Let me ’Splain’ Why You’re More Likely To Get Infected Today Than Yesterday By Ted Noel, MD for American Thinker
Let’s get one thing clear, right from the front. I’m not the big expert. That’s because there’s waaaay too much information for any one person to understand. I’m just the “splainer,” since I’m the nut who has taken waaaay too much time away from his golf game to study the experts and learn what’s actually going on so I can ‘splain it for you. Don’t try this at home. I am a professional. I spent 36 years practicing medicine, with a huge chunk of that time wearing masks, both in the operating room and the expensive – oops – Intensive Care Unit. My job is to translate “doctor” into English.
First things have to come first, and like a lot of other times, I have to start with one of those bits where I hit my forehead with my palm and cry out “Duh!” Like every other doctor, there was something I missed that should have been totally obvious.
Vaccines don’t keep you from getting infected by a virus.
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You read that right. Vaccines don’t keep anyone from getting infected. Their job is to keep you from getting sick. In fact, every good vaccine prepares your immune system to shut down an infection after it has gotten started. That’s because antibodies and T-cells live in your bloodstream. They can’t do a damn thing about a virus that hasn’t infected you enough to get into your blood. But once it gets there they can go to work, keeping the bug from hurting you. At least, that’s the theory. And that’s where we find the first problem.
Airborne diseases like COVID-19 don’t go straight into your blood. Instead, after you breathe enough virus-laden aerosols in, the air sacs in your lungs get a pretty good covering of virus. This doesn’t make you sick. But the virus latches onto the pneumocytes (the cells on the inside of the air sacs) and start making more virus. This means you can share with your neighbor. In fact, many vaccinated people actually breathe out as much virus as someone who is sick with COVID-19.
But you aren’t defenseless. Your air sacs have “alveolar macrophages,” specialized cells that use “Pattern Recognition Receptors” to identify the Wuhan Flu. Over time, they will clean out the air sacs. And vaccinated people seem to be infectious for a shorter period than unvaccinated.
