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For a pandemic to be controlled, a sufficient proportion of the population must acquire sterilizing immunity to minimize transmission between individuals and achieve herd immunity of the entire population. Mass COVID vaccinations have been a medical disaster in the US and many other countries because the vaccines allow high levels of transmission of the virus and block our innate and naturally acquired immunity. As a result of this high prevalence of COVID infections, the current lull in virulence (severe outcomes and fatalities) will soon rise to levels well beyond 2020.
This warning that the pandemic is “far from over” comes from Geert Vanden Bossche, a well-known vaccinator from Belgium who has been ringing alarm bells for over a year.
Geert isn’t the only one to come to this conclusion, but he is one of the few prominent researchers to speak out. Many research papers came to this conclusion more than a year ago. Geert points to one such paper, “Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from vaccines targeting Sars-CoV-2 spike protein”:
The spike protein RBD [receptor binding domain] of Sars cov2 is the molecular target of many vaccines aimed at bringing the virus under control. Such a narrow molecular focus raises the specter of viral immune evasion as a potential failure mode.
In this context, vaccines that do not provide sterilizing immunity (and therefore continue to allow transmission) will lead to a build-up of large viral populations, greatly increasing the risk of immune escape.
Earlier last year, Geert sent a video message to the World Health Organization about his urgent concerns about mass vaccination. His plea was to “open the scientific debate on how human intervention is currently driving viral immune flight.” He called the mass vaccinations a “colossal mistake”. He called for “developing a strategy … to eradicate the ever-emerging highly infectious variants.”
Geert was particularly concerned about vaccinating young people who have the best innate immune system, which usually acts like a sponge or drain for the entire population to rid itself of a pandemic. In his view, it is the superior strength of children’s innate immune system, with its ability to neutralize the virus, that helps the population achieve herd immunity. But by injecting vaccine antibodies into young people, Geert warns that we are replacing neutralizing antibodies with non-neutralizing antibodies:
Can you imagine what that would mean if you permanently suppressed the innate immunity of adolescents? Because that’s what we’re going to do when we vaccinate the young. In these people, their innate antibodies will be completely suppressed, and their vaccine-acquired antibodies will be utterly worthless[.] … It will prevent the population from ever achieving herd immunity.
Geert publishes on Substack. Among his many interviews are two long-form interviews on The HighWire with Del Bigtree (November 18, 2021 here and May 6, 2022 here).
In his November 2021 interview with Del Bigtree, Geert predicted that the Delta variant, which had already infected those who were vaccinated, would soon be replaced by a new variant that could exhibit transmission immunity to the vaccine and even enhance that transmission. It turns out that Geert was right. The next month omicron appeared. This new variant is more transmissible than Delta and, in his opinion, infections in fully vaccinated patients appear to be as common or more frequent and can reinfect recovered patients as he predicted.
In the May 2022 interview, Geert, who accurately predicted the Omicron family of viruses, now predicts that a new type of variant is just around the corner – a variant that will not only allow transmission of the virus, but will be far more more virulent than Omicron. He told Del, “The pandemic is far from over.”
His thesis is that mass vaccination that allows the virus to escape puts pressure on the virus to become more transmissible after natural selection of the fittest. Because many in the population are in the same situation, meaning they are vaccinated and the vac similarly puts immune pressure on the virus, the best mutated virus (best in transmission) ultimately becomes the dominant variant in the Population.
But it’s the second phase of the viral mutation that concerns Geert the most. Now that it has become highly transmissible, the virus is working on the next stage of viral attack: virulence. Geert predicts that the combination of a non-sterilizing vaccine and the mutating virus will result in both high levels of infectivity and much higher levels of serious illness and death.
He describes the science behind his beliefs in the May 2022 interview. Although this science is not easy to understand, it could be described as follows: The same factor that makes the virus highly transmissible in the nose and throat also blocks transmission of the disease between cells in the lower respiratory tract, i.e. where serious diseases occur. Geert believes the viral mutations are working hard to overcome this obstacle in the lungs. He believes the virus has faced massive pressure to mutate in a way that causes severe respiratory disease and predicts that will happen in a matter of weeks.
The overall message this scientist is sending out could be that we are at war not just with a mutating virus, but with a complex interplay between a mutating virus, population segments with well-functioning innate and natural immunities, and population segments (most population) who carry vaccine antibodies that do not neutralize the virus. This is new territory, and the discussion is complicated by scientific complexities that are not easily understood.
It’s worth listening to Geert’s voice because he takes the time to explain his point of view and covers different aspects of science – vaccinology, virology, immunology, evolutionary biology. It takes time to understand Geert’s thinking, but it’s a good antidote to the confusion caused by the COVID news.
Image: qimono via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
