COVID

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 1

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Covid update #77 with quick hits on vaccines in young adults, POTS or hypotension following Covid 19 as well as obesity and Sars2. Non covid research looking at the brain.

From Nature Communications: “Parkinson’s disease (PD) may start in the gut and spread to the brain. To investigate the role of gut microbiome, we conducted a large-scale study, at high taxonomic resolution, using uniform standardized methods from start to end… Here we show that over 30% of species, genes and pathways tested have altered abundances in PD, depicting a widespread dysbiosis.”

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 49

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Covid Update #75

All new omicron based variants are extremely infectious but not really dangerous anymore to immunocompetent people. They are evading prior immunity as well as all vaccines to varying degrees. Morbidity remains very low now. The current bivalent vaccines are not showing any improvement over the ancestral vaccine. Death remains almost zero for all healthy previous infected or vaccinated individuals. This is likely the new norm from here on out.

This week we cover covid, vaccine effectiveness, skeletal muscle and dementia, human protein needs and function.

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 47

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Covid Newsletter #74. Why are we seeing massive waves of RSV and Influenza A right now? These viruses normally circulate in the winter only. The answer is nuanced, but likely primarily because of the pandemics social distancing and hygiene activity. During the 2020-2022 cycle of Covid fear and mitigation of viral risk, most of us avoided the normal trappings of viral spread. We masked avoiding the viral droplet portal of entry most commonly used. We kept our children semi isolated from other children where most year to year viral transmission events occur. We practiced enhanced hand washing and sanitizing reducing natural viral spread through contact. In essence we stopped the normal propagation of respiratory virus for 2 years. A whole cycle of children between 0 and 2 years old are RSV and flu immune naive leading to a perfect host pool for spread. The 2 to 18 year olds have had a long pause in exposure reducing circulating virus specific antibodies to negligible levels leading to stronger infections and more spread. Anyone who has a child in college (me) has seen infection after infection pound these students this fall. It seems like they are always dealing with a viral illness. Immunity country wide will return in the coming year to these viral illnesses reverting to the old reality of winter predominance.
Quick Covid Hits and other musings –
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 41

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Coronavirus Update #71 A look at the next pandemic

From a recent article, we see a 10 point series of mitigation measures for a future pandemic based on rational thought: “A more realistic public health approach is to adjust current mitigation goals to be more data-driven and to minimize unintended harms associated with unfocused or ineffective control efforts.”
a) Accelerate vaccinations, b) ease restrictions as fast as possible based on science, c) emphasize education and harm reduction, d) Encourage outdoor activity, e) reopen schools, f) avoid lockdowns, g) deemphasize ineffective mitigation measures, h) reassess testing, i) expand treatment and prophylaxis, j) prepare for future pandemics.
And more…
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 39

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Coronavirus Update #70 GOOD NEWS: This information is so important to help us all understand risk. Stratified risk is the only true way to measure personal risk. Let us look at some CDC data from the spring Omicron BA.1 and .2 spikes versus the fall 2021 delta wave.
Median age of hospitalization has increased from 60 years old with Delta to 64 with BA.1 and 71 with BA.2. Any underlying medical condition associated with hospitalization increased from 89% with Delta to 92% with BA.1 to 95% with BA.2 respectively. Length of hospital stay decreased from 4.8 to 3.9 to 3.3 days. ICU admission was down from 24% to 18% to 13% of admitted patients. Mechanical ventilation decreased from 14% to 8% to 6% of admitted patients. And Finally, death from 12% to 8% to 5% overall.

What we can glean from this data set is very clear. With successive SARS2 mutations coupled to increased population based exposure to virus via infection or vaccine, we are now seriously in a reduced risk state unless you are older than 65 years with a comorbid disease or younger than 65 with a serious disease. 95% of hospitalizations were related to a comorbid disease regardless of age. The other big takeaway was this: if you are in this high risk group, getting every available booster is vital to your survival based on the risk reduction data. For everybody else, the data is clear, you are ok – to boost or not to boost is up to you. But, absolutely work on your general health.

To your health,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 35

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Coronavirus Update #68

At this point the fundamentals completely point to a world of Covid mitigation based on personal risk tolerance and previous vaccination and/or disease. It no longer makes any sense for the entire population to be asked to change the way they live and exist. The messaging remains a struggle for me as people including the heads of major health organizations are pushing for measures beyond what is logical. Messaging continues to be unrealistic regarding Covid for society at large. Why?

We tackle these questions and more this week.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 33

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Coronavirus Update 67

Natural infection provides a much better route to transmission protection than intramuscular systemic vaccination because of the induction of mucosal immunity via IgA and tissue resident T cells. (Tang et. al. 2022) If you can tolerate a natural infection without much morbidity, this seems to be a reasonable choice at this time. This is especially important now with the immune escaping variants of Omicron lineage and the reality of the current vaccine booster pool is lackluster in its effect on transmission. This calculus may change dramatically with a newer Omicron BA.5 specific vaccine that is in the works. And much more this week!

Dr. M

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