Good and bad news about long term vaccine effectiveness is coming out of Israel. Protection from catching Covid plummets after a few months. Only 1 in 6 people who were vaccinated against Covid in January still have enough protection left to stop themselves catching and spreading Covid. The good news is that five out of six still have good protection against hospitalization and severe disease.
Thanks to David Archibald who says “The coronavirus vaccines are an immunological Potemkin village”
The Israeli data above is what sent the markets sliding on Monday. Ouch!
Vaccine efficacy in Israel from people vaccinated in January, Febuary, March and April this year.
Forget herd immunity and Vax-passports
The new results mean taking a vaccine is more a personal decision about risk benefits, less “one for the team”, though it may reduce the risk of transmission. Toss out the idea that a vaccination passport offers meaningful protection and get used to the idea that people can and will catch Covid from the double vacced. There is little medical justification for giving extra rights or free access to vaccinated people.
Israel used the Pfizer vax mostly.
Efficacy against infection, asymptomatic and symptomatic, falls away rapidly. After six months (blue):
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- catching covid: 16% effective
- mild symptoms: 16%
- hospital: 82%
- severe cases of covid: 86%.
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The big problem is that leaky vaccines means nastier mutations are more likely
With leaky vaccines, the arms race is live and running. The mutation machine that is every infected body will be churning out and testing variations of Covid. Sooner or later there will be variants that escape this round of vaccines. That means the virus can not only get around the hosts immune system — making them sick, but it will probably be able to get around most other vaccinated people too.
Remember Marek’s disease in domestic chickens? After 50 years of vaccinations the 1%-killer of chickens became a tumorigenic 100% killer and wipes out unvaccinated chickens in a mere 10 days. This process is called “immune escape”. Medico’s will talk about it, but rarely spell out how bad it can be. Watch for those words. They are trying to warn us (albeit quietly and in a slightly cowardly way). This took 50 years in chickens and a lot of rounds of vaccines, but we don’t want the 2022 covid to be a bit nastier than the 2021 covid.
History books will show that it was beyond criminal not to hit the virus with antivirals. We stopped AIDS with a triple antiviral cocktail, not a vaccine. Using more than one drug at a time stops the virus mutating easily to gain resistance.
This was so predictable
Human immune systems are intricate, with feedback loops, and are designed to ignore minor threats. The challenge with vaccines is always to fool our immune system into getting excited about something that, in theory, doesn’t pose any threat at all. Often vaccines only induce short term protection compared to a natural infection. While the real influenza disease gives lifelong protection — and antibodies are still detectable over 50 years later — the influenza vaccines don’t provide long protection at all, and need regular boosters. And natural coronaviruses are not like influenza, they often don’t provoke long term protection. So it is (doh) not surprising that Coronavirus vaccines only offer short term protection against catching and spreading Covid. No wonder the industry started talking of the third booster shot months ago.
Vaccines are not the way of out the current mess in Sydney. Vaccination won’t give protection for weeks, and the vaccination clinics pose a spreading risk. How serious is Scott Morrison and Gladys? The main reason to pump vaccinations now is a/ to capitalize on fear and motivation, and b/ to reduce the spread and danger weeks from now but slightly increase it at the moment?
Viruses are dead chemicals with a two week “lifespan” at room temperature
It’s an engineering problem. To get rid of it, stop feeding the virus new bodies. Close borders properly. Use every filter and barrier, get better airflow, use UV-C light, heaters, faster airflow, outdoor events, measure and correct Vit D and Zinc deficiency, use antivirals like Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, bromhexine, plus quercetin, and every other tool we can find. We are not defenceless. It’s a dumb virus.
All business losses must be compensated by the masses who benefit. It’s only fair. The worst lockdowns are the half baked ones that drag on for weeks. Better and fairer to do it fast and properly so it can end soon.
All failures start at the border — so fix that first.
PS: hat tip to David Archibald, who is the author of The Anticancer Garden in Australia