Dr. Marty Makary, a John Hopkins professor & surgeon says that Covid-19 could be gone by April. He published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday that infections have declined since January. While the finding provides some positive sign, it is a stark contrast to views of top health officials in Trump and Biden administrations.
According to Makary, “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume a normal life.”
Herd Immunity
With the US being the highest statistic contributor with more than 28 million, he predicted the formation of herd immunity. It occurs when enough people become immune and thus protecting them from new strains. This will resulting to end of the chain. He noted that new cases decreased in the last month by 77% in his article.
CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky hypothesised that falling rates due to Americans adopting physical distancing measures, Makary insisted on the increase of natural immunity. As the months come, in addition to the newly commenced vaccination programme, more and more people will be immune to the virus.
Opposing opinions
Other officials are not as optimistic. Former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb told CBS that he didn’t think ‘true’ herd immunity will be realised. Covid-19 will still continue to circulate just on lower levels.
“This isn’t going to be like measles or smallpox, which just sort of goes away. COVID is going to continue to circulate at a low level,” he said.
His statement resonated with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s similar ones last year. Fauci is a top expert on infectious diseases. He cited the virus’ ability to transmit from human to human and the wide range of symptoms it can produce, making it difficult to detect at the early stages.
Fauci, and other health experts strongly advised people to continue wear masks for several months even into 2022.
Source: NYPost, The Denver Channel, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ASNN, Forbes,