Secrets of COVID-19
Secrets of COVID-19
It can be forecasted that in the next few months, many countries around the world will have a new epidemic wave, and the severity will exceed all previous epidemics, and may even lead to the collapse of some countries' health systems.
The Secret of the COVID-19 Pandemic:
The occurrence, end and severity of each wave of epidemics are predictable.
From October last year to now, there have been three waves of global pandemics (December, April, August).[1] How to forecast the occurrence and end of each epidemic?
The epidemics in a small number of countries always occur and end early in every wave of global pandemics. By analyzing the epidemic situation of these countries, the global pandemic situation can be predicted.
From the above curves of the daily coronavirus cases in the three countries (Russia, Romania, Ukraine) and the world, we will find that the epidemics in these three countries occurred and ended several weeks earlier than the global pandemic in December and April; the epidemic in Russia occurred and ended about a month earlier than the global epidemic in August. The reason may be that climate change has affected the spread of the virus and human immunity, which has a great impact on the epidemic. These three countries are farther from the ocean and closer to the north than most other countries in Europe, and climate change comes earlier and more obvious than other countries.
Recently, the daily cases in these three countries are increasing rapidly. The daily cases in Romania have reached a new high, and the number of daily cases in Russia and Ukraine will also exceed the previous peak. It indicates that the next more serious wave of a pandemic will spread throughout the world.
Can the vaccine effectively stop this upcoming wave of a pandemic?
The Secret of COVID-19 Vaccine:
The vaccine effectiveness is related to the amount of virus inhaled.
This conjecture can explain some seemingly contradictory phenomena.
It means that when the amount of virus inhaled is greatly increased, the vaccine efficacy will be greatly reduced; on the other hand, when the amount of virus inhaled is decreased, the vaccine efficacy can be improved.
The amount of virus inhaled here refers to the amount of inhaled virus that can cause infection. Aerosols containing the same amount of virus are much more infectious than droplets. This is because a large part of the viruses usually have a lower infectivity or do not cause infection after droplets containing viruses are inhaled.
The US CDC released a report on the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections that occurred in Massachusetts, in July this year.[2] Approximately three quarters (346; 74%) of cases occurred in fully vaccinated persons. The remaining 123 patients were unvaccinated, not fully vaccinated, or whose vaccination status was unknown. At that time, the proportion of fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts was 62% of the total population; it can be calculated that the risk of infection for fully vaccinated persons is at least 1.74 times that of unvaccinated persons. The reason may be that when people gather, the amount of the inhaled virus is greatly increased, resulting in a substantial decrease in the effectiveness of the vaccine.
A research report on the Guangzhou epidemic released in August this year showed that among close contacts, unvaccinated persons were 2.84 times more likely to be infected than fully vaccinated persons; but persons who received only one shot of the vaccine were 2 times as likely to be infected as unvaccinated persons; family members were 40 times more likely to be infected than others[3]。Antibody levels and the amount of virus inhaled are the reasons for these results. The amount of virus inhaled by family members is much greater than that of others, so they have such a high risk of infection.
The Secret of COVID-19 Growth Rate:
The external environment such as temperature, humidity and air circulation have a great influence on the concentration of viruses, which change the growth rate of COVID-19.
The daily cases per capita in each province of Turkey is not closely related to the vaccination rate, but is closely related to the geographic location of each province. The daily cases per capita in the provinces close to the Mediterranean and to the south is several times, even ten times less than in the inland or northern provinces.[4]
The infection rate of each state in the United States has a similar phenomenon. The more north and inland states, the higher the daily infection rate.[5]
The low temperature increases indoor activity, which cause the higher virus concentrations. Windy environments, such as by the ocean, can reduce virus concentrations. These can explain the above phenomenon.
When the viral load is not very high, high temperature can reduce the half-life of the virus and weaken the spread of the virus. However, when the viral load of the Delta variant is a thousand times that of the original virus[6], the high temperature makes it easy to convert the virus-containing droplets into more contagious aerosols in a short time, thereby increasing the amount of the inhaled virus. This can explain that the epidemic in Southeast Asian countries was well controlled last year; but when the Delta variant appeared, the epidemic became very serious.
A higher infection rate leads to a higher virus concentration, which further reduces the vaccine efficacy. This is why a few countries with high vaccination rates have the high daily growth rate of COVID-19, such as United Kingdom, Ireland, Lithuania, Seychelles.
When winter falls, due to the greatly reduced indoor ventilation, the concentration of the virus rises sharply, which may lead to a substantial drop in vaccine efficacy. For those northern hemisphere countries with high vaccination rates, it will be a great challenge.
How to Improve the Vaccine Efficacy and Reduce the Infection Rate？
One way is to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine by booster shot, but this way is time-consuming, costly, and potentially risky.
The other way is using respirators to drastically reduce the amount of virus inhaled.
If a country with a high vaccination rate can obtain its own “Vaccine Efficiency VS Relative Amount of Virus Inhaled Curve” (similar to the curve below), it will be more economical and effective to improve its vaccine efficiency after finding the “sweet spot” on the curve.
