Moderna boss Stephane Bancel has said he expects a “material drop” in the efficacy of his company’s vaccine against the new Omicron variant. He told the Financial Times:
I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are like, ‘This is not going to be good.’ … There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level … we had with Delta
He also said it would take months for drugs companies to update the vaccines. This means any Omicron wave is likely to have arrived, peaked and receded before the shots can be manufactured and widely administered.
A more sanguine Boris Johnson claimed on Tuesday afternoon that there are good grounds for believing third vaccine doses will give “considerable protection” against the Omicron variant. This view was given support by Dr Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech and one of the scientists behind the Pfizer vaccine, who said he remains optimistic that the jab will continue to provide protection against severe disease (though, tellingly, did not mention protection against infection). “Our message is: Don’t freak out, the plan remains the same: Speed up the administration of a third booster shot,” he told the Wall Street Journal – though some might point out Dr Sahin may have other reasons for wanting to “speed up” the distribution of his product.
SAGE member Professor John Edmunds has warned that reported infections are rising rapidly in South Africa, where the new variant was first detected last week. While data from Gauteng province, where the new variant was discovered on November 24th, showed a slight decline on Sunday and Monday, this may be a weekend effect, and there has certainly been a sharp rise overall in the past eight days. It is worth keeping an eye on the region to see how it develops.
It has also transpired in the last couple of days that the variant was already in other countries including the Netherlands several days prior to its discovery in South Africa. Nonetheless, the WHO has said the earliest known specimen of the variant was collected on November 9th in southern Africa.
While vaccines may work less effectively against Omicron than against earlier variants such as Delta (efficacy against which, particularly after several months, is anyway disputed), natural immunity arising from previous infection is looking more robust.
Two new research papers, one in the NEJM and one in the Lancet, provide further compelling evidence of the protective power of natural immunity. In the NEJM paper, researchers from Qatar report on reinfections in the country during the back-to-back Alpha- and Beta-associated surges in the first half of 2021. Examining medical records from all 353,326 people who received a positive PCR test in the country between February 28th 2020 and April 28th 2021 (excluding 87,547 people who had received a vaccine), they found that the odds of severe disease on reinfection were 0.12 times those at first infection (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.03-0.31), which translates to 88% protective efficacy. There were no cases of critical disease or death on reinfection versus 28 and seven respectively at first infection, giving 100% efficacy against these outcomes (though the small numbers here resulted in large confidence intervals). Putting the three outcomes of severe, critical, or fatal disease together, they found odds of 0.1 on reinfection compared to first infection (CI: 0.03-0.25), for an efficacy of 90%.
Four reinfections were severe enough to require hospitalisation, they say, but none led to ICU admission or ended in death. “Reinfections were rare and were generally mild, perhaps because of the primed immune system after primary infection,” they write.
They add that in earlier studies they had looked at the protective efficacy of natural infection against reinfection and estimated it at 85% or greater. Putting these figures together, this means prior infection has an efficacy of at least 98.5% against severe reinfection when compared to the immunologically naïve with no previous infection or vaccination. Does this mean that infection with SARS-CoV-2 will behave immunologically like the other ‘common cold’ coronaviruses and provide long-term immunity against severe illness, even if protection against mild reinfection fades, they ask? “If this were the case with SARS-CoV-2, the virus (or at least the variants studied to date) could adopt a more benign pattern of infection when it becomes endemic,” they suggest.
The Lancet paper supports these tentative conclusions. Reviewing all relevant papers on the online medical database PubMed, the authors Noah Kojima and Jeffrey D Klausner from the University of California find seven studies which show the risk of infection decreases by 80·5-100% for the previously infected compared to the immunologically naïve.
Kojima and Klausner make the case for the superiority of natural immunity versus vaccine immunity, including where variants are concerned.
It is known that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces specific and durable T-cell immunity, which has multiple SARS-CoV-2 spike protein targets (or epitopes) as well as other SARS-CoV-2 protein targets. The broad diversity of T-cell viral recognition serves to enhance protection to SARS-CoV-2 variants, with recognition of at least the Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), and Gamma (P.1) variants of SARS-CoV-2. Researchers have also found that people who recovered from SARS-CoV infection in 2002-03 continue to have memory T cells that are reactive to SARS-CoV proteins 17 years after that outbreak. Additionally, a memory B-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 evolves between 1·3 and 6·2 months after infection, which is consistent with longer-term protection.
