In a piece in the Guardian this weekend headed “Where’s the herd immunity? Our research shows why Covid is still wreaking havoc”, Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, writes that “contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film”. I will quote it at length so you get a full sense of the pessimistic vision he is setting out.
We are all so very tired of COVID-19, and there are many other crises to wrestle with. This pandemic has been going on since the beginning of 2020, and a state of hypervigilance can only be maintained for so long. And yet, ‘just live with it’ looks self-evidently too thin a recipe and, currently, not very workable or successful with the emergence of BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
According to the latest numbers, released today, the U.K. added more than half a million new Covid infections in the past week, and the estimated number of people with Covid in total was somewhere between 3% and 4% of the population.
Many have been rather unwell and off work or school, with the associated disruptions to education, healthcare and other vital services. These infections will also inevitably add to the toll of long Covid cases. According to ONS data, the supposedly ‘mild’ waves of Omicron during 2022 have brought more than 619,000 new long Covid cases into the clinical caseload, promising an enduring and miserable legacy from this latest phase.
Rather than a wall of immunity arising from vaccinations and previous infections, we are seeing wave after wave of new cases and a rapidly growing burden of long-term disease. What’s going on? The latest scientific research has some answers.
During May and June two new variants, BA.4 and BA.5, progressively displaced the previous Omicron subvariant, BA.2. They are even more transmissible and more immune-evasive. Last week a group of collaborators, including me and a professor of immunology and respiratory medicine, Rosemary Boyton, published a paper in Science, looking comprehensively at immunity to the Omicron family, both in triple-vaccinated people and also in those who then suffered breakthrough infections during the Omicron wave. This lets us examine whether Omicron was, as some hoped, a benign natural booster of our Covid immunity. It turns out that isn’t the case.
We considered many facets of immunity, including the antibodies most implicated in protection (‘neutralising antibodies’), as well as protective ‘immune memory’ in white blood cells. The results tell us it is unsurprising that breakthrough infections were so common. Most people – even when triple-vaccinated – had 20 times less neutralising antibody response against Omicron than against the initial ‘Wuhan’ strain. Importantly, Omicron infection was a poor booster of immunity to further Omicron infections. It is a kind of stealth virus that gets in under the radar without doing too much to alert immune defences. Even having had Omicron, we’re not well protected from further infections.
Also, to be added to the now complex mix is ‘immune imprinting’. This is the finding that our immune response to Covid is shaped very differently, depending on our prior exposures – infection in one wave relative to another, plus vaccination. In our study, those who’d been infected in the first wave and then again with Omicron had particularly poor T-cell responses and no boosting of antibodies. That is, some combinations of exposures may leave us poorly protected relative to others.
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart. And that’s before the risk of long Covid. While we now know that the risk of long Covid is somewhat reduced in those who become infected after vaccination, and also less in those from the Omicron than the Delta wave, the absolute numbers are nevertheless worrying.
Meanwhile, Australia is mulling bringing back mask mandates as it faces a resurgent flu during its winter alongside an Omicron BA.4-5 wave, which despite vaccination and the mildness of Omicron is causing a relatively high number of deaths.
In fact, though, contrary to Prof. Altmann’s claim, the Imperial study he refers to did show an immune response from infection against Omicron – though not one from the vaccines – and real-world evidence from Qatar suggests that natural immunity provides protection of about 50% against Omicron for at least a year (whereas the vaccines seem to increase the risk of infection within a few months). There’s also no evidence that vaccines prevent Long Covid, with one recent large U.S. study finding “no significant difference in the risk of… any long-Covid feature”.
Prof. Altmann himself sees little value in further boosters, writing:
Even if we had good vaccination coverage, we have entered a period of diminishing returns. A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It doesn’t seem to occur to him that Portugal and South Africa’s experience shows why his pessimism is misplaced, and that we actually are developing immunity against the virus.
The U.K. has had very few excess deaths from Covid since Omicron arrived, though plenty from other causes. Nonetheless, some it seems have no intention of letting this go.
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He would say that, wouldn’t he, being Imperial College-arati!
