I needed some kind of clickbait to get people to read my post, other than the dreary Covid updates.
I am fortunate enough to be able to, not only to still ski with my dad, but to do so in some pretty spectacular places. For those who do not know him, you may be surprised to hear that he is 85, and can still hang with the boys on some of the best ski terrain around. Every year, he and his tennis buddies have a big trip somewhere out West. As an FYI, he is an avid, nationally ranked singles and doubles tennis player in Canada, and most of his tennis ski buddies are in their 60s! He plays multiple times a week, a few hours at a time. He has always eaten well, has been active, very social, and has a wonderful marriage of over 55 years with my mom who is also in amazing shape. He is a great example of how to live a “Blue Zone” lifestyle. He also makes a killer Manhattan, as many of my friends and family can attest to.
He also recently had Covid (he gave me permission to write about this), but thanks to his good health and up-to-date vaccine status, it was barely a blip in his well being. More of a nuisance than anything. As an FYI, he had mild symptoms (a mild cough and runny nose initially, never with a fever) and a negative Covid test performed by me, so it was a good one. His cough worsened the next day and I re-tested him twice with almost immediately positive results. He continued to test positive for days after.
The moral of the story is: test and retest since false negatives are common, especially early in infection, stay, or get healthy and get vaccinated!
It all circles back to Covid! That’s because it continues to be on the rise.
Wastewater data continues to show increasing SARS-Cov-2 viral load, still being highest in the Midwest and South, indicating that there is a lot of virus out there. The newest variant, JN-1, now accounts for 61% of tested cases, up from 30% 2 weeks ago. It is the most infectious variant thus far, but as yet has not caused as dramatic a rise in illness, hospitalization and death as previous variants. It also has a unique property of affecting the GI tract more causing a lot of diarrhea, possibly accounting for increased waste shedding and rising wastewater numbers.
Hospitalizations and deaths ARE on the rise, with 1600 people dying a week now, up from 1300, 2 weeks ago. After 8 consecutive weeks of rising admissions, the week of December 30 saw 35,000 Covid related hospital admissions in the US.
Most deaths are in the over 65 age category. Deaths under 35 do occur but are much less common, about 30x less common than in the over 80 age group.
The adult vaccination/boosting rate remains under 20% despite its well established lowering of severity of disease and hospitalization as well as continued safety record, despite what that idiot surgeon general in Florida announced! More on that below.
Nursing home residents, the most vulnerable, remain vaccinated at only a 30% rate and their caretakers remain only vaccinated or boosted in single digits, an embarrassment for our society.
On the world stage, there are surges everywhere. Canada has had significant rises in cases. In Italy, there are over 1100 severely ill Covid patients awaiting admission into overcrowded hospitals. In the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summertime, they are also having significant surges with some countries reporting the highest Covid hospital admission rates than at any time during the entire pandemic. This is not a seasonal disease like the flu or RSV.
PAXLOVID. It’s being underused. This is the antiviral which has been shown to be very effective at shortening the duration of Covid illness as well as reducing its severity. BUT, you need to take it within 5 days of infection, which means YOU NEED TO TEST EARLY. Its side effect profile is minimal. There are some drug interactions, but just simply stopping the other drug, like statins for example, for a few days is all you need to do. It’s not just for older and immune compromised people.
As far as rebound is concerned, this is a NON issue, occurring just as frequently with Paxlovid as without it (and it is not that common to begin with).
RSV infections seem to have peaked and are on the decline but the FLU is on the rise. Not any more significantly than typical years past, but it is on the rise. The number of states reporting high levels of activity doubled in the last 2 weeks. GET VACCINATED. It is still not too late. The flu season can last well into the spring and you are maximally protected within 10 days of vaccination.
Now, on to Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ledapo. He made a public announcement last week urging Floridians not to get the Covid vaccine citing that DNA fragments contaminating the vaccines were incorporating into our human DNA, which will certainly cause health problems such as chromosomal instability and mutations. This is utter NONSENSE and is fabricated misinformation. There is no scientific evidence that this is occurring or that there is any risk. It is not surprising that he would make such a crazy claim since he was put in his post by Governor Ron Desantis, himself a Covid denier and antivaxer. Now, Dr. Ledapo is a pretty smart guy, having received his MD and PhD from Harvard, but in this case, he is a smart nut. And his comments are unethical and will sadly result in people dying. After all, his state has the second highest number of people over 65, the most at risk. California has the most people over 65, but they seem to be less nutty when it comes to Covid messaging. There are calls for Ledapo to have his license stripped for this clear public health malpractice.
Although there are miniscule amounts of fragments of viral DNA in mRNA vaccines, the amounts measure at trillionths of a gram, and certainly no more than in any other vaccine, regardless of the type. And there is no evidence that it incorporates into our own DNA. It would have to first survive destruction in our serum, and then bypass defense mechanisms preventing its passing through cell membranes and then figure out how to get into the nucleus of a cell, where the DNA is located and then finally, hijack our genetic machinery to incorporate itself into our DNA, where it is overwhelmingly likely to do nothing anyway.
We inhale and consume foreign DNA all the time. Ledapos’ comments are like saying that eating a potato, which has DNA, will result in potato DNA incorporating into our DNA making us Human-Potato mutants! Although one could argue that most Americans are such mutants already given our overweight and obesity crisis. Just because you are book smart, does not mean you are intelligent. I love my Tesla, and Elon Musk is a genius, but he is also a nut!
Living with Covid. Covid is not likely to evolve into what we experienced in 2020-2021, but it is here to stay. We need to learn to live with it and a major part of that coexistence is to do everything you can to protect yourself from it. Although complications and death are rare, as I have said many times over the last few years, a small percentage of a big number is still a big number. 1600 deaths a week. That’s 83,000 a year. Family, friends, children, parents… gone to early. It’s sad.
Each of the major 9 Covid spikes involved an even more infectious variant. JN-1 is the most infectious of them all. The more it mutates, the more potential there is to develop another really bad variant, combining infectiousness, immune evasion and severe disease.
Although heart cardiovascular disease is still the #1 killer today. We have known for decades that simple lifestyle measures can reduce the risks dramatically, but most people are unwilling to change. A large group of heart patients were flat out told they were going to have a heart attack soon if they did not improve their diet and lifestyle. Only15% of them followed the cardiologist’s advice. The rest would not change and just wanted more medications.
With Covid, people may not want to change their lives by proper masking, distancing and staying home if they are sick, but they can at least get vaccinated. One simple shot twice a year. People take a slew of meds and supplements daily for God’s sake (I have a completely separate sheet in my office for patients to list their meds and supplements and the vast majority of the time, they don’t know why they are taking them!!). They could at least add the minimal inconvenience of getting a vaccine once every 6 months to protect themselves and those around them.
Have a great weekend.
Hug your family and friends.
I hope not to freeze to death in The Great White North! It was minus 35 today in Alberta!,
Stay safe and be well.
AC