Some people who have recovered from COVID-19 might not benefit from COVID-19 vaccination. In fact, one study found that previous COVID-19 was associated with increased adverse events following vaccination with the Comirnaty BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech). In addition, there are rare reports of serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination. In Switzerland, residents who can prove they have recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection through a positive PCR or other test in the past 12 months are considered equally protected as those who have been fully vaccinated.
Given this evidence, they argue, “policy makers should consider recovery from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection equal to immunity from vaccination for purposes related to entry to public events, businesses, and the workplace, or travel requirements”.
Based on the studies to date, natural immunity appears to convey 80-90% protection against reinfection and, on top of that, 90% protection against serious disease once reinfected, giving around 99% protection against serious reinfection. This protection doesn’t appear to have waned over time or against new variants in the way vaccine protection has done. Omicron may tax the vaccines, but on the evidence so far it seems unlikely to tax natural immunity in the same way.
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That’s a tour de force of a letter!
Thanks for writing it
Read Viz for more laughs and better science. The BMJ (Bill and Melinda Journal) and The Lancet jumped the shark some time ago.
What a risible position to find themselves in and what more vivid example can there be of ‘painting themselves into a corner’.
What a suppurating stench emerges when the lies are stacked so high and so precariously.
The letter is fine although the restraint is unnecessary. Personally I would have ripped the article apart, bit by bit. Viciously.
At least the authors have shown their colours. No need to take any notice of their uneducated tripe again, they can be consigned to the dustbin.
Where is Peter Doshi?
He gave up, clearly. He understands that the jabs are not vaccines. Must be an awful position to be in.
Whoo, over the target.
I haven’t read the BMJ article, but from what I’ve seen of it here it demonstrates the level of ignorance and banal evil that our society is up against.
Yet it’s hardly surprising that these sort of people want to suppress criticism now – by all rights, and if and when the truth comes out, many of them will be looking at very long jail sentences.
I hope and pray that they pay for the crimes they’ve committed.
The BMJ is captured. Let them expose themselves, don’t interrupt them.
Their hubris, desperation and extremism will hopefully be their downfall
The BMJ know, seemingly quite well, which side their bread is buttered. Does anyone here know where the butter comes from?
Great name btw.
Can’t imagine…
Yep give ‘em enough rope….
But there never was a pandemic. Unless you count the one of government misinformation.
The problem with smear articles of this kind is that they’re luring the people thus attacked into defending themselves, often heatedly, against the contained allegiations, thus promulgating a kind of conversation of the author’s choosing[*] and – ideally – burying whatever the attacked the group was actually trying to communicate under a tsunami of irrelevant noise.
This is a standard disinformation tactic.
[*] eg, intentionally crude example, Is or isn’t UKFSMA a fascist organization?
I’m not entirely sure why the author is so shocked; the entire establishment in most rich world countries has been captured by these people.
At least, it’s a good, honest reaction.
There is relentless hubris eminating from the pro-jab, pro-lockdown side of the debate, that always attempts to silence dissenting opinion. This occurs whether the holder of the opinion is a professor of medicine, or a reporter.
I have never seen this push for censorship from our side, merely a desire for robust discussion.
But then again, history has never shown us tolerance by a ruling elite class for dissenting thought.
I have never seen this push for censorship from our side, merely a desire for robust discussion.
That’s why I think we’re going to win (if ‘win’ is the right word, after all that as happened).
I suspect that’s correct, though as you say, “win” may not be the most apt term! In small ways the truth is becoming more evident to an ever- increasing number of people.
It is very worrying that so many journals and institutes consider it is acceptable for them to aid the suppression of freedom which the political class gives wvery sign of leading. The silence of MPs and Peers is shocking.
The article wasn’t peer reviewed, was it?! Not very well written, either. Referring to the shadowy & extreme-left leaning CCDH simply as an innocuous ‘non-profit’ is its own disinformation; to compare questioning of a clearly biassed and manipulated narrative to the machinations of the tobacco industry is outright malevolence. But of even more concern is the apparent intent to sway the process and outcome of the Covid-19 public enquiry, using all the nudge and psyops methods it mentions in its playbook. The only upside is that by doing so it has, to a certain extent at least, shown its own hand and what we’re up against next time. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.