Dr. John Campbell is confident of very high levels of immunity, and I would believe him before any slimy puppet of WHO, WEF, and CCP.
‘I am the Chief of the Fire Department, and I say this fire is still burning!’
This is why the command structure should be strictly off-limits to infectious disease experts during a “pandemic”.
Why has this graundian piece not been given a red alert warning for misinformation? Even at a quick skim of the article and the Science paper it refers to, they only focus on people who are 3x vaxxed. No mention appears to be made of unvaxxed, 1x vaxxed or even 2x vaxxed in terms of infections and illness (or degree of severity of illness). Nope, it’s made to appear as if these different statuses do not matter. Everyone is 3x vaxxed and unfortunately the clever virus has beaten our best scientists. And how sloppy to speak of immune imprinting only in terms of having been infected by the virus and not question whether the immune imprinting was poured in reinforced concrete with each vaxx, which every single time was the exact mRNA from the original Wuhna strain. So very scientific not to question in any way the one major change in terms of SARS2 in the last year and whether this could have led to the resurgence of the lurgy.
Yes, I understand the financial ties of the graundian and imperial college to the world’s favourite pfhilantropist and pfhaxxanator, but still. Although I suppose you probably would have had to have had your brains jabbed to mush to read the graundian and take any note of it.
People who have vaxxed themselves to the hilt have screwed up their immune systems, therefore cannot resist any re-infection.
It’s not rocket science FFS!
Indeed, the endless cycle of jabs, variants, and reinfections is caused by–wait for it–the jabs themselves.
I’ve been vaccinated *3, I have symptoms that could be SARS-CoV-2 but I am still alive therefore my immune system is still working. Don’t forget that most symptoms such as fever, lack of appetite, raised blood sugar, coughing, sneezing, swollen lymph nodes (glands) and coryza are the result of an immune response. You probably have multiple infections from the other human corona viruses over your lifetime.
I suppose it’s open to debate whether your vax status and the fact you are currently symptomatic are linked.
For clarity, when I said above that people had “screwed” their immune systems I did not mean to imply the had rendered them completely ineffective; so again, up for debate how much or how little you have debilitated yours…….simply being “still alive” is a pretty useless metric to use in this regard, if you don’t mind me being so direct.
Last 2 sentences. Again thanks for the information, which would be helpful for someone with very little medical knowledge; however Anatomy & Physiology is a subject I have studied.
Hope you feel better soon!
my symptoms have subsided, although my wife disagrees, this has not been worse than a bad cold for me, although it’s been a few years since I had such a cold. The question that springs to mind is why no vaccine has ever been created for the common cold, after all the causative pathogens are known, is it because such a vaccine would be ineffective as it wouldn’t stop the symptoms? As a cold is simply a collection of symptoms then there’s no advantage in a vaccine.
There has been this fixation with circulating antibodies being the only metric and hence the importance of vaccination, completely ignoring the rest of the immune system.
whatever you’ve got it is obviously not debilitating enough to prevent you from looking at you computer and writing comments on this page.
Absolutely true. My son in law came home from work 3 weeks ago, tested positive, daughter and granddaughter came to us. Granddaughter, 10 weeks old, had a slight temperature on the third day of them being with us. Daughter developed sore throat on fifth day of visit, tested positive. My wife developed cough and loss of appetite a couple of days later. I had 24-48 hours raised temperature with cough, also my blood sugars went higher than I’d have liked. Resolved after 5-6 days.
Presumably you cannot become a Professor without being able to read or conduct a two minute Google search online?
Obviously you can at Imperial College because otherwise Professor Altmann would have noticed the work on SARS CoV 2 of a noted Coronavirus expert Professor working in China:
‘…..this is actually not as severe a disease as is being suggested. The fatality rate is probably only 0.8%-1%. There’s a vast underreporting of cases in China. Compared to Sars and Mers we are talking about a coronavirus that has a mortality rate of 8 to 10 times less deadly to Sars to Mers. So a correct comparison is not Sars or Mers but a severe cold. Basically this is a severe form of the cold.’
