Dr. Michael