A few weeks ago, the Washington Post announced “President Biden, doubly boosted, is in a much more favorable position to fight COVID-19 than President Donald Trump was before the rollout of vaccines.” NPR elaborated, “Even if you’re the president, it’s hard to avoid a breakthrough Covid infection.”
We all know many individuals who have been vaccinated and boosted, yet still get infected. How does that happen? One reason is that original COVID-19’s SARS CoV-2 virus – to which human populations have built immunologic resistance through exposure, vaccine or both – no longer circulates. References to current illness as COVID-19 represents a category mistake (when a person talks about something as though it’s a different type of thing from the thing it is).
It was still pertinent to speak of ‘COVID-19’ after the late 2020 exit of the ‘ancestral’ version, since certain SARS CoV-2 descendants, via mutation, found gaps in our immunologic defenses to become next-generation (but milder) ‘variants of concern’ (VOC). They ran sequentially through the Greek alphabet, springing up around the globe: Alpha (England), Beta (South Africa), Gamma (Brazil), and Delta (India).
All of these second-wave variant-strains ultimately disappeared, superseded in the category of coronavirus infection by the significantly milder virus found circulating late 2021 in South Africa. This virus was given a Greek letter name as per the previous VOC format – but this was inappropriate, given that Omicron strain is not a lineal SARS-CoV-2 descendant.
Its sufferers are not therefore having ‘breakthrough’ COVID-19 cases. Omicron is a coronavirus, so there is some crossover; however, there is no substantial immunologic protection from previous natural-illness COVID-19 recovery – and essentially zero from doubly-dosed COVID-19 vaccines.
Before the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics, the textbook definition of a coronavirus episode was “acute, mild upper respiratory infection (common cold)”. Omicron symptoms are indistinguishable from the cold’s to the point that, in April, England updated its ‘COVID-19’-symptom list effectively to coincide with the common cold’s: “It’s not possible to tell if you have COVID-19, flu or another respiratory infection based on symptoms alone,” officials say.
Yet, experts have not acceded to a return to (pre-Covid) normalcy (of not fussing over the coronaviruses whose symptoms overlap with myriad other common-cold viruses).
A friend mentioned his exasperation and wonder of coming down with “COVID-19, again!” – but what were his actual symptoms?
“Not much, a bit of a cough, some achiness for two days; my wife had a fever of 99°, basically a summer cold.”
“The President Gets A Summer Cold” isn’t news. Those Biden articles weren’t ‘fake news’ per se, but they did beg the question in declaring his illness to be “COVID-19”. The press is not fully to blame insofar as public health authorities purposefully keep outworn, outdated ‘COVID-19’ in the lexicon.
I propose that the vastly milder illnesses emanating from today’s predominant strain 22B-Omicron-BA.5 (and its successors) deserve rebranding outside the COVID-19 franchise. From a scientific standpoint:
- The “22B” prefix reflects discovery as the second Omicron of 2022 (fully three years after COVID-19’s eponymous origin).
- “There’s no transparent path of transmission linking Omicron to its [COVID-19] predecessors.”
- Genomically, Omicron’s gap from second wave VOCs exceeds theirs from the ancestral strain.
In other words, (per Emma Hodcroft of Nextstrain and the University of Bern): Omicron is almost like an orphan, without close relatives on the COVID-19 tree. Micaheleen Doucleff explains: “Its genes just looked so different from the other [COVID-19] genome sequences.”
Dr. Hodcroft places Omicron on a genomic map far afield from all previous SARS CoV-2 strains, positing but never proving connection to the COVID-19 ‘family tree’.
Clinically, Omicron is less lethal than influenza, verging on common cold, according to the Financial Times.
Omicron infection does show as a positive on ‘COVID-19’ tests; however these have never been shown to be specific to SARS CoV-2 (versus other coronaviruses).
As Omicron’s not a direct SARS-CoV-2 descendant, it may just be an (uncommon) ‘common cold”.
“Omicron may have picked up some genetic material from a cousin, a common cold-causing coronavirus,” notes Dr. David Aronoff.