“Vaccine Efficiency VS Relative Amount of Virus Inhaled Curve” is related to antibody levels. When antibody levels decrease, the Relative Amount of Virus Inhaled should be decreased to keep the same vaccine efficacy rate.
If high performance respirators are used to reduce the amount of virus inhaled by more than one hundred times, the effectiveness of the vaccine may be increased from 50% to more than 90%. Compared with the booster shot, the cost is greatly reduced, and sometimes the respirators only need to be worn at the beginning of the epidemic. Wearing high performance respirators by unvaccinated persons can further greatly reduce the overall infection rate.
Why Conventional Masks Can't Greatly Improve the Vaccine Efficacy？
The protective performance of conventional masks is not high. After Delta variant emerged, some types of conventional masks may even increase the risk of infection because of the virus shedding from the out layer and the inner layer of these masks.
Wearing conventional masks, such as cotton masks and surgical masks, can reduce the infection risk of COVID-19.[7][8] Conventional masks mainly prevent the droplet transmission of viruses. However, aerosol transmission is most likely cause of COVID-19 infection.[9] About 85 percent of coronavirus RNA detected in COVID-19 patients’ breath was found in fine aerosol particles.[10]
Due to the high leakage rate, conventional masks have normal performance in preventing aerosol transmission. Surgical masks and KN95/N95 masks normally reduce the amount of virus inhaled from aerosol transmission by 2~3 times and 5~20 times respectively.
Can N95 masks further enhance the protective effect? Some studies showed that there were no statistically significant differences in preventing influenza using N95 respirators and surgical masks. [11]
The market is flooded with a large number of masks with poor performance and design flaws, which not only cannot protect the wearers well, but may even damage the health of the wearers. For example, many children's masks do not consider factors such as breathing resistance and long-term wearing may cause irreversible damage to the children's lungs and body.
People Lack a Full Understanding of Respirators
Unfortunately, there are only a few real experts in the field of respirators worldwide, and most people lack the knowledge to distinguish the performance of masks and wear them improperly. In the COVID-19 task force of every country in the world, there is almost no expert proficient in respirators. Many health experts and epidemiologists lack a full understanding of respirators.
The websites of the Ministry of Health of some countries have some photos of wearing masks incorrectly, and even the presidents of some countries have worn masks by mistake or worn inappropriate masks. In February, Czech mandates people to wear two surgical masks or one FFP2 mask in public. In fact, with only a small improvement, the protective performance of a surgical mask can exceed two surgical masks. In addition, the breathing resistance of the two surgical masks is high, and long-term wearing is unhealthy.
Some people mistakenly believe that the different surgical masks have the same performance. In fact, the protective performance of surgical masks may differ by 3 times, and the breathing resistance may differ by 3 times; the protective performance of KN95/N95 masks may differ by several tens of times, and the breathing resistance may differ by 10 times!
Many clinical trials on the protective performance of surgical masks or N95 masks lack the technical details of respirators. Because the performance of the same type of masks from different manufacturers varies greatly, the results of some clinical trials are inconsistent or even contradictory.
Many mask manufacturers lack technicians who are proficient in respirators. Even some masks from large companies have design flaws.
To end COVID-19 or greatly improve the vaccine efficacy requires the design of new generation respirators, which can greatly improve the protective performance to stop aerosol transmission, and greatly reduce the side effects of masks (virus shedding and breathing resistance), and greatly reduce the cost of high-performance respirators.
Hot Weapons VS Cold Weapons
Some of the current epidemic prevention measures are more like the use of infantry to fight the cavalry in the cold weapon era, and they cannot win at all. They have to fight against enemy by strengthening the defense and clear the fields (quarantine and lockdown). Not only is it costly, but in the end they can only choose to live with the virus.
The new way to end COVID-19 is like going from the cold weapon era to the hot weapon era, using guns (new-generation masks) instead of swords (conventional masks), wearing body armor (new-generation PAPR) instead of heavy metal armor (conventional PAPR), and employing radar (real-time virus detector) instead of naked eye (checking symptoms). The combat effectiveness (protective performance) will increase by thousands of times, which help us to win the final victory of this war without lockdown.
After mass production via automated assembly line, hot weapons are no more expensive than cold weapons, and some types are even much cheaper.
Entering the era of hot weapons requires not only changing weapons, but also changing people’s thinking and the prevention tactics.
Unfortunately, some people's thinking stays in the era of cold weapons, and they do not realize that weapons are the key to win this war between human being and coronavirus.
When people fully understand the design principles of the new generation respirators, they can understand why the new generation respirators are able to help us win this war against COVID-19.
To end COVID-19 pandemic requires everyone’s efforts.
The following articles have more details about the new way to end COVID-19.
Open Letter on the New Way to End COVID-19
References
[1] Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic worldometers.info
[3] Transmission dynamics and epidemiological characteristics of Delta variant infections in China
[4] Turkey COVID-19 Information Platform
[6] How the Delta variant achieves its ultrafast spread
[7] Face masks against COVID-19: Standards, efficacy, testing and decontamination methods
[8] The Evidence Is in - One Mask Type Stands Out as The Best Protection Against COVID-19
[9] New studies hint that the coronavirus may be evolving to become more airborne