The number of COVID-19 cases statewide hit a one-day record of 611 on Tuesday.
While that number continues to climb both locally and on a statewide level, healthcare officials are urging all to be diligent in taking preventative measures like wearing masks in public and social distancing to avoid the spread of the virus.
There is another preventative measure that could help in fighting off the disease, according to Dr. L. Ray Matthews, an Indianola native and a pioneer in the research of vitamin D.
Matthews, who has long been a proponent of the use of vitamin D says the hormone could be key in stopping COVID-19 in its tracks.
And he’s not the only one.
Several articles have been published over the past couple of months showing links between vitamin D and its ability to help the immune system fight off diseases like the coronavirus.
“I guess everybody’s catching on now, realizing that it does increase your immune function or increase the white blood cell count to help your body fight off the virus better,” Matthews said in a recent interview with The E-T.
Matthews said that it’s not likely a vaccine will come anytime soon, and he said it’s not entirely a sure thing that such a vaccine would even be effective.
“The virus has mutated over 200 times, so it would be very tough to make a vaccine. A vaccine, at best, would be 40% effective,” he said.
The alternative, he contends, is focusing on building up white blood cells to help the body fight off COVID-19 and other illnesses.
“That’s how you’re going to knock out the coronavirus,” Matthews said.
Matthews said that judging from similar historical events in the past, COVID-19 could be around for much longer.
“We’re just in the first wave,” he said. “It’s going to come back with a vengeance. If you look at the Spanish Flu epidemic, it lasted three years…It was going on during World War I. In the war, 20 million people died. The Spanish Flu killed 50 million people worldwide. That’s how serious it was. It killed more people than the war did… We’re just in the first wave. We’re going to see a spike in the second wave, with people out protesting and not wearing masks and not practicing social distancing.”
Matthews estimates that half the world’s population is vitamin D deficient, but he recommends that everyone see their family physician to have their vitamin D levels checked.
“I like to know how low they are,” he said. “Everybody needs to go get their level checked.”
