after his department wrote an article about it a year ago to report if people had not yet had Covid-19. 15,000 people registered at the time. He is now trying to investigate the possible explanations for the fact that they are not infected.
Part of that 15,000 was subsequently infected during Omikron. Researcher Spaan says that people who have not yet contracted Covid-19 have probably been lucky.
And then comes the sentence at the end of the article, which made me think of “Carthage”: “If you want to prevent infection, it is best to simply get vaccinated…….”
So what is the final message of this article. “Even if you have not had Covid-19 after 2.5 years, it is still best to get vaccinated”.
While of course it could also have said “If you haven’t had Covid-19 after 2.5 years, even with the prevalent Omikron variant since the beginning of this year, then the chances are you will get infected and then become seriously ill. very small, so vaccination is unnecessary or even undesirable.”
Virale Doses
What still strikes me with regard to these kinds of studies around being infected by Covid-19 is that people apparently ignore a crucial component in whether or not they are infected. And that’s the viral doses. I wrote about that in detail a year ago. There are almost always virus particles in the air (and certainly in indoor spaces). But that number is usually (very) small. And for the vast majority of people too little to become infected as a result. So too few virus particles enter your body to really multiply to such an extent that you can be considered to be infected with – usually minor – complaints.
The threshold of these viral doses is different for everyone. The determining factor is how many virus particles you need to ingest before the virus multiplies quickly in your body. That depends on a combination of factors. Age, health situation (and I think your vitamin D3 level too) and other factors also mentioned in the article (such as blood type and having certain allergies). Certain hereditary factors may also play a role.
But another factor that I think is at least as important, or even more important, is the degree to which you have been previously exposed to those floating virus particles. Every time you ingest virus particles, after which no infection follows, the threshold for being infected the next time rises. It’s like in the summer you can only sit in the sun for 10 minutes before you burn, but after being in the sun a few times you can stay in it much longer. Except for people with a certain skin type who always need protection.
So I think that is also the reason for the so-called Gompertz curve that we saw in many countries with Covid-19. A very rapid rise, followed by a rapid decline. And that rapid decline is not because the vast majority of the population has actually had the infection. But because a large part of the population has already come into contact with the virus, but has not become infected, so that the limit for becoming infected in those people has been significantly increased.
If you have had Covid-19, you may only get it again if the viral doses are really high and the body “cannot handle it”.
The fact that Omikron has been able to infect so many people is because this mutation, as it were, requires lower viral doses to exceed the viral limit. This is because that mutation can more easily enter cells in the body and perhaps also because more viral particles are released into the air by those infected. But the good news is that – partly because of that? – enters the lungs less deeply than the previous variants and is mainly located at a higher place in the respiratory organs. The nose and throat, and therefore also leads to less serious cases of illness. This can be traced back to the low numbers on the ICs, among other things.
It would also mean that the FFP2 masks, which people like the German minister Lauterbach so often wear, could have a kind of counterproductive effect. It will reduce the number of virus particles you ingest when you wear the mask. But because of that, the viral doses you need to get infected will be lower in you than if you hadn’t worn that mask. And because you don’t have the mouth cap on 24 hours a day, you run the risk of being in a room with quite a few floating virus particles, where the other people present are not infected but you are.
It is therefore mainly a question of ensuring that there are fewer spaces where many virus particles can float around for a longer period of time.
So my “Carthage message” is:
“Incidentally, I believe that the medical and media pay too little attention to viral doses and how to reduce viral doses in indoor spaces.”