Dr. Marty Makary Answers All Our Covid Questions

CLAY: We’re joined now by Dr. Marty Makary who is at Johns Hopkins University. He has been with us quite a bit. He is a professor there. He is the author of “The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care.” It’s been out a few months now. Dr. Makary, I appreciate you joining us. I want to dive in news of the day. Bill de Blasio, New York City, mandating vaccines for 5 to 11 years old effectively enabled to go do anything in the city, to go to a museum, go see Santa Claus, go to a McDonald’s. Does this make any sense at all, based on your knowledge of the data surrounding covid at this point in time?

DR. MAKARY: Well, I think it’s gonna result in unintended harm because when you vaccinate somebody who already has natural immunity, you expose them to the risk of myocarditis and other complications. And those are very rare, but in young men and boys it’s one in 7,000 kids so it’s tragic. Look, we want to ever vaccination, but when you do these ridged mandates everybody freezes in their thoughts and nobody is gonna be more likely to get it because they are forced to.

CLAY: My kids… Both my wife and I have had covid. We recovered from it we believe our kids have as well although we haven’t gotten them officially antibody tested. If you know your kids have had covid and they’re young in that 5 to 11 range, would you be advising people to get their kids vaccinated? I think the answer is no, but I just want to ask you specifically on it.

DR. MAKARY: Well, the science is actually pretty clear on this ’cause if you look at the Pfizer vaccine trial, they say that nobody who had the information in the past tested positive in the study, and there’s no scientific evidence to support vaccinating people who are already immune. And that kind of indiscriminate vaccination policy just comes from this attempt to have streamlined messaging from the public health officials. It’s good for their marketing departments, makes their job easy. It’s just not medically precise.

BUCK: Dr. Makary, it’s Buck. Getting over a cold, not covid, thankfully, but I already had covid. So did Clay. I have a test proving that I had covid. And now I’m being told in New York City — starting in a couple of weeks — that one shot is not enough. We need boosters in New York to go to our jobs. It’s not even for public accommodations anymore. De Blasio announced a private sector mandate for all businesses.

I just want to know, we also have CDC director Walensky saying the disease is now endemic. So why aren’t they just being straight with the public that, given these realities, we are now expected to have a… There will be, essentially, a covid apparatus like this for years to come, perhaps for decades to come. If this disease continues to flow and we need to get continuous boosters to top us off or whatever they call it, why do we think this ever goes away?

DR. MAKARY: Well, there’s the absolute worst of medical paternalism that’s coming out right now with no evidence to support boosters in young people. They’re making these blanket remissions using the Omicron fear to push bursts. Now, the irony is a young person doesn’t even need to get vaccinated if they have natural immunity — and now you’re telling me not only do they need two shots, they need a booster. Look, I believe mammograms save lives for women over age 50.

That doesn’t mean I recommend mammograms for men and women and children. So we have this indiscriminate booster mentality that flies in the face of what the experts voted on just two months ago. Remember the FDA experts voted down boosters for everybody by a 16-2 vote. So then the FDA decided, “We’re gonna make another run at this and push it again internally and we’re not gonna convene our experts. We’ll circumvent them,” and that’s where we get this boosters-for-all recommendation.

BUCK: It’s madness.

CLAY: It is crazy. Dr. Makary, I appreciate you joining us. Again, Johns Hopkins. Encourage you to check out his book as well. What do we know? What is the latest on Omicron? I know everybody out there has been terrified, the media has done its best to convince everyone that it is an existential threat to all of us. What is the latest data that you’ve been able to see, Dr. Makary, and how would you suggest people adjust their behavior, if at all, based on its arrival in the United States?

DR. MAKARY: I’m not concerned about omicron. I’m a little hopeful that it’s less dangerous. If it is more contagious and less dangerous, it’s actually good for the world given the alternative of Delta. So I don’t think we should do anything different because of Omicron. Now, it is important to note that early data is suggesting two findings. One is that there’s no severe cases so far, so it may be more the mild.

And the other data point is that you may be more likely to get a breakthrough infections with Omicron than with prior variants, but those are mild common cold-like illnesses. Maybe two and of times more likely that happen that is a breakthrough infection with Omicron than prior strains. Remember an un-boosted adult in the United States has an extremely low risk of hospitalization.

If you’re immune, your risk of hospitalization is one in 26,000, and the average age of that person is age 73. Everybody’s got a different risk tolerance. We need to respect people who say, “I’m okay getting a mild common cold; I’m okay living with that statistic.”

BUCK: Dr. Makary of Johns Hopkins University medical school folks, and also he’s an author. Check out his latest book. Dr. Makary, on the transmissibility point, because this was used as the justification initially… I mean, they keep moving — the constant moving — of the goalposts from the people I call Fauciites is dizzying, right? I mean, everything changes every three months. You know, what do we have to do, how do we have to do it, how long does it go?

