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"You're the superspreader!" "No, YOU'RE the superspreader!" Alas, this is what passes for discourse these days, when people are literally now debating who are the biggest superspreaders of the COVID: the vaccinated or the unvaccinated. Technically, both can be, since the vaccines are "leaky", and there are documented examples of both, but it is not clear who is more likely to be.
(Correction: The CDC's now-leaked unpublished data, that they are using to push masks once again, is a lot more nuanced than they miscommunicated, and apparently involves a vaccine in India that is not available in the USA, and also a study of a rather unrepresentative sample in Provincetown, Cape Cod. Thus, while vaccinated people can indeed still spread the virus, they are still signifcantly less likely to do so than if they were not vaccinated, even if only because they are somewhat less likely to become infected in the first place. And truly asymptomatic transmission, while possible, is not the primary way it spreads.)
Either way, this completely misses the point though. The vaccines were never designed to prevent all transmission or all infections, just to make the disease less bad if one happens to contract it while vaccinated. You know, kinda like the flu shot. That alone is enough to largely defang the virus and reduce it to a mere nuisance like seasonal flu and the common cold, provided enough vulnerable people get vaccinated (which they all either a) already have, or b) they chose not to get it). For the young and healthy, not so much. And thus any benefit to the community that results from less transmission of the virus would simply be a bonus, as vaccines are primarily for self-protection. And now that we are seeing that these vaccines may be just as "leaky" as flu vaccines (funny how no one seems to care about the latter), the whole specious argument for vaccine mandates or passports "to protect others" becomes as threadbare and useless as the most poorly constructed cloth mask.
Now, a nasal vaccine might actually produce "sterilizing" immunity enough to prevent virtually all transmission. That is because of the mucosal antibodies and other immunological "dark matter" that they would generate at the usual point of entry and exit for the virus, the lining of the nose and throat. But injections are unlikely to do that, only producing antibodies and T-cells largely in the bloodstream instead. And while important, it is incomplete since it leaves the nose and throat wide open for a time before enough of an immune response is mounted to knock the virus out quickly.
But there are no nasal vaccines available currently, except of course the low-tech one, which is...natural exposure to the wild virus. And the large chunk of the population that has already had the virus and recovered has a very low reinfection rate, much lower than the breakthrough infection rate for vaccinated people. Yes, even for Delta. Thus, we already know who the superspreaders are almost certainly NOT: people who have already had the virus, whether vaccinated or not. Natural immunity for the win!
So having established who the superspreaders are NOT, do we then know who they actually ARE? Well, a study of influenza from 2008 provides some excellent clues. It postulates that Vitamin D not only explains the seasonality of influenza, but also who is most likely to be what we would now call a superspreader, where one person infects dozens of others. And most curiously, that is postulated to occur in a tiny number of people even in the absence of symptoms! That is, Vitamin D deficiency can make one much more likely to spread it, and thus it not only endangers the deficient, but also those around them as well, in a sort of "second-hand malnutrition". This is very likely true for COVID, and also very likely true with other nutrients as well, particularly Vitamin C, thiamine, niacin, zinc, lysine, and selenium. A deficiency in the latter can even make one a "variant factory", since selenium stops viruses from mutating. Fortunately, we can very easily solve this problem even without appealing to (strong) altruism, since the benefits to the individual are at least as great as that to those around them. Good nutrition and supplementation is a win-win-win for all.
Especially since, for the individual, it is painfully obvious now with COVID: not enough D and you die.
Vitamin D also seems to be good at fighting that other pandemic that is raging even more these days: substance abuse, especially opioid addiction. Vitamin D deficiency apparently leads to exaggerated cravings for opioids and probably other substances as well. And the same can apparently be said for Niacin as well, as AA founder Bill W. had discovered it as a potential treatment for alcoholism. With America drowning in the bottom of a bottle thanks in no small part to the long-term after-effects of lockdown, such a rediscovery cannot come soon enough!
And of course, Niacin works wonders for COVID, as Dr. Dmitry Kats had discovered.
So what are we waiting for?
UPDATE: See also here, here, and here for some good articles from The Daily Sceptic about the nuances of herd immunity. And yes, it is very nuanced indeed.
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