Just about the most wonderful prediction possible has been made by a prominent doctor, who aired his belief that COVID-19 will be “mostly gone” — sometime in April —  in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Feb. 19.

Specifically, Dr. Marty Makary — a surgeon and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health — argues that there are actually many more than the 28 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S., possibly as much as 6.5 times more than that number. 

Between that group, and the roughly 15 percent of the country that already has received one dose of the vaccine, Makary argues that much of the nation is already protected from the virus.

Makary appeared on Fox News on Feb. 19, to expand on his column — claiming that the U.S. has been over-reliant on antibody tests as a gauge to determine who has had the virus.“There’s a 76 percent reduction in daily cases over the last six weeks,” Makary said. “You, as a scientist, have to ask why. And we cannot explain that by vaccinated immunity. We can’t explain it by a sudden change in behavior. It’s natural immunity, and it’s now over 50 percent of the population.”

The WSJ added that “the doctor acknowledged the reluctance of many scientists to publicly acknowledge his conclusions, and chalked it up to public health experts not wanting Americans to get complacent in their mitigation efforts, and possibly not take the vaccines.”

What to make of the doctor’s projections? We certaintly hope he is right and that the pandemic ends in the April. In such a scenario, it’s usually a safe bet to say, “Time will tell.” In this case, we could tweak that to say (with a wink), “Time will tell ... very soon.”