Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Marty Makary is speaking out about blanket vaccine mandates that are “ruining lives” and bizarrely discount natural immunity, which he said studies have shown to be 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity.
Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and editor in chief of MedPage Today, told “Morning Wire” on Thursday that public health leaders’ hypothesis on natural and vaccinated immunity has proven to be “backwards.”
“The data on natural immunity are now overwhelming,” stressed Makary. “It turns out the hypothesis that our public health leaders had that vaccinated immunity is better and stronger than natural immunity was wrong. They got it backwards. And now we’ve got data from Israel showing that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity. And that supports 15 other studies.”
In August, Makary wrote an op-ed at U.S. News, titled “Why COVID-19 Vaccines Should Not Be Required for All Americans,” in which the professor argued that a more science-based approach to vaccination must be deployed.
Since Makary’s op-ed was published, vaccine mandates have become increasingly commonplace, particularly in deep blue states like New York and California, and federally from President Joe Biden.
The mandate requiring all health care workers in New York to be vaccinated, even if they have natural immunity, has upended the heath care system — some places have had to close down their services entirely, stop providing maternity care, and cap nursing home residents due to employee shortages. In California, parents are raging against Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s vaccine requirement for school children.
“It’s ruining the lives of people who are getting fired,” Makary told “Morning Wire.”
“Nurses, who are heroes, are now getting laid off. Soldiers are getting dishonorably discharged,” said Makary, an apparent reference to an Army announcement last month that soldiers may face possible discharge if not vaccinated within three months. “They’ve got immunity. It’s just not the type that our public health officials have sanctioned,” said Makary.
“This is a failure of government, not a failure of science,” he emphasized.
“But how about some flexibility? How about recognizing natural immunity and allowing those who have circulating antibodies to get credit. That’s how they do it in parts of Europe, and that’s how they do it in Israel,” Makary offered.
The doctor further told “Morning Wire” that the recent decline in COVID cases and hospitalizations is due to immunization from previously having COVID or from the vaccine.
“That decline is really natural immunity kicking in,” he said. “What we’re seeing is that when a very few people in a population are susceptible, that is almost everybody has either had COVID or the vaccine. You do see this rapid decline. It’s basically a part of herd immunity kicking in.”
And those COVID “surges” — Makary thinks we’re done with those, too.
“I think we’re done with the surges. What we may see is bumping cases, seasonally, depending on pockets of the country where there’s low immunity rates,” the doctor explained. “And remember: breakthrough infections are real. They will happen, but they have downgraded COVID from a major public health threat to a mild, common, cold like illness.”
During the “Morning Wire” segment, Makary also stressed that complications from the COVID vaccines are “exceedingly rare.”
“When I talked to doctors nationwide, it’s pretty clear that the vaccine related complications are exceedingly rare and the vaccines we have are safer than any other vaccine we’ve ever had in the past,” he said. “And I think if you if you’re on the fence about getting vaccinated, you want to do it right now, like today, because we are getting to a point where it’s so contagious, it’s ripping through the population pretty quickly.”
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