‘BMJ’ and the phrase ‘respected journal’ should no longer appear in the same sentence – it went over to the dark side a long time ago.
The. BMJ article appears to have been written by people with no clinical background, bar one (Martin McKee, whose opinion I have disagreed with before). I am firmly of the view that measured responses are more effective than rant and applaud UKMFA for its restraint.
They ask “The public inquiry should do three things. Firstly, it should examine the extent to which groups promoting contrarian messages were able to influence policy. We think it unlikely that they were able to do so directly but, given their links to the media and influential politicians, they should be investigated. (emphasis added)”.
The answer is that they were not able to do so directly, as I myself discovered early on. All my attempts to engage failed. This is a major plank of my personal submission to the Hallett Inquiry, which I sent this week, suggesting that ignoring my professional clinical advice led to the unnecessary deaths of possibly 25000 people in the UK.
The BMJ has been running a series of articles on what the COVID inquiry should be looking at. I have responded to a couple but this one I missed. I think UKFMA should send their letter through the journal’s Rapid Response channel ans see what happens.
Have just realised why I missed it – it’s in this weeks issue, which hasn’t yet dropped through my door. There are some wider points to be made so I will be following my own advice and penning a Rapid Response!
…yes, one of the ‘authors’ ….Karam Bales, is an ‘executive member of the National Education Union’…”Together we’ll shape the future of education”.
Personally I wouldn’t want him ‘shaping’ (or as we call it in the real world..propagandising..) anything for my children….but feel free to look him up……he has a Twitter page where he and Deepti Gurdasani (another ‘author!) decry anyone who doesn’t agree with mask wearing…..!!
Look on the bright side. We currently have the most inept governance and a police force akin to the Keystone Cops. They haven’t a snowball in hells chance of muzzling us.
Does the BMJ receive any funding from TBMGF per chance? Just asking.
While I agree with the article, and I hope a retraction is forthcoming…we have obviously passed the point of no return where independence, honesty and integrity is concerned. The BMJ, sadly, is no more trustworthy or worth reading than any of the MSM…ALL the opinions are bought and paid for….
This is pretty obvious to millions of us, which is why they desperately need to close down any dissent…
The London school for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been a cheerleader and promoter of the ‘vaccines’ from the beginning…..and suffice to say a little bit of investigation shows that one of the lead authors, and the chair of the ‘advisory group’ on the paper are from the said London school of hygiene and tropical medicine…(LSHTM)…(Martin McKee/Kara Hanson)
Outside of the USA, Oxford University and the LSHTM are the two biggest recipients of funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…and between 2014-2018 the LSHTM received $344 million…..
Once I started going down the ‘funding’ rabbit hole I also found this….from 2021..
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2021/vaccine-confidence-projecttm-awarded-macarthur-funds-supporting-equitable
The Vaccine Confidence Project™ awarded MacArthur funds supporting an equitable recovery from the pandemic..The VCP has spent the last ten years listening to understand the drivers of vaccine confidence. Through the Vaccine Confidence Index™, a tool for mapping confidence, the VCP has helped to inform the strategies and designs for immunization programs so human and financial resources can be designed for and with the communities they serve. A significant grant has been awarded to the LSHTM….
The MacArthur Foundation is funded by private donation..Microsoft being just one…(shock horror)!,”……..and round and round they go…….
Methinks the Gates-funded Propagandists in the Global Health Bureaucracies are rattled by their failure to shut down dissent and are very well aware of the large and growing evidence that their methods have made a bad situation far, far worse.
Well done to the authors of this letter for magnificently calling the BMJ out.
“Throughout the pandemic, some people have opposed almost all measures introduced by Governments at Westminster and in the devolved administrations, from the initial lockdown to mask mandates and vaccination certificates”
Er yes mainly because they were all totally stupid, ineffective and in most cases life threatening and dangerous.
You have to realize that – when The Good People[tm] govern – opposition becomes a crime perpetrated by The Bad People[tm]. This is also again centrally controlled wording. I’ve read the same in German as justification why a singer of German ditties most popular in the early 1980s (Nena) shouldn’t be allowed to appear on shows of the German public broadcasters anymore — during the pandemic, she opposed government decisions, especially about mandatory social distancing at her concerts. This cannot be tolerated by The Spanish Inquisition[tm].