It’s been clear that the Pfizer and Moderna covid vaccines cause myocarditis for some time. What hasn’t been clear, though, is whether the risk of myocarditis after vaccination is greater than it is after infection. If the risk after infect…
Covid: the surprising fourth wave
I was surprised, at first, when many heavily vaccinated countries were hit by a new wave of covid-19 at the beginning of autumn. I was surprised, that is, until I started to see studies coming out that showed that the protection offered by the vaccines…
Covid: How long does vaccine based immunity last?
It’s unfortunate that the drug companies decided to end their trials early, by giving active covid vaccine to the members of the placebo group after just a few months. It means that there is no long term follow-up of the covid vaccines from randomized …
A reflection on covid mania
At the beginning of this year I wrote about how the governments of the world had created a collective state of hysteria so intense that the only way they could dig themselves out of the hole they had made was with a magic bullet. That magic bullet was,…
Does covid cause brain damage?
The latest in the long succession of attempts at maximizing people’s fear of covid is the claim that it causes brain damage. And not just in those who have spent time in the ICU, in everyone, even if all they had was a mild cold. The claim is cur…
Can asymptomatic people spread covid-19?
One of the most contentious issues when it comes to covid-19 is whether or not people who are asymptomatic can spread the disease. The reason is that there are major ramifications depending on the answer. If only those with symptoms spread the disease,…
On the epidemiology of influenza
The epidemiology of influenza swarms with incongruities, incongruities exhaustively detailed by the late British epidemiologist, Edgar Hope-Simpson. He was the first to propose a parsimonious theory explaining why influenza is, as Gregg said, “seemingly unmindful of traditional infectious disease behavioral patterns.” Recent discoveries indicate vitamin D upregulates the endogenous antibiotics of innate immunity and suggest that the incongruities explored by Hope-Simpson may be secondary to the epidemiology of vitamin D deficiency. We identify – and attempt to explain – nine influenza conundrums:
1. Why is influenza both seasonal and ubiquitous and where is the virus between epidemics?
2. Why are the epidemics so explosive?
3. Why do they end so abruptly?
4. What explains the frequent coincidental timing of epidemics in countries of similar latitude?
5. Why is the serial interval obscure?
6. Why is the secondary attack rate so low?
7. Why did epidemics in previous ages spread so rapidly, despite the lack of modern transport?
8. Why does experimental inoculation of seronegative humans fail to cause illness in all the volunteers?
9. Why has influenza mortality of the aged not declined as their vaccination rates increased?
We review recent discoveries about vitamin D’s effects on innate immunity, human studies attempting sick-to-well transmission, naturalistic reports of human transmission, studies of serial interval, secondary attack rates, and relevant animal studies. We hypothesize that two factors explain the nine conundrums: vitamin D’s seasonal and population effects on innate immunity, and the presence of a subpopulation of “good infectors.” If true, our revision of Edgar Hope-Simpson’s theory has profound implications for the prevention of influenza.