This shouldn’t be shocking: coronaviruses represent the cold’s second most common cause by type.
Historically, there has been no nomenclature enforcement regarding the ‘common cold’, itself a bucket-term based on symptoms rather than viral subtypes. So whether Omicron is a classic ‘common cold’ coronavirus or a novel coronavirus that looks and acts exactly like any common cold is a distinction without a difference.
No doubt if, for some reason, we put this same level of attention and testing to the other disparate viral causes of common cold, we’d find unusual variant strains of RSV, adenovirus, influenza B, etc. The thing is, we don’t – because there’s no cause to do so.
Omicron brings any further deep focus on coronaviruses to a point of diminishing personal and societal returns. Common colds are not tracked, discussed, tested, pre-vaccinated – let alone used as cudgels bureaucratically and legally.
Omicron, nonetheless, is still considered ‘COVID-19’ – yet warrants reassignment as ‘common cold’ – or perhaps baptism as ‘Corona-22’ – relegating erstwhile dangerous but now disappeared ‘Covid-19’ SARS-CoV-2 to the history books. So much confusion would be eliminated by Omicron’s simple rename to ‘Corona-22’.
- Current infections would no longer incorrectly be deemed COVID-19 vaccine ‘breakthroughs’.
- Antiquated COVID-19 vaccines would be seen immediately as having no rational reason to be called ‘boosters’.
- It would be medical malpractice to inject a 2019 flu shot today, even if relabelled as ‘booster’.
- COVID-19 vaccines could be memorialised for prior contributions, while removed from Corona-22’s pharmacopeia.
- mRNA for COVID-19’s SARS CoV-2 would be removed from the (inappropriately) ‘bivalent’ new anti-Omicron vaccine.
- As a medical side note, retirement has occurred routinely with Monoclonal Antibody Therapy (MAT). Each is phased out as its VOC disappears.
- Vaccines and MAT produce the same result: spike-protein antibodies; yet, while MATs’ shelf-life coincides precisely with its matched VOC, the ancestral 2020 COVID-19-vaccine has persisted with its own VOC long gone.
- The ambient ‘fear factor’ would downwardly recalibrate to Corona-22’s (Omicron’s) around tenfold diminishment in lethality.
- We’d have closure for the COVID-19 pandemic. (That day will eventually come, why not now?)
- COVID-19 societal roadblocks would contextually achieve obsolescence. The masks come off (and absurdities such as requiring this year’s pre-school children in Philadelphia again to be masked would more easily be counter-litigated).
- We’d begin to appreciate how common-cold coronaviruses got there in the first place – by the same ‘in like a lion, out like a lamb’ pathway.
Interestingly, the last point might help elucidate some of the others. Instead of lions and lambs, let’s look at wolves and poodles: both emanated from some now-extinct wolf. Current-day wolves can be as dangerous as they choose, having no investment in human health or happiness; from their own sanctuary they take human life with no remorse. The poodles’ ‘sanctuary’ is humanity. It’s foolhardy to bite the hand that feeds.
By analogy, Ebola, influenza, and the original 2003 SARS have animal reservoirs in which to retreat and regroup – and thus, can be vicious. The common cold is more like the poodle. Its viral success requires keeping human hosts upright, semi-functional and sneezing. Hospitalisation and death interrupt the chain.
A strong perimeter makes sense against wolves, but not poodles. There are influenza, but no common-cold vaccines. Pfizer is prepping one for Omicron, but as a tweak of its COVID-19 shot, keeping it under the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) umbrella. So long as the operative disease or virus term remains ‘ COVID-19’, the EUA’s liability-reduction, pharmaceutical company enrichment and political leverage remain. H.L. Mencken, cynic, said: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
Whether governments had valid reason to bring fear in 2020 is arguable. None exists in 2022. The EUA, as the gift that keeps on giving, prevents any turning of the page from COVID-19 to Corona-22 or some other rational resolution. There is no reasonable or legitimate public safety purpose to behave as if ‘COVID-19’ is still the major threat in 2022, nor that the COVID-19 vaccine is still necessary. Moreover, the incipient ‘bivalent’ Omicron vaccine fulfills no genuine patient need. Historically, the common cold has never been pre-vaccinated; vaccinating after-the-fact has minimal positive and potential negative effects; and the COVID-19 portion has no medicinal, only legal purpose for existing as the second ingredient.
