When you look at the graph from Quraishi et al. 2014 (all refs at https://vitamindstopscovid.info/05-mds/) showing proper immune function only above 50 ng/mL 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and realise that most people (without proper supplements) have 1/2 to 1/10th this, then you can clearly see that vitamin D supplementation can bring about highly significant benefits to most people. No other nutrient is generally so deficient or easy, safe and inexpensive to replete.
Any doubts about the urgency of repleting people's 25-hydroxyvitamin D to at least this level evaporate when Chauss et al. 2021 is considered - Th1 regulatory lymphocytes from the lungs of severe COVID-19 patients drive constant inflammation (indiscriminate cell destruction) indefinitely. They fail to switch from their pro-inflammatory cytokine producing startup program to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program, even after each cell detects the conditions to do so. The primary or sole cause is that the cells lack sufficient
25-hydroxyvitamin D .
It is not good enough to take the lousy 800 to 2000 IU vitamin D3 cholecalciferol many doctors recommend (for 70 kg 154 lb bodyweight). This will never get most people's 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels to or over 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L). For this average adult bodyweight, without obesity, 0.125 mg vitamin D3 a day is required. This is 5000 IU - an IU is 1/40,000,000th of a gram, the amount a baby mouse needs each day to avoid the bone weakening disease of rickets.
70 to 100 IU per kg bodyweight is ideal, so 5000 to 7000 IU a day. I am 69 kg and take 1.25 mg 50,000 IU a week. I guess my 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is between 50 and 100 ng/mL, which is fine.
Even with this proper daily supplementation (food and multivitamins have very little vitamin D - and UV-B skin exposure causes DNA damage and so raises the risk of skin cancer) it takes months to boost the long-lasting (1 or 2 month half-life) store of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the the bloodstream, as measured in vitamin D blood tests.
Bolus vitamin D3 (such as 10 mg 400,000 IU as a single dose, again for 70 kg bodyweight) still takes 4 days or so to raise 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels from typical ~10 to ~20 ng/ml levels safely over 50 ng/mL. This is because the vitamin D3 needs to be hydroxylated in the liver.
By far the best form of early treatment - for anyone with COVID-19, sepsis, Kawasaki disease, MIS-C etc. and who has not been properly supplementing vitamin D3 for months - is a single oral dose of calcifediol, which is the pharma name for 25-hydroxyvitamin D. 0.014mg / kg bodyweight means ~1mg for 70 kg. This raises 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels over 50 ng/mL in 4 hours. This is the main reason for the success of the Castillo et al. RCT with hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Cordoba, Spain. 0.532 mg calcifediol, with half this on days 3, 7, 14 etc. (vitamin D3 would have worked just as well to maintain the boosted levels) reduced ICU admissions from 50% to 2% and deaths from 8% to zero. (The randomisation turned out to be unbalanced, so some of this extraordinary outcome is due to that, rather than the treatment.)
Most MDs have no idea about 25-hydroxyvitamin D being an essential requirement (at 50 ng/mL or more) for the autocrine (within each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems by which each individual immune cell, of multiple types, responds to its changing circumstances.
Fortunately, calcifediol is now available without prescription - as small tablets of 0.01mg. 100 of these is 1mg and it is easy for most people to take these a few at a time. Alternatively they can be made into a drinkable slurry (best for children) with water and a little xanthan gum: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/calcifediol-to-boost-25-hydroxyvitamin .
Doctors Paul Marik, Pierre Kory, Joseph Varon and colleagues at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care consortium now recommend bodyweight based long-term vitamin D3 supplementation in their I-MASK+ home treatment and I-RECOVER long COVID protocols: https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/ .
Their hospital treatment MATH+ protocol recommends 0.014 mg / kg bodyweight single oral dose calcifediol as the best way of rapidly repleting 25-hydroxyvitamin D, with bolus vitamin D3 second. They should also mention the need for daily vitamin D3 to maintain the initially boosted levels from calcifediol. They recommend this for "COVID-19, sepsis, Kawasaki disease, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, burns, and vitamin D deficiency in early pregnancy or other clinical emergencies. This is so safe that there is no need to test 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels first. Toxicity cannot occur from this single dose, unless the person already has 150 ng/mL or more 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels - which can only be reached by weeks or months of highly excessive vitamin D3 supplementation.
Although Omicron typically causes less harm in low vitamin D people than Delta and previous variants, it is still a crap-shoot with a potentially destructive virus. While the FLCCC recommend calcifediol or bolus vitamin D3 for hospital treatment, it is the best possible early treatment for people who have not already been supplementing vitamin D3 properly for months - the earlier the better.
Vitamin D is in the same league as any number of other, cheap, readily available things that could have made the "pandemic" more manageable. HCQ, IVM, Fluvoxamine, antihistamines, nigella sativa, all either ignored or actively disparaged as prophylaxis and early treatment.
"Manageable" is clearly not what The Powers That Be wanted.