But on transmissibility specifically, they told us that if you get the shot, you won’t get it, you won’t be spread it. We know that’s not true. We know that there are plenty of breakthrough infections. Do we have some sent of how the numbers stack up with that? Meaning they were telling us, “Oh, well, you’re so, so unlikely to get it and spread it” in July and August “if you’re vaccinated,” but now they’re telling us all to get boosters. Clearly they’re doing that for a reason. How can we kind of gauge the risk of spread from the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated?

DR. MAKARY: So, first of all, I do recommend a booster for someone over 65 that’s not had covid and is vulnerable. It does slightly reduce an already very low risk of hospitalization.

BUCK: Clay… Just so you know, Doc, Clay’s parents and parents are vaxxed and boostered, and they’re over 65.

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: So we are solidly on that message. But go ahead.

DR. MAKARY: I’m glad. Now, in terms of transmissibility your peak viral shedding — and this just came out in Lancet a few weeks ago — is the same in a vaccinated and unvaccinated person. So what we are seeing is vaccines are doing their job, downgrading the infection to a milder asymptomatic case. That’s why you’re seeing case numbers continue to circulate and go up in the north where it’s the viral season.

These are mild, common cold-like illnesses. With the exception of it small segment of the U.S. — a very precise 10 to 20 million who are adults with no vaccine, no natural immunity, and they have a risk factor. Those are the people getting into trouble and still showing up and getting very sick. That’s a whole different ballpark. That’s a different group. We can’t have society go on hold because they have chosen to make a decision not to get vaccinated, a decision I would not advise for them.

But we have got the entire world economy on hold because of Omicron. We have four, high-level virus labs called BSL4 labs in the U.S. We spend a lot of money on these labs for so-called — in case we need ’em for bioterrorism. They could do the experiment overnight to tell us how well vaccines work against Omicron instead of this 10-day delay, telling the public, “We’re on top of it, we’re on this, we’ve got it taken care of, we’re in close communication.” Just do the experiment. It takes six hours. You could do it in the lab and answer all this uncertainty that’s circulating.

CLAY: Well, I want to go back to one thing you said a moment ago, to Buck, I believe, to one of his questions. When you said there was a one-in-26,000 chance in the average age was 73, that’s if someone has gotten the covid vaccine or if they’ve recovered from covid, right? So for natural immunity or vaccinated immunity, you’re talking about a one-in-26,000 chance of hospitalization with the average age of 73 going forward?

DR. MAKARY: That’s right, and that’s just from vaccination. If you have natural immunity, it’s probably even lower. But using other data from natural immunity. But that’s pretty darn low –, and that’s right from the CDC’s website of the weekly risk of hospitalization during the peak of Delta was one in 26,000 Americans who are fully vaccinated.

I’m okay with that risk, personally, and if we find out who that one person is — the only state who tells us is North Dakota — the average age was 73. It probably also has special medical circumstances. What does that tell you? You can feel good about your immunity right now in the United States, if you’re fully vaccinated or have natural immunity.

BUCK: Can I just ask you, Doc, before we let you go — we’re speaking to Dr. Marty Makary — what de Blasio is saying, which is mandatory shods for kids 5 to 11 and mandatory boosters already for the vaccinated even, you know, across all age-groups. Are there any doctors who are gonna speak out against this? Iss anyone gonna just finally other than you and say that this is not science-based, this is fear based?

DR. MAKARY: We’re trying. The problem is it’s hard to compete with Dr. Fauci. He has so much tremendous influence. He gets platformed by all the media. He’s never talked about natural immunity, never talked about Fluvoxamine, which is an amazing drug that’s already out that reduces covid mortality significantly. It’s hard.

So we’re trying, but let me be very clear: There will be unintended harm to young people who are vaccines and already had the information because we’re introducing the risk of myocarditis into a system that’s already immune. By the way, a study just came out of Germany. The number of kids in total who have died of covid who were healthy? Zero in that entire country, age 5 to 17.

So we’ve gotta put things in perspective. We’ve lost our minds with covid policy. Imagine a White House briefing every year when we get the seasonal flu variant that comes in. “Oh, we have a case in San Francisco of the new influenza strain that just landed!” We would never have a White House briefing for that. I think we’re in a good place, I think people should feel good about their community, and I think we should move away from mandates so we can encourage people to be immune positively rather than using the excessive reach that they’re gonna retaliate against them. It’s gonna harden them.

BUCK: Dr. Marty Makary, professor, Johns Hopkins University Medical School, author of the Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care. Doctor, we really appreciate you being with us. Thanks for giving us your expertise here on the air.

DR. MAKARY: Good to be with you guys.