Dr. Marty Makary: The Realities of Living with Covid

CLAY: We are joined now by Dr. Marty Makary. He has been one of the true stalwarts for truth in what has been a crazy, insane covid era. And so, first of all, thank you. You’re also advising Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia. You’re at Johns Hopkins — and, Doctor, right off the top here:

There’s been a lot of discussion about suddenly an emergency authorization for young kids to be getting covid shots. What is your analysis, now that we know according to the CDC that there’s at least 75% of kids with antibodies — meaning they’ve recovered from covid — with the idea of getting kids boosters, with the idea of young kids getting the covid shots?

DR. MAKARY: Well, good to be with you. I would say for parents who are wondering what to do about vaccinating young kids under 5 years of age, 75% of kids have had covid, like you said. There’s zero data that if you had covid you’ll benefit from a vaccine at a young age.

So there’s a small group of people who are not immune who have a significant medical condition, maybe leukemia, maybe they’ve got a glucose disorder. Those are the kids who could benefit. But by the time we get it, I’m not sure it’s gonna be relevant.

We’re gonna have the authorization as early as June. You know, there’s a reason why these companies haven’t applied up until this time. It barely works. The efficacy is in the thirties in kids under 5. So, we need to just calm down. My fear is as soon as we get the authorization, it’s gonna be mandated for school.

BUCK: Doc, can I follow up on that, because I’m very curious about why it is that now that we have even more data about the vaccines — more than ever before — just because of the passage of time, the numbers are getting higher, more people have gotten the shots, more people have gotten sick. We should have a really good sense.

Any question we could ask about these vaccines should be more answerable now than ever about. On the stoppage of spread, we know it didn’t stop the spread as a categorical statement. Do we have any sense of how many the vaccines were even able to prevent transmission of covid, of the Omicron wave? Do we have numbers? Do we know? Will we ever know?

DR. MAKARY: Look, if we’re gonna be honest, it really doesn’t do that. Plus this is a vaccine designed for a variant five variants ago for the original Wuhan strain. So people like Biden and Fauci that got four doses, they got four doses of the same variant-based vaccine, not like a flu shot each year.

BUCK: Is that true for Moderna as well, by the way, for the emergency authorization? Is that essentially a vaccine geared toward the initial strength? Sorry to interrupt, Doc.

DR. MAKARY: Yeah, they’re just redosing it. It’s a good way to make a lot of money if you want to do it quickly. If you really want to do something good they would have tested a Omicron-specific vaccine. But we have a public health community that believes all vaccines are good. It really doesn’t matter what the data shows.

Any vaccine, rah-rah, we gotta push it. The reality is if you’re gonna recommend a vaccine to healthy kids, you need two numbers that we don’t have. How many health kids have died of covid? No one knows. The CDC director doesn’t know, so I doubt anyone else has that number. And the other is, what is the true incidence of vaccine-related complications? (chuckles) No one is honest about that because we do a pretty poor job collecting it. Most of our learnings are coming from overseas.

CLAY: Dr. Makary, again, I just want to dive into one of the things you just said. You said you’re concerned that a lot of schools might be mandating the covid shot with the authorizations now getting to younger and younger kids and emergency use and all those things. What would you say to parents out there about the idea of covid shot mandates?

How would you treat that if you had your own kids? And I don’t know how old your kids are at this point. But I’ve got, for instance, a 14-, an 11-, and a 7-year-old. My kids are not getting the covid shot. I think they’ve probably already had covid because my wife and I have both had it.

This is a real fear I think for a lot of our listeners that that shot might be mandated as a part of returning to school in the fall. How realistic do you think those mandates might be, and what would you say to parents who are opposed to that idea?

DR. MAKARY: Well, we’re at a low point right now, and the politicians are eager to show that they are for independent choice and liberty and living with this. But we’re gonna have an election and after that election we’re gonna see an increase in cases for sure. I don’t think we’re gonna see hospitalizations bump.

But as long as we’re mass testing everybody, you’re gonna see cases bump up ’cause this is a seasonal virus like flu and RSV and every other seasonal virus. And all of these issues are gonna reignite. It’s gonna be another massive battle around the exact same issues because we’ve not studied the interventions that have been done.

We’ve never studied cloth masks and school closures. So it’s everyone’s opinion right now. And you’re gonna see all these issues reignite. For the schools that want to do mandates for vaccines I would ask them, “How many healthy kids have died of covid?” No one knows. “What are the vaccinated related complications?” No one knows. I don’t know how you can mandate something without knowing those numbers.

BUCK: Dr. Makary, it’s just at some level because things are getting better right now, Fauci yesterday or whatever it was said the pandemic is over and now it’s, “Oh, it’s not over. We’re just in a new phase of the pandemic.” But they’re recognizing the politics have shifted here. It’s more about politics than it is actually about the science with the people that are making a lot of these determinations.

Do you think we’re ever gonna get an honest accounting of what has really gone on here? Specifically, what would it take for the medical community to finally say, “You know what? What kind of study do we have to do so that we never have to wear those stupid cloth masks ever again?”

DR. MAKARY: (laughs)

BUCK: I know that in Spain, I think it was 4-year-olds – it might have been 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds — one age-group did masks, the other did not mask, not only was there no difference. I saw this study, in one group being safer. The curves were exactly the same. The caseload goes up with one group; the caseload was going up with the other.

It went down at the same time as well because it made absolutely no difference. What would we have to do? How could we design a study so that Fauci would have to say, “Okay. Yeah, cloth masks are a complete waste of time”?

DR. MAKARY: You know, the study came out of Finland showing absolutely no difference in the schools with cloth mask mandates versus optional masks. I wish the New York Times or the Washington Post or any one of these outlets that have been dangling fear in children and scaring the crap out of parents, would send one reporter to Europe where the schools have been open free and clear without masks almost the entire pandemic.

What we have is a medical establishment that does not want the answer to rigorous study of these interventions. They could have studied cloth masks in one week when the pandemic hit us two years ago. They chose not to. They let this debate rage for two years until we found out from studies overseas and the study by Tracy Hoag in California. They don’t study natural immunity.

They won’t study. They didn’t study surface transmission for months! You could have done that experiment in one day. So they had every American pouring gallons of alcohol based solutions on their mail and bags from the grocery store. Why not just do the science instead of going on all the media outlets and hypothesizing and opining and throwing out your opinions? This is a complete failure of science.

CLAY: That’s well said: “A complete failure of science.” It’s frustrating the science failed. But what you said also is a further failure, which is the media is supposed to exist to speak truth to power and hold those in power accountable. You just mentioned something. New York Times, Washington Post, they basically won’t let their readers know that kids have almost no danger from covid. Why do you think that still is two years into this mess?

DR. MAKARY: Well, I think they’re supporting the narrative that’s been put out there by the Faucis and establishment. Why does…? Here’s the question for the media. “Hey, CDC, Dr. Fauci, where are the statistics on suicide in 2021? We always get those statistics in a timely fashion from CDC’s office of vital statistics. Why aren’t you reporting them?

“Why don’t you send a reporter to Europe and look at the schools there? Why did we implement martial law on young people when we don’t have a documented case of a healthy young person dying, still?” So this has been the failure. And you’re getting a glimpse into the risk intolerance of Dr. Fauci.

He won’t even go to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He’s had four doses of the vaccine in his system, he doesn’t have any risk factors beyond age, and he doesn’t feel comfortable with a high-quality mask to a dinner? This is the guy who’s been running our policy for two years? People are getting a sense as to what’s going on behinds the scenes.

BUCK: What do you want to say –

CLAY: Thank you.

BUCK: — to everyone listening across the country? You know, are we gonna be able to live normal lives going forward do you think or is this gonna continue to be a fight?

DR. MAKARY: Well, we gotta be open to a more dangerous variant. It’s unlikely, but we have to be honest and open to it. The current public health officials have zero credibility. They should step aside for the sake of public health – and, look, for me personally, once I got immunized, I lived a normal life, and I think that’s good prescribing. We can’t close swimming pools in perpetuity as some people want to do because somebody could die from a swimming accident. We’ve got to learn to live with this and respect individual choices.

CLAY: Fantastic stuff, as always, and thank you for all the work you have done being willing to speak out when it was not popular to speak out about many of these covid restrictions and policies that were put in place. Thanks, Doctor.

DR. MAKARY: Thanks so much, guys.

CLAY: That is Dr. Marty Makary. Encourage you to go follow him on Twitter.