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Study Confirms Omicron Infection Provides Strong Natural Immunity and Imperial’s Professor Altmann is Wrong to Scare People By Claiming Otherwise

by Will Jones
20 July 2022 5:10 PM

Since Imperial’s Professor Danny Altmann claimed three weeks ago, based on a recent paper from his university, that Omicron does not provide natural immunity against reinfection, this claim has been repeated around the world and become an accepted part of the Covid narrative, frightening people into believing the pandemic may never be over. Professor Altmann wrote in the Guardian:

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…

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…

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.

At the Daily Sceptic we pointed out that Professor Altmann’s interpretation of the paper’s findings was flawed and not in line with what it said or showed. The paper actually did show a robust immune response following Omicron infection.

Now, two new studies from Qatar provide real-world evidence of the power of natural immunity against Omicron.

The first study looked at all confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections in Qatar from February 2020 to June 2022, comparing Covid incidence and severity among those with and without a previous infection (all in the study were unvaccinated). The pre-print study (not yet peer-reviewed) found that pre-Omicron Covid provided 85.5% protection (CI: 84.8-86.2%) against pre-Omicron reinfection, though waning to around 70% after about a year and a half. This is in line with earlier studies.

Against Omicron reinfection, a pre-Omicron infection provided 38.1% protection (CI: 36.3-39.8%), though declined with time possibly to negligible levels after a year and a half.

Importantly, pre-Omicron infection provided very high protection of 97.3% (CI: 94.9- 98.6%) against severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 reinfection by both Omicron and pre-Omicron Covid, with no evidence of waning after 14 months. While Qatar’s population is younger than most, a very similar result of 95.4% protection was found for the over-50s, again with no evidence of waning. This suggests that Covid quickly becomes like a circulating cold after the population has had it once.

But what about Omicron reinfection after an initial Omicron infection – what protection does that provide? Professor Altmann claims the immune response following an Omicron infection is negligible and Omicron is a “stealth virus” that evades immunity and doesn’t protect against reinfection. However, the second study from Qatar shows this is not true at all.

The pre-print (not yet peer-reviewed) used a test-negative, case-control design to look at infections in Qatar between May 7th and July 4th 2022, with particular attention give to the period June 8th to July 4th when Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 dominated. It found that an initial Omicron infection against BA.4 and BA.5 reinfection provided 79.7% protection (CI: 74.3-83.9%), not far off the protection of pre-Omicron infection against pre-Omicron reinfection found in the first study (85.5%). The study also found that an initial pre-Omicron infection provided 28.3% protection (CI: 11.4-41.9%) against BA.4 or BA.5 reinfection, broadly in line with the first study (given the later time and newer variants).

Professor Altmann and others who claim Omicron infection does not provide immunity against reinfection are therefore spreading misinformation by exaggerating the threat from the virus and downplaying the prospects for population immunity and moving on from the pandemic.

The authors of the second study say there were too few serious cases to draw any conclusions about protection from severe disease and death. However, considering the 80% protection against reinfection, there is no reason to think the protection an Omicron infection provides against serious disease will not, as with pre-Omicron infection in the first study, be similarly robust and long lasting.

Tags: Danny AltmannFear-mongeringHerd immunityImperial CollegeNatural immunityOmicron Variant

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41 Comments
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James Leary #KBF
James Leary #KBF
2 years ago

Airfield runway temperature measuring sites are where they are for a reason. The engine performance and therefore the aircraft performance on take off needs to be calculated using the actual temperature of the air ingested by the engine, it doesn’t care how that temperature was created. If you’ve ever sat in a passenger aircraft in a hot part of the world waiting for the temperature to drop a degree to allow take off at the current aircraft weight, that’s why.

66
-2
FerdIII
FerdIII
2 years ago

If you went 5 km out into the country, the temps were about 36C. Putting an electronic temp; reader, beside a greenhouse, airfield, highway, ventilator shafts, airplanes, cars, and in the midst of an urban area is not science but fraud. A bloody joke all of it.

173
-3
stewart
stewart
2 years ago

The margin of error argument is a weak one. Margins of error can go either way, so the climate freaks could also claim the readings might be too low.

The fact that the measurements are taken next to sources of heat like airports and that the “record” readings were for only a few minutes, suggesting a heat blast, make for much more compelling arguments.

80
-4
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago

Are reasonably priced measuring devices available which store th rsulkts and / or output via (say) bluetooth for further analysis. I am sure many readers would be interested in helping with an alternative tmprature measuring exrcise, albeit with no history.

8
0
For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
2 years ago
Reply to  EppingBlogger

I have a system which cost less than £150 on-line. The key thing is that it links via my wifi to the Wunderground web site, recording all data every few seconds. I can view historical records of temperature, pressure, wind direction and speed, humidity and precipitation. It also has a map which shows similar stations in my vicinity so I can check whether my temperatures are consistent with others.
My system is mounted on a 5m pole some metres from the house.
Mine is made by Youshiko but others are available.

