December 2021: The Vaccine
On December 23rd, 2021, Fox News viewers were treated to the following image, featuring Dr. Marty Makary, who predicted herd immunity would arrive eight months prior.
(h/t Noah Louis-Ferdinand)
Predictably, this was false.
Though the results were only available as a press release at the time, a randomized-controlled trial of 10,000 people showed that a booster was safe and 95% effective at preventing COVID compared to two doses. This study has since been published, and it doesn’t take a genius to predict a vaccine dose that lowered infection rates would also lessen severe disease. The results from a large observational study were also available at the time. It found:
Vaccine effectiveness evaluated at least 7 days after receipt of the third dose, compared with receiving only two doses at least 5 months ago, was estimated to be 93% (231 events for two doses vs 29 events for three doses; 95% CI 88–97) for admission to hospital, 92% (157 vs 17 events; 82–97) for severe disease, and 81% (44 vs seven events; 59–97) for COVID-19-related death.
Despite this, Dr. Makaray told his viewers were told there was “no scientific data supporting COVID booster shots”. Democrats were mocked and pathologized as “booster addicts”.
December 2021: The Virus
What was Dr. Makary saying about the Omicron variant at this time? He was very confident about this brand new variant. He did not need more “scientific data.” As he did in May 2021, prior to the arrival of the Delta variant, he said there was no reason to fear Omicron.
He called it “omi-cold“. He said:
We’re seeing this massive new wave of fear that is fueling our second pandemic after COVID-19, which is a pandemic of lunacy, which is omicron. Now I call it omi-cold. If you look at the epidemiological data, the epicenter is now way down from omicron. The hospitals had some hospitalizations, not much. They were short. They averaged two and a half days instead of eight days. But a study just came out of the University of Hong Kong telling us that omicron does not invade the lung tissue that’s deep in the respiratory tract. It stays superficial in the nose and bronchus. So that’s why we’re seeing a common cold-like illness. This new scientific data from the lab explains the epidemiological data and the bedside observation of doctors that this is far more mild… and that’s why I call it omi-cold.
Predictably, this was false.
A recent study found the Omicron variant was as dangerous as the original virus, at least for unvaccinated people. It concluded, “Omicron has comparable intrinsic severity to the ancestral Wuhan strain although the effective severity is substantially lower in Omicron cases due to vaccination.” This may be why a news headline from May 2022 said During the Omicron Wave, Death Rates Soared for Older People.
The Omicron variant didn’t just sicken the elderly, it also caused unprecedented illness in children. Because of its contagiousness, hospitalizations for young children were five times higher with Omicron than with Delta. Predictably, unvaccinated children suffered the most. One study found:
Nearly 90% of the 397 children hospitalized during Omicron’s predominance had not gotten COVID-19 shots. Cumulatively, the hospitalization rate was more than two times higher among the unvaccinated. About 30% of the children hospitalized had no underlying conditions, and about 20% required time in the intensive care unit (ICU).
The Omicron variant wasn’t “omi-cold” for them.
He called it “nature’s vaccine“. He said.
We also got another very promising study that answered the open question, ‘does Omicron immunity cross over to Delta?’ and it was found that it gives four times the immunity against Delta. So, it does answer the question – will Omicron displace Delta? – the answer appears to be yes. So for much of the world that will not have access to a vaccine, Omicron will be nature’s vaccine. We can recognize that there is an end in sight to this particular variant as Omicron sweeps across many countries.
Predictably, this was false.
A study of 541 people with two or more infections found the average interval between infections was 229 days. Reinfections were more common with the Omicron variant, and some people were reinfected with “nature’s vaccine” in 45 days.
Different Standards
And that’s how it has been throughout the pandemic. Vocal doctors, sheltered from the consequences of their words, required pristine evidence to praise the vaccine. Meanwhile, they needed no evidence at all to falsely reassure their audience the virus was benign and herd immunity was just around the corner.
817,000 Americans had already died of COVID by December 23, 2021, and 244,000 more would die the next year. Millions more survived, but were injured. These numbers could have been lower if doctors not become defense attorneys for SARS‑CoV‑2 and prosecutors against the vaccine, and instead applied similar standards of evidence to both.