Professor John Nicholls, Professor of Department of Pathology, HKUMed 06 Feb 20
‘A study led by researchers from the LKS Faculty of Medicine at The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) provides the first information on how the novel Variant of Concern (VOC) of SARS-CoV2, the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infect human respiratory tract. The researchers found that Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infects and multiplies 70 times faster than the Delta variant and original SARS-CoV-2 in human bronchus, which may explain why Omicron may transmit faster between humans than previous variants. Their study also showed that the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity. This research is currently under peer review for publication.’
Dr Michael Chan Chi-wai, Associate Professor of School of Public Health and Principal Investigator, Centre for Immunology and Infection (C2i), Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP) and Professor John Nicholls, Professor of Department of Pathology, HKUMed 31 Jan 22
A severe cold but the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower.
In short, we have had infections similar to Omicron all our lives. We used to call them ‘summer colds’ because they were so mild.
How can so many highly qualified people be so unbelievably silly?
Because the entire Education System in the West is not about education, it’s about bums on seats.
And I bet if they were ever to create an experimental mRNA or DNA/AAV jab against the common cold, and foolishly jab 80 to 90% of the population, the exact same problems would occur as is occurring now.
How can so many highly qualified people be so unbelievably silly?
People can be amazingly silly, if there job depends upon it.
It’s either dangerous or not very dangerous (I think the latter) but either way it’s obvious that there is little to be done that makes much difference so who cares? Let’s get on with living before we die.
Wasn’t Danny Elfmann the person who wrote the music for The Simpsons?
I can’t help linking the two names.
I wonder what he means by “wreaking havoc”.
Does it mean getting a cold?
And what is “long covid”?
If it’s feeling a bit down and sapped of energy, then I’ve had long covid since March 2020. And whenever someone like this guy comes along trying to stir up fear and panic, my long covid gets worse.
Indeed. Long Lockdown and Long Jab Injury are more fearsome than Long Covid.
Imperial College?
Need we say more?
In other words, the jabs are ironically hindering the development of herd immunity.
I’m pretty sure that was predicted?
Moral of the story: This is why mass vaccination with leaky vaccines is never a good idea. And that applies *a fortiori* to novel experimental gene therapy “vaccines”.
What the Groan doesn’t seem to grasp is that we ARE developing herd immunity. No thanks to the jabs though, which have ironically hindered and delayed the process.
There’s really only one way to handle these people: Beat them up until they finally shut up. I don’t desire to spend the rest of my life in a rollercoaster horror movie controlled by weirdos with weird hairdos who keep claimging that – prior to 2020 – nobody ever got sick due to infection with a respiratory virus.
That’s a lie, Professor Sucker, and you and I know that.
Chuck him and Neil into a deep hole with nothing but a load of needles and masks to keep them company. That’d sort it, one way or another.
Why are there so many spineless so called experts. Or is it that society as a whole is a weak species?
The later increasingly. We’ve got a new (old) word for it – woke.
Do we ever reach community immunity with the common cold, irrespective of the causative pathogen? We never develop long term immunity to these same pathogens, do we?
No, we obviously don’t, as everybody who’s been living on this planet for long enough to remember something about the past will know. And this guy describes nothing but a common cold. Sometimes, people do even get pneumonia from that. Which – in the usual, mild cases – simply heals off on its own. This guy is just throwing mumbo jumpo freely mixed with fear-related adjectives around to try to make it appear as something different.
This guy is just throwing mumbo jumpo freely mixed with fear-related adjectives around to try to make it appear as something different.
Which is exactly in accordance with the B&MG grant that his research is reliant upon.
Raving lunatic, possibly psychopathic. These people shouldn’t be able to walk the streets.
Bought traitor without even the slightest resemblance of a conscience would be my preferred description. President Xis inane experiment to eradicate Sars-CoV2 by treating it as problem caused by anti-social behaviour is still ongoing and still needs to be carried out globally in order to have any chance of success. Hence, everybody who’s still touting Corona panic works for China and against the people living in this country.
Worryingly, they probably reproduce as well…
We’ve never had complete herd immunity to cold and flu, why is this different?
please bear with me….I don’t know who else to ask!