13
0
varmint
varmint
2 years ago

Ah yes —–Temperature. The first thing to mention is that all temperature is LOCAL You can record a temperature anywhere you put a thermometer at a given time. The second thing to mention is that temperature is not an amount of anything. It is a value. The third thing to mention is that adding two or more temperatures together and calculating some kind of “average” will give you a number, but that number is NOT a temperature. It is just a statistic. ————One more very important thing. We often here about “global temperature” or the “average global temperature”. But the Earth is not in thermal equilibrium so there is no single number that can represent the temperature of earth. So this idea from UN bureaucrats that we should try to limit global warming to 2C is absurd. There is an infinite amount of temperatures on earth and you can record one wherever you put a thermometer. The top of the mountain, the bottom of the ocean, high in the sky, low on the ground, under a tree, above a building, on a sheet of ice, under a sunbeam etc etc etc. ——Averaging all of those infinite amount of temperatures does not provide us with a temperature. It is just a mathematical construct. So ultimately there is no such thing as a “global temperature”. ————All of this is important when considering the alleged global warming (and the hundreds of billions spent on it). But it also reveals the absurdity of looking at a supposed 40C temperature at one place in time in one tiny area of the world somewhere in England and then trying to claim that this is an example of that alleged global warming, even if that temperature reading was 100% accurate, which it probably is not given the accuracy problems of thermometers in boxes that at one time a hundred years ago might have been in an empty field but now are surrounded by tarmac and concrete.

146
-1
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

Hear bloody hear.

In my day job I take special time to explain and demonstrate the differences between data and information.

43
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

An average of n temperature readings from different locations isn’t a statistic, either. It’s a just number generated by applying an algorithm for reducing the amount of random error in subsequent measurements of a single quantity to a situation it isn’t suitable for as there’s no single quantity being measured. A temperature reading taken in my garden (Reading, Fobney Street) and a temperature reading taken somewhere in Antarctica are not two different approximations of the same quantity differing only in the amount of error in the value.

10
0
varmint
varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

I call it a “statistic” or a “mathematical construct”. You choose to call it a “number generated by an algorithm………..”—-Ok fair enough , but one thing we can both say is that whatever that number is that is arrived at by doing an average, whether mean or median etc, it is NOT a temperature, and that is the main thing. Temperature is a Field.——— So when it comes to the alleged global warming there is no single number that represents the temperature of earth, and bureaucrats claiming they can regulate the earth’s temperature by tweaking some CO2 knob are pulling the wool over eyes for political purposes, but then you already know that.

11
0
Alan
Alan
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

The simplest analysis to prove the nonsense of so called climate science is the best and you have done that here. Well done! I would add try doing an experiment to prove that there is an average temperature. Take two cups of water at 50C and mix them together to get a total temperature – boiling water. That is the science of Greta and Attenborough.

3
0
Monro
Monro
2 years ago

Umberto Eco tenets of fascism:

The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

Fear of difference. 

Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

Last edited 2 years ago by Monro
33
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

“humankind is suddenly driven into a doom-laden frenzy over worries that climate breakdown stalks the entire planet,”

I fail to see the point in adopting the language of idiots.

How can – climate break down?

14
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Simplicity itself — imagine some moron^wclimate change experts predicts months of dry weather at the end of August and next week, it starts raining, raining and raining. That’s obviously a climate breakdown, ie, the climate ceased to function as it was supposed to.

🙂

11
0
Mark S
Mark S
2 years ago

Not to mention, there was an RAF Typhoon landing at that time give or take a minute. There were actually two flying together but the second one went around a few times and landed around 20 minutes later. The accuracy of the FlightRadar24 data isn’t so good at very low altitudes at all locations, so we can’t be precise on the exact landing time.

2023-01-02_170807.jpg
2023-01-02_172733.jpg
14
0
Dr G
Dr G
2 years ago

In Australia too, our Bureau of Meteorology has been busy moving temperature gauges to airports, expunging old unhelpful measurements from the record books (old high temperature records suddenly “disappear”), and changing the measurement goalposts, so that a 1 second temperature surge becomes the official daily maximum, rather than a 10 minute period.
And record cold temperatures are also “deplatformed”.

21
0
The old bat
The old bat
2 years ago

The temperature in our garden during the hottest part of last summer was 36.5c, which is bloomin’ hot, but quite a way off the touted 40c. We live in a rural area surrounded by farmland – not much tarmac!
Incidentally, I have had a fallout with a family member over ‘global warming’. Apparently I am a bad person because I ‘don’t believe’ in global warming (I wasn’t allowed to explain that it’s anthropogenic climate change that I doubt). This branch of the family are devoted and fully vaccinated and boostered covidians and are extremely woke (they thought digital currency and the possibility of carbon credits being connected to expenditure was a good idea). I find it funny, in a sad way, that you can know someone for nearly 70 years and then discover that a) you don’t know them at all, b) you have nothing in common and c)they are idiots. Yes, there is a ‘belief’ system with both global warming and covid, and, in the minds of some, denying their existence or seriousness is close to heresy. Bonkers.

50
0
WomBat99
WomBat99
2 years ago

The thermometer at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens was also used to claim 40C record and the previous year too I think. What is not mentioned is that the gardens house a large concrete building which is the Dept Of Biology and nearby is a major development of housing blocks near the station. None of those would have been there when the gardens were created but i bet no allowance has been made for this.

This is an interesting video I came across by accident on YouTube. A very reasonable discussion of the climate scare by a professor of climate science who gets no funding from the oil companies: https://youtu.be/qJv1IPNZQao

1
0
Alan
Alan
2 years ago

There is nothing new about this. All genuine scientists have been pointing this out for years. It doesn’t even need a science background, common sense is enough. Does anybody remember the Stevenson’s Screens in every park?

1
0

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