Dr. Randall Bock is a primary care physician near Boston, Massachusetts, and the author of Overturning Zika. Read his blog and follow him on Twitter.
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The short answer is No it is not time to start the Dangerous New Virus!!47 game afresh. It’s time to end it.
A thorough and interesting article covering the origins of Omicron. Was it the result of a lab leak in S. Africa where virology/vaccine research was taking place?
https://www.stopgof.com/english/omicron-origin/
This article isn’t awful, but I don’t think it’s really a good fit for the Daily Sceptic readership. If it appeared in the Guardian then maybe TDS could have a an article about that. That would be mildly newsworthy.
The principal problem with this article is that it accepts the ‘Covid was really dangerous’ lie. A quick look at the footnotes to that FT chart should make the problems with it immediately obvious. The statement that Covid once was 20 times as lethal as the flu is arrived at by comparing all deaths where Covid was mentioned AT ALL on the death certificate (most likely massively overstating Covid deaths, with infection data from the ONS (quite possibly massively understating infections). That then is compared to IFR for regular flu – which the footnotes suggest might have been done properly (who knows of course).
No, this is the biggest lie of all and the one that we must keep challenging as everything that followed flowed from it. Expecting the average person to understand the reasons why vaccine coercion and lockdowns both don’t work and are morally unacceptable, even in response to a truly lethal virus, is too ambitious.
Separately, I’m quite happy for people to believe that Omicron is the much less lethal end state of Covid. It provides and ending of sorts to this story. I don’t want people to believe that Covid is still out there hiding, waiting to kill us all.
Indeed. Only 6000 people out of 130k deaths classified as Covid deaths in England&Wales had Covid as the only cause on their death certificate.
And that is an official figure, likely still overestimating the real one in light of the prohibition of autopsies and other dynamics at play here.
My first thought when reading the headline was, is it time to accept that CoVid 19 is not CoVid 19?
CoVid = abbreviation of Coronavirus Disease = Common Cold.
The ‘19’ (2019) was to give the pretence that it was a ‘novel’ disease caused by a ‘novel’ virus, instead of the same disease that is caused by a number of viruses, including other ancient coronaviruses, of which we have another rather mild variant.
It should have been called JAC… Just Another Coronavirus.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of the internet suggested it stood for.. ‘Certification Of Vaccination ID – (AI = 1,9)? They’re kidding!!!
Unfortunately the regulators behind the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) are funded by the pharmaceutical industry and the Big Pharma have no incentive to lose the extraordinarily profitable EUA. Pesky safety trials to ensure a new product is safe and effective are simply not profitable, and as there is no liability then unsafe and ineffective is just fine provided it is highly profitable.
Of course there could have been no EUA had there been any safe and effective treatments like ivermectin and HCQ…. hence the cheep effective treatment bashing by Big Pharma lackeys.
Is it time to start building a gallows yet?
And the Times muppets will not allow their journalists to properly investigate this conflict of interest. Probably for similar reasons.
My conclusion to this article is actually that it shows what a colossal mistake it was (almost certainly a deliberate one) to allow PCR tests to define the disease.
If COVID is a set of symptoms then you can’t declare someone has a disease just because of a test that indicates the probability of the presence of viral material.
We’ve spent 2+ years calling COVID many things that were not COVID.
Is Omicron not COVID? Almost everything that was called COVID since March 2020 hasn’t actually been COVID. Start with that.
Yep. PCR is a gigantic fraud, even without the ones instituted on top of it like non-standardization, arbitrary higher/lower CT for vaxxed/unvaxxed, non confirmation, single snippet search etc. that were all known by June 2020 the latest.
But a very profitable and absolutely essential one to create and milk a plandemic.
I read yesterday that thousands of tests got an EUA, but none has gotten full approval yet, to prevent liability issues.
What else does one need to know?!