When you look at the graph from Quraishi et al. 2014 (all refs at https://vitamindstopscovid.info/05-mds/) showing proper immune function only above 50 ng/mL 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and realise that most people (without proper supplements) have 1/2 to 1/10th this, then you can clearly see that vitamin D supplementation can bring about highly significant benefits to most people. No other nutrient is generally so deficient or easy, safe and inexpensive to replete.
Any doubts about the urgency of repleting people's 25-hydroxyvitamin D to at least this level evaporate when Chauss et al. 2021 is considered - Th1 regulatory lymphocytes from the lungs of severe COVID-19 patients drive constant inflammation (indiscriminate cell destruction) indefinitely. They fail to switch from their pro-inflammatory cytokine producing startup program to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program, even after each cell detects the conditions to do so. The primary or sole cause is that the cells lack sufficient
25-hydroxyvitamin D .
It is not good enough to take the lousy 800 to 2000 IU vitamin D3 cholecalciferol many doctors recommend (for 70 kg 154 lb bodyweight). This will never get most people's 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels to or over 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L). For this average adult bodyweight, without obesity, 0.125 mg vitamin D3 a day is required. This is 5000 IU - an IU is 1/40,000,000th of a gram, the amount a baby mouse needs each day to avoid the bone weakening disease of rickets.
70 to 100 IU per kg bodyweight is ideal, so 5000 to 7000 IU a day. I am 69 kg and take 1.25 mg 50,000 IU a week. I guess my 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is between 50 and 100 ng/mL, which is fine.
Even with this proper daily supplementation (food and multivitamins have very little vitamin D - and UV-B skin exposure causes DNA damage and so raises the risk of skin cancer) it takes months to boost the long-lasting (1 or 2 month half-life) store of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the the bloodstream, as measured in vitamin D blood tests.
Bolus vitamin D3 (such as 10 mg 400,000 IU as a single dose, again for 70 kg bodyweight) still takes 4 days or so to raise 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels from typical ~10 to ~20 ng/ml levels safely over 50 ng/mL. This is because the vitamin D3 needs to be hydroxylated in the liver.
By far the best form of early treatment - for anyone with COVID-19, sepsis, Kawasaki disease, MIS-C etc. and who has not been properly supplementing vitamin D3 for months - is a single oral dose of calcifediol, which is the pharma name for 25-hydroxyvitamin D. 0.014mg / kg bodyweight means ~1mg for 70 kg. This raises 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels over 50 ng/mL in 4 hours. This is the main reason for the success of the Castillo et al. RCT with hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Cordoba, Spain. 0.532 mg calcifediol, with half this on days 3, 7, 14 etc. (vitamin D3 would have worked just as well to maintain the boosted levels) reduced ICU admissions from 50% to 2% and deaths from 8% to zero. (The randomisation turned out to be unbalanced, so some of this extraordinary outcome is due to that, rather than the treatment.)
Most MDs have no idea about 25-hydroxyvitamin D being an essential requirement (at 50 ng/mL or more) for the autocrine (within each cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells) signaling systems by which each individual immune cell, of multiple types, responds to its changing circumstances.
Fortunately, calcifediol is now available without prescription - as small tablets of 0.01mg. 100 of these is 1mg and it is easy for most people to take these a few at a time. Alternatively they can be made into a drinkable slurry (best for children) with water and a little xanthan gum: https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/calcifediol-to-boost-25-hydroxyvitamin .
Doctors Paul Marik, Pierre Kory, Joseph Varon and colleagues at the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care consortium now recommend bodyweight based long-term vitamin D3 supplementation in their I-MASK+ home treatment and I-RECOVER long COVID protocols: https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/ .
Their hospital treatment MATH+ protocol recommends 0.014 mg / kg bodyweight single oral dose calcifediol as the best way of rapidly repleting 25-hydroxyvitamin D, with bolus vitamin D3 second. They should also mention the need for daily vitamin D3 to maintain the initially boosted levels from calcifediol. They recommend this for "COVID-19, sepsis, Kawasaki disease, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, burns, and vitamin D deficiency in early pregnancy or other clinical emergencies. This is so safe that there is no need to test 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels first. Toxicity cannot occur from this single dose, unless the person already has 150 ng/mL or more 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels - which can only be reached by weeks or months of highly excessive vitamin D3 supplementation.
Although Omicron typically causes less harm in low vitamin D people than Delta and previous variants, it is still a crap-shoot with a potentially destructive virus. While the FLCCC recommend calcifediol or bolus vitamin D3 for hospital treatment, it is the best possible early treatment for people who have not already been supplementing vitamin D3 properly for months - the earlier the better.
Vitamin D is in the same league as any number of other, cheap, readily available things that could have made the "pandemic" more manageable. HCQ, IVM, Fluvoxamine, antihistamines, nigella sativa, all either ignored or actively disparaged as prophylaxis and early treatment.
"Manageable" is clearly not what The Powers That Be wanted.