I need help here ..a couple of days ago El Gato Malo posted a substack piece “data suppression and adulteration or just simple incompetence?”(29th July) which was mentioned in the news round-up.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/data-suppression-and-adulteration?utm_source=%2Fprofile%2F32715357-el-gato-malo&utm_medium=reader2
If you read the article you’ll come to a bit with a clip by Dr Mahesh Shehai…showing a VRBPAC member asking the Pfizer representative about the variant based boosters..
and he asks ..”everyone is measuring Abs (antibodies?) what is the correlate to protection?
And the Pfizer Rep replies…”there is no established correlate of protection…”
So am I reading this right? Is she saying antibodies don’t equate with protection?
And if so isn’t that a “boom” moment?
Or am I totally misunderstanding something?
It may depend on which antibody (immunoglobulin Ig).
Pandemic Logic
Modelling is not predicting. A model merely suggests one of many outcomes.
Using the same model and working backwards we can say for certain that the non prediction definitely saved the lives of all those the model wasn’t predicting would die.
Professor of Immunology?
That he may be but he obviously knows little of virology. It seems he subscribes to the commonly held view that “new” viral pathogens eventually become more and more benign as they seek to infect new and more cohorts and as a consequence burn out. One sees a dramatic rise in deaths/infections which gradually tails away as the virus becomes more benign.
This is not and never has been the case. Any pathogen “disappears” as a result of herd immunity being achieved and NOT as a result of the virus mutating to a weaker state.
Put simply Professor, what you are seeing and fear is the result of jabbing vast swathes of unfortunate individuals with a none sterilising form of gene therapy.
As an added bonus the bloody jabs actually weaken the recipients immune system, with catastrophic results long and short term.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027869152200206X
In all probability we ain’t seen nothing yet.
He should google Geerd van den Bossche.
Besides, when I read ‘immunologist from ICL’, the scene from OSS 117/Jean Dujardin about ‘Africa now being independent’ immediately and solely comes to my mind.
The first round of lockdowns merely delayed the inevitable and pushed the virus further into the next fall and winter. Strike 1.
The second round of lockdowns pushed the virus even further still into the winter and into the jab era. Strike 2.
Then, we rushed and over-vaccinated the general population with some of the dodgiest and leakiest “vaccines” in all of history. To the point of forcing people to take them even if they had already recovered from the virus. Strike 3.
Followed by an endless cycle of boosters, variants, and reinfections. And as they say, the rest is history….
He’s been talking to Ferguson in Imperials canteen ! Schmuk !
Isn’t that in fact Professor Denzil Dexter
Read Geert Vanden Bossche and Robert Malone. Using the Covid injections on healthy people has been a disaster. The hubris, avarice and dysfunction of our public health establishent is unbounded. We must stop and we need to use re-purposed drugs to help those who can’t shift the virus either because they are immuno-compromised or subject to Original Antigenic Sin or Antibody Dependant Enhanced Infection, etc.
I fear this man is preparing us for more crazy measures, updated injections, or worse.
>Using the Covid injections on healthy people has been a disaster
Even as a non-medic I can understand “Do no harm” as a principle. A principle that our health care specialists seem to have given up far too easily.
Why do some people catch Covid and not others irrespective of the vaccines? I am sure I have never caught it but know people who claim to have had it 2 or 3 times. I am not prone to getting colds either but others contract them a lot. This is where research might be usefully focussed. Instead we continue to work ourselves up into a frenzy by taking a one size fits all approach. Perhaps natural immunity was always there for some of us and for others ( not everyone) immunity could have been boosted by vitamin supplements or better still a healthier lifestyle.
Well having a vaccine that’s increased my risk of catching COVID 3-4 times won’t be helping. I’ve always been susceptible to colds but I don’t think I’ve had COVID. I might well have had but I refuse to test. It just perpetuates the fear and we’ve got enough crap in our oceans already.
>somewhere between 3% and 4% of the population.
And if the vaccine wasn’t increasing the risk of catching COVID four-fold, those figures would be more like 0.75% and 1%