Even worse, we’ve spent 2+ years calling people in perfect health ‘infected’ or a ‘case’ (as in an ill patient) when they were no such thing.
Let’s just go back to what we have done for decades and start calling respiratory ailments what we have always done – a cold when mild, a flu when worse. I find the point that a flu virus is far worse than a cold virus moot, as we now know one and the same virus can be a mild cold for some and can lead to weeks of bed rest and pneumonia for others. As generally we did not test for viruses, who knows how many of us in reality did have a flu virus but called it a cold as we were not ill enough to think otherwise.
And yes, above all, let us stop with testing people who are clearly not ill. Having a sniffle or a sore throat is not being ill, it’s being under the weather. The one thing Fraudci was right about (although it was in a vain attempt to try to hide that his pet poison was not working as advertised) is that people should only test if they are admitted to hospital. In someone that ill it may be worth knowing what the exact virus is, for the rest, stay home, have some Lemsip, get some rest, have some Vit D and C and move along.
PCR became the disease. It is a first in medical science that a laboratory reagent to detect a pathogen is a disease.
There can be no disease without symptoms. Being infected is not disease. Daily we are infected with a variety of micro-organisms which we don’t notice because they are innocuous, in insufficient quantity to cause affect, or our immune system bumps them off quickly.
Maybe all this is merely an artefact of testing for a “virus” which has only been characterised by computer simulation of a random sequence of nucleotides apparently found in patient zero (thank you China).
All the rest is a farrago of an intrinsically dodgy PCR/LFT regime?
There is clearly something going round but we have not achieved herd immunity because there is an insufficient reservoir of immune people, ie the had covid but never jabbed.
Unfortunately covid or whatever will continue to circulate due to the vast number of people jabbed with a none sterilising gene based product.
This is evidenced by the jabbed getting repeat infections, despite, or rather because of the jab. There is scientific evidence of VAIDS, OAS, and ADE.
See G.V.Bossche.
Yet we are still jabbing and jabbing kids.
Criminal and madness.
Me thinks Omicron was the wild version, created by leaky mass gene-therapisation against the original man-made bioweapon.
And the only really interesting question left is whether that bioweapon was released accidentally or intentionally.
If it carries on at this rate, ‘The Science’™️ will discover the Common Cold.
Must admit I am partial to Hobgoblin…
Maths teacher in the year 2030. “Today children we are going learn about the dangers of Mathematical Modeling and how it destroys society”
Omicron was never Covid-19 and neither were any of the other variants. Covid-19 is the serious hyperimmune state that may occur following SARS-CoV-2. The same syndrome occurs after other viruses and spontaneously. Different types of SARS-CoV-2 have different risks for Covid-19. Omicron simply has a lower risk. Using the terms SARS-CoV-2 infection and Covid-19 interchangeably, as continues to be done, is clinically and scientifically inaccurate.
One has to wonder whether lab leaks are more common than is being made out. No one has looked back at the sudden emergence of HIV/AIDS in the late 1970s, in light of COVID-19, for starters…
Dr Hope-Simpson was a sceptic who questioned medical orthodoxy. He studied chickenpox and shingles, showing how immunity conferred by natural chickenpox in childhood waned with age; the two conditions were known to be related, but the nature of the relationship was unclear. He showed that a virus could lie dormant in the human body for years or decades and reappear in another form. Later, the single virus responsible for both diseases was identified and isolated by Thomas Huckle Weller.
Hope-Simpson’s career-long interest in the transmission of respiratory viruses was equally inventive. He questioned the theory of person-to-person transmission being enough to explain the simultaneous appearance of influenza in places far apart. He proposed that influenza epidemics during winter may be connected to a seasonal influence, perhaps a lack of vitamin D, as outbreaks in temperate latitudes peak in the month following the winter solstice and disappear the following spring/summer. As the virus mutates, it becomes less virulent and more infectious until the outbreak ends.
Hope-Simpson describes the course of the COVID-19 epidemic pretty well so far, although this virus took longer than flu usually takes to “burn out.” Most respiratory viruses mature and change their character during an outbreak that begins suddenly and then gently subsides.