Ruey-Shyang Hseu
Interviewee and Article Reviewer/Ruey-Shyang Hseu
Interviewer and Article Organizer/Wu Tingyao
★ This article was originally published on ganodermanews.com, and is reprinted and published here with the authorization of the author.
Will the virus disappear if everyone is vaccinated?
For individuals, vaccination is to “increase sensitivity”, that is, to increase your sensitivity and specific recognition to that virus; for the entire region, vaccination is to form a regional defense (herd immunity). If everyone increases sensitivity, if everyone’s immune system has the ability to eliminate the virus immediately and the route of virus transmission is blocked, the infection will not continue expanding.
As to whether this lofty goal can be fulfilled on the novel coronavirus, we can only wait and see. After all, the unknown is still developing, and now we can only cross the river by feeling the stones. However, Taiwan’s experience in getting the hepatitis B virus vaccine for more than 30 years is worthy of reference.
Taiwan’s ability to transform from a region with a high hepatitis B virus carrier rate to a region where the hepatitis B virus is almost extinct in the next generation of Taiwanese (the carrier rate of six-year-old children in Taiwan has dropped from more than 10% to 0.8%) is due to Taiwan’s neonatal hepatitis B vaccination program launched in 1984, which has been committed to blocking the main route of hepatitis B virus transmission – the vertical transmission from mother to child.
Until now, every child has to be given a dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth, at the end of one month, and at the end of six months.
According to the examination results of the vaccination record card for primary school students, the rate of completing three doses of hepatitis B vaccine among Taiwanese children is as high as 99%.
In theory, after the injection of these three doses of vaccine, there will be enough antibodies in the body to produce lifelong immunity to the hepatitis B virus. In fact, 40% of children who have received three doses of the vaccine can no longer have hepatitis B antibodies by the age of fifteen; as many as 70% of people can no longer have hepatitis B antibodies by the age of twenty.
What does this tell us?
One or two vaccine injections does not guarantee that the human body will be immune to the virus for life.
What should those people do if they no longer have antibodies in the body? Should the vaccine be re-injected to “awaken immune memory”?
You can’t always do antibody tests and vaccinations there, right?
What’s more, when there is almost no hepatitis B virus in your living circle, what is the point of awakening such immune memory? Unless you are going to an HBV endemic area, it makes sense.
Yes, mankind has made the hepatitis B vaccine for so long, and so many people have been vaccinated against hepatitis B. The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a global public health policy to administer hepatitis B vaccine to newborns, but the epidemic areas of hepatitis B virus still exist.
Since the hepatitis B virus has not completely disappeared, why are we not as nervous as facing the novel coronavirus?
It is because infection with hepatitis B virus will not cause severe illness immediately, nor will the infected person be unable to eat, drink or breathe immediately. Symptoms such as hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer may not appear until years or decades later. The novel coronavirus can cause acute pneumonia and respiratory disorders. Patients infected with novel coronavirus require emergency hospitalization and isolation and the use of respirators, which consumes a lot of medical resources.
Therefore, the development of the novel coronavirus vaccine can be said to be a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean, which gives us spiritual sustenance. We must be grateful for it.
However, from more than 30 years of experience in the battle between hepatitis B vaccine and hepatitis B virus, it can be known that after the novel coronavirus vaccine is fully injected, the novel coronavirus will not disappear from now on but will coexist with humans for a long time like hepatitis B and influenza.
In other words, at the end of the epidemic, the novel coronavirus will no longer cause a large number of severely ill patients who need to be hospitalized, and the symptoms caused by the novel coronavirus will become lighter and lighter because the viruses that cause severe illness have ended with the death of severely ill patients. The viruses that will eventually spread in the population are all from mild infectors or asymptomatic carriers.
Asymptomatic carriers can also transmit the virus. They do not show symptoms because their immune systems suppress the virus, but the virus will still replicate in their body and mutate during the replication process. But even if it mutates, the virus usually does not become too vicious in order to continue to survive in the human body.
As there are more and more asymptomatic carriers, the less you can know if the person you are in contact with is the carrier. Once you are accidentally infected, the novel coronavirus will exist in your body like the flu or hepatitis B virus and wait for the right time to take action.
Although the virus will be much milder than it is now, it does not mean that it will not cause severe illness.
Because there is a prerequisite that the virus will not cause severe illness, that is, your immune system must be functional most of the time; however, as long as your immune system is dysfunctional one day, the virus will start to make trouble. The most serious disease caused by the virus is pneumonia that requires the use of respirators.
Therefore, human beings should strive to coexist peacefully with novel coronavirus.
Everyone must enhance the immune function and keep the immune system at a healthy high standard anytime, anywhere. In this way, even if someone is unfortunately infected, the severe disease can become mild, and the mild disease can become asymptomatic.
But how do you enhance your immune function? Keep early hours, maintain a balanced diet, exercise properly, and maintain a good mood? Can you really do all these things? Even if you can do them, will your immune system be normal? That’s not necessarily. It is better to eat Lingzhi every day, which is safer and more convenient.
The virus will not disappear, but the antibody may disappear.
Regardless of whether the vaccine has been injected or not, please continue eating Lingzhi. Because only by maintaining your immunity can you be protected at all times.
About Professor Ruey-Shyang Hseu, National Taiwan University
● In 1990, he obtained a Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Agricultural Chemistry, National Taiwan University with the thesis “Research on the Identification System of Ganoderma Strains”, and became the first Chinese PhD in Ganoderma lucidum.
● In 1996, he established the “Ganoderma strain provenance identification gene database” to provide academics and industry with the basis for determining the provenance of Ganoderma.
● Since 2000, he has devoted himself to the independent development and application of functional proteins in Ganoderma to realize the homology of medicine and food.
● He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemical Science and Technology of National Taiwan University, the founder of ganodermanew.com and the editor-in-chief of the magazine “GANODERMA”.
★ The original text of this article was narrated orally in Chinese by Professor Ruey-Shyang Hseu, organized in Chinese by Ms.Wu Tingyao and translated into English by Alfred Liu. If there is any discrepancy between the translation (English) and the original (Chinese), the original Chinese shall prevail.
Pass on the Millennia Health Culture
Contribute to Wellness for All
