With Natural Immunity, Herd Immunity May Be Here Quicker Than We Think

more than we think. Dr Marty McCarry, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of The Price We Pay, What Broke American Healthcare and How to Fix It, joins us for why herd immunity is not so far off. Dr McCarey, thank you very much for joining us. Great to be with you. I wanted to talk about some good news when it comes to coronavirus in the pandemic,

something you might not have heard. We keep talking about vaccination rates and how some people don't want to get the vaccines anymore, and how we might not hit that magic number for her immunity. You know, seventy of the population being vaccinated. But when we take our current vaccination rates and you factor in the natural immunity that a lot of people have who have already been infected with COVID, we might be a lot closer to that number that people think. So Dr McCarry tell us a little bit

more about this. Well, one of the big failures of our medical leadership has been ignoring natural immunity from prior infection, and those are people who had the infection and their body belt an immune response similar to that of a vaccine. And so when you've got almost half the population are so roughly based on the California data, that has natural immunity, and there's lots of other data that suggests it's a lot of Americans, it's probably half, and it's probably half

of the unvaccinated Americans today, that changes the calculus. It changes everything, because now getting to immunity is something where we're already there. We've already got Look, we've got sixty four percent of adults vaccinated and of the remaining thirty six per scent, about half have natural immunity. So that means eight to eight seven of adults in America today

are walking around with community. That makes a big difference. Yeah, and there's been studies done anybody screenings that have been done that show that there's a lot of a lot more cases, probably than confirmed cases that we know of, So that boosts that number up of those people that have the natural immunity. And for a long time, the discussion was we don't know how long immunity lasts, whether

you're vaccinated or whether you've had COVID previously. But we're starting to get some of that data in now and we see that that natural immunity does last for quite some time. It seems like it's powerful. And as a matter of fact, the data that have come out in the last few weeks from the Cleveland Clinic and Washington University are showing that natural immunity is durable. We've had it around, by the way, longer than we've had vaccines, so we have more follow up data on natural immunity

than vaccinated immunity. And guess what. So far, natural immunity is strong, durable, and many scientists believe it's long lasting and it may be lifelong. Public health officials keep saying, you know, everybody should get vaccinated, even those that have previously had it. How does this factor into that. I mean, should those that have previously fallen ill with it still get vaccinated? I don't think so. I mean public health officials are basically just making stuff up as they go.

They don't know about the power of natural immunity, so they just say, you know what, if you've had the infection, I don't know, just get the vaccine. Anyway, the data are out now, they're very compelling. We've had this for a while and we're trying to make a solid case that if we follow the science, the science would tell us there's no benefit to the vaccine after you have natural immunity. And and and just remember I'm not just

talking about you tested positive. I'm talking about you had symptoms, you were sick, and you tested positive. If you know you've had COVID. The data from Cleveland Clinic shows no added benefit of the vaccine. Yeah, you even said in some cases, maybe people could benefit from one shot, because we already know that it starts boosting up those anybody. So at the very least, if you wanted to, you

can maybe just do one or something that's right. And that's what I've been recommending to people because they say, well, should I just get it anyway? Is there any downside? And the reality is no, not really, And you can almost think of your COVID infection in the past as a first dose, right exactly. Variants those are always pop up in conversations like this, things that can evade the immunity that it's given to you because of the vaccines

all that. How should we proceed thinking about those? Well, we've had hundreds of variants and none have evaded the protective effect of vaccines in saving someone's life or preventing serious critical illness, So that says a lot. Now. I am very mindful of what we're seeing overseas because in England there's been a little bumping cases and I expect there to be some rolling increases over the summer in

the fall. But we're not going to see spikes. We're gonna see maybe the delta variant, which is more contagious, kind of move quickly through the younger populations that are still unvaccinated, and it's something to be aware of and

not be surprised by, right exactly. Doctor, I don't want to ask you because you are a surgeon and you deal with transplant patients as well, and we had been hearing that in some studies some transplant patients, people who are immuno compromised aren't getting the full benefits of the vaccine. Have you have you found that to be true, and people who are immuno compromised, they may want to get their unibody level checked since it's not high enough, go

ahead and get a third dose in some cases. And that's just the byproduct of the drugs that they're taking to prevent their bodies from rejecting those organs. That's right. Their bodies are not mounting a strong immune response because their immune systems may be suppressed. So those are things now where we're having conversations with lots of doctors nationwide to say, go ahead and get your third dose if you've had an organ transplant or even though suppressed and

you don't see any antibodies after the after your second toasts. So, I mean, this is some of the good news that you know, really don't hear about too much. You know, factoring in that natural immunity is very important. And a lot of places are opening up, you know, California specifically where I live, is opening up next week. I mean, that's good news, so so we're getting there, which is very important. So thank you on all that front and

kind of helping us with all that. Dr. Before we go, I did want to mention your book The Price We Pay, What broke American healthcare and how to fix it. It's a look into what's going wrong with the health care system right now. Tell us a little bit about it. You know, we need to treat more diabetes with cooking classes instead of just throwing insulin at people. And we need to treat more back pain with ice and physical

therapy than just surgery and opioids. This is the movement that we are watching right now in the United States, and it's good and it's exciting, and it's finally addressing over treatment, over medicating, and price gouging on the financial side. These are things that we cannot dress through increased awareness and promoting the types of clinics that advanced this kind of stuff. And people can vote with their choices in terms of where they go for their health care. And

it's a very good movement right now. And that's what I profile in this new paperback book. Dr Marty McCarry, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Carry Business School. Thank you very much for joining us. You're great to be with you. Thanks for having me. I'm aspar Promiris and this has been reopening America. Don't forget to days big news stories. You can check me out in the Daily Dive podcast

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