Glossary

• Virus– a type of germ that consists solely of a bit of genetic material (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a protein coat.  The coat gets the genes into the target cell where the genes force the cell to make zillions of new viruses, and on it goes.
• Variant- also known as a mutation, a variant strain of a virus is the same species of virus but with a change in the genetic code.  The change is minor if it has no impact on contagious the new variant is, or how deadly it is, or if it allows the virus to neutralize our vaccines. Variants that substantially increase harm are now listed by Greek letters, the most troublesome one now is Delta.

• Coronavirus– a species name of a number of different viruses.  Called corona because its protein coat is studded with spike shapes that form a crown, halo, or corona of spikes
• SARS-CoV-2– the specific name of the new coronavirus
• COVID-19-the name of the illness that the new coronavirus is causing
• Endemic– an illness always present in a region.  One could say strep throat is endemic in the US
• Epidemic– a sudden burst of an illness that comes and goes over a limited time
• Pandemic– an epidemic that bursts across the world not just one region
• Spreadability– how contagious is the disease, how many people will end up infected
• Symptoms- the experience of being ill, for example- fever, cough, headaches, loss of smell etc.
• Asymptomatic– literally means “without symptoms”.  For COVID-19 it refers a person infected with the virus but has no and will have not symptoms
• Presymptomatic– This is a person who was infected with SARS-CoV-2, and will feel sick, but hasn’t yet
• Severity– what harm does the disease cause, in terms of  how sick you get and how many it will kill
• Mask- a mask is a loose-fitting cloth or textile that covers the mouth and nose loosely.  A surgical mask is a mask used in surgery
• Respirator-  for the purposes of the COVID-19 pandemic and other respiratory illnesses, a respirator is a mask that fits very snugly or tightly to the user’s face.  An N95 mask is a respirator.
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)- PPE are any item that covers any part of the body with the design and intent of keeping viruses in the environment from infecting the wearer of the PPE. PPE’s include all masks (which includes respirators), face shields, eye shields, gloves, gowns.
• Ventilator- a ventilator is a machine that can force a person unable to breathe to inhale and exhale and control both effectively.  They are sometimes called respirators, but during this pandemic the word respirator is now reserved for reference to a tightly fit mask.
• Live Virus Swab– this is the swab which attempts to swipe live virus from one’s nose or throat to see if you are currently infected.
• Antibody Test- (aka serology test) this is the blood test which looks for antibody to the SARS-CoV-2 virus to see if you have been infected in the past.
• Vaccine Terms
• Vaccine or Immunization– a dose of a substance that activates your immune system, as if you have the actual infection you are hoping to prevent, leaving you in fact protected from having that infection.
• Efficacy– the percentage of people immunized with a particular vaccine who will not get infected if exposed to the target infection.  For example, a COVID-19 vaccine will be said to be 95% effective if 95% of people immunized with that particular COVID-19 vaccine will not get COVID-19 if exposed to COVID-19
• mRNA– DNA works by dictating exactly which proteins your cell will make.  The message on how to construct each protein is delivered to the cell machinery that makes proteins by a piece of genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA
• mRNA vaccine– an mRNA vaccine places a small bit of mRNA code that makes your cells make a protein that is the protein from a virus that alerts your immune system and activates it to make protections against you being infected
• Viral vector vaccine– a viral vector vaccine takes a harmless virus that is known to infect people reliably and places that weakened virus in a person where that virus will in fact infect the person.  The virus is not only weakened, but also attached to a set of genes  that makes your cells make a protein that is the protein from a virus that alerts your immune system and activates it to make protections against you being infected.

Enough People Choose Not to Get Vaccinated to Cause COVID to Burn Again

A great debate has burned for many years about vaccines.   Many of us believe the world would be better with vaccines.  But many have been convinced the world would be better without them.

Now a deadly pandemic that has killed over 600,000 of us has settled the argument for all time.

June and July of 2021 in America will forever show us the difference between these two worlds.

June of 2021

In June of this year, the United States had adopted COVID vaccine to a level to halt the spread of the COVID virus.  We reached about 48% vaccination, and for the type of COVID viruses around at the time, it was enough.

What does a well-immunized world look like?  I think everyone would agree, it’s a good world.  Cases of COVID plummeting.  So few people getting so sick they need to be hospitalized.  Deaths from COVID nearly disappearing.   And with COVID going away, guess what comes back?  Normal life.  Not only could we travel, see family, have fun, take our masks off, but we could live our lives without the terror of spreading a germ that could kill those we love.

The world of the fully vaccinated is a world released from the death that the vaccine-preventable diseases promise.  It is a world of life, not fear.

July of 2021

In July of this year, a shift in the COVID virus led to a shift in our level of protection. Suddenly the Delta variant appeared, and since it is so much more contagious, our 48% vaccination rate suddenly began to be insufficient, especially in parts of the nation where that rate was lower.

In one of the most cruel demonstrations of a simple fact- you are better off vaccinated- COVID has now exploded amongst those embracing the anti-vax movement.

The dream of a vaccine-free world is in florid display across the United States right now.

Consider what that world looks like:

• COVID-19 is surging in communities where the anti-vax message has been most embraced.
• As a result people embracing the anti-vax movement are sustaining staggering rises in COVID spreading.
• And with the embrace of the anti-vax vision comes Death.
• Right now in America, about the only way to seek Death from COVID is to decide not to get vaccinated.  How effective is this embrace?  7% of all deaths from COVID in the United States are in the unimmunized.

We should all take a somber moment to think on that.   This means essentially all death from this Pandemic would cease if those who embraced the anti-vax line would drop this movement, get vaccinated, choose life.

We Now Know

June and July of 2021 tried on two worlds in the United States.

We lived a month during which enough people were vaccinated against COVID, and Death from COVID nearly ended.

And then we lived a month during which the anti-vax dream came true, we achieved not being vaccinated enough, and Death from COVID accepted that invitation.

The verdict is in, being vaccinated is better than not being vaccinated, it really is a matter of life and death.

Gasps of Regret Begin to Cry Out After It Is Too Late

The triumph of the anti-vax vision was perhaps most boldly presented to us with the heart-breaking series of people who trusted the anti-vax leaders, decided not to get a COVID vaccine, and ended up knowing their lives could or would soon end because of their decision.

Every day in July of 2021, the month the anti-vax vision came true, we were saddened to see people, young people, getting COVID, getting hospitalized, being placed on ventilators, begging their doctor for the COVID vaccine, being told it was too late.  We saw survivors of this crushing tragedy go on TV to beg everyone to wake up.  We saw them gasping heart-felt pleas of regret, letting everyone know their embrace of the anti-vax movement was one of the worst decisions of their lives.

We saw the unimmunized begging everyone they love to leave the ranks of the unimmunized, to go out and get the COVID vaccine, and do it now.

Delta is here, the choice is clear.

The Fortunes Made by Those Leading the Anti-Vax Campaign Revealed

A crucial report has now made clear what many have long known.

The anti-vax movement is not a spontaneous social movement, it is led by people who have made it their business to craft this movement, to publish lies to fool people, and to do this for stunning amounts of money.  https://nyti.ms/3rv5mWt

We in America are plunged into the suffering of July largely at the hands of 12 people, who are responsible for nearly 65% of all the posting of the anti-vax message.  These 12 people have done an extraordinary job.   They halted a great nation’s race to save all our lives with a simple step.   The US was surging to adequate vaccination against COVID, leading the world, and then the message of these 12 people took hold, and we stayed stuck at 49% immunized for a month.

That halt in immunization and the emergence of the Delta variant which took the opportunity these 12 leaders of the anti-vax movement offered it, led to our current, devastating July.

The Doctor of Who Makes Money on Misleading

This report shares with us the name of the one person who is now identified as the “chief spreader of coronavirus misinformation online”

It really upsets me to find out the leader of this march to Death, is a doctor.  His name is Joseph Mercola, and he is rich fooling us.

Not by this report, but by his own affadavit some years ago, we now know that this man has made a fortune misleading people, at least $100 million.

It’s a terrible thing to fool people about their health, it’s a terrible thing for a doctor to do this, it is quite the spectacle to see all this done to get rich.  Not a new story, people have done all sorts of things to get rich.  But in this moment, as COVID returns, we again need to take a moment to see the true face of the leaders of the anti-vax movement, and how money, not your well-being, plays a part in their efforts.

The report names three of the 12 leading voices of misinformation on COVID vaccines, they are:

• Joseph Mercola
• Erin Elizabeth- the doctor’s girlfriend
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

How Many Lives Can this Business about Whipping up Vaccine Panic Cost You and I?

Right now, the United States has lost over 608,000 lives to COVID-19.  Is there any doubt this virus can kill you?

Right now, 99.7% of all Americans dying of COVID are unvaccinated.  People who get vaccinated for COVID are far, far, far less likely to die of COVID.  Is there any doubt that the COVID-19 vaccines can save lives?

Right now, 3.86 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been given, in over 200 locations around the world.  Is there any doubt these vaccines have been tried on lots of people?  It is simply no longer untested, 3.86 billion doses given, look around, see what that has done, it has saved lives.

Yes there are side effects, but if we stopped COVID-19 vaccines, a lot of people would be dead for no good reason at all.  Think about the rate of death before COVID-19 vaccines- it was skyrocketing.  Think about that rate of death once the vaccines got to about 50% of our nation- the number of deaths plummeted.  Until a new variant appeared that needs over 50% of a nation immunized to stop spreading.  But again, if we hit that number, COVID will cease once again.

Here are the numbers.   It tooks just 36 days for 100,000 of us to die from COVID from January 15 to February 20, when our national rate of total people immunized for COVID went from about 1.9% to about 6.5%.

Once we got immunizations going, it took longer for the next 100,000 of our fellow Americans to die from COVID, instead of 36 days, it took 491 days.

And during those 491 days, enough people were not fooled by these COVID Merchants of Death that American vaccination rates climbed from about 6.5% to about 48%.

But Mercola, his girlfriend, the Kennedy heir, and 9 other people, have had their anti-vax business succeed enough to stop America from reaching a truly safe level of vaccination.  The vaccination about 48% across the US on June 26, has only goe to 49% a month later.

We will never know how many lives their lies will cost us all, but the trends should make us all question how the leaders of the anti-vax misinformation business make money.

Say they had their way all the way back in January, and they held us at immunization rates somewhere around 2%.  We were losing 100,000 lives every 36 days then.

It’s been 193 days from January 15, the last time we were on track to experience 100,000 deaths from COVID in 36 days.  So the time from January 15 to now has been over 5 of these 36 day periods.  Now who knows if the death rate would have stayed the same?  But since the Pandemic began, every single time people began to gather indoors in large numbers without masks, we saw big spikes in cases and deaths.  The ONLY time we have gathered indoors with no precautions indoors without a spike in death was after use of the vaccine!

So, if they had their way, and we didn’t get vaccinated, and our nation remained at 1.9% immunized, and did this gathering with no precautions as we all are now, and did this for 5 more 36 day periods, then hundreds of thousands of us alive today would be dead today.

No one really knows that exact number, but there is no doubt in my mind that without these vaccines, a rather staggering number of people alive today would be dead from COVID, no doubt.

A Glaring Reality Calls Out to All Who Want to Protect Our Children to Get Vaccinated

We end this special edition of Real Answers’ COVID Update with a plea.

The harsh reality is that 49% immunized is not enough vaccination to stop the Delta variant.  We need to reach higher.  And when we do, the dying from COVID will stop once again.

But there is one group of unimmunized people in the world, and here at home, that has not choice.  They do not participate in the lucrative games of the anti-vax leadership.  The vaccine for COVID is not yet available to our children, to all babies, infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and grade school children.

If our nation remains underimmunized, the Delta COVID virus will spread, and it will kill, and it will hurt our children.

We are seeing this deadly drama play out right in front of our eyes.  Look at our nation today.

Fortunately in Ohio, we are immunized enough to keep our numbers low, we have about 5 cases of COVID for every 100,000 Ohioans.  But 3 states have enough people who believe what Joe Mercola is selling, and immunization rates are far enough below 50% to allow COVID to rage.  They are Texas where the rate of new COVID cases each day is up to 18 (per 100k), Missouri where that number is 39, and Florida where the number has exploded to 48.  These three states now account for 40% of all new COVID cases in America.

So once again we know, choose to not vaccinate against COVID, and the door to COVID and the death it brings will surely follow.  If our community embraces the gift of COVID vaccine at high enough levels, that door slams shut, and the virus will not spread.

All our children are watching, hoping, waiting to see.  Will their families protect them?  Will their families reject the money-driven swindles that folks like Mercola, Elizabeth, and Kennedy, are peddling to protect their children’s lives?   We have seen communities choose the swindle and seen ICUs begin to admit young children with COVID.

We truly urge everyone to drop the swindle, to open eyes about what the leaders of anti-vax information are really about, to see the devastation and death that come from the embrace of their lies, and to do so right now.

Bottom Line:

The anti-vax swindle has cost too many lives already, let us drop the scam, get vaccinated, save our lives and the lives of our children now.

To All Our Health,
Dr. Arthur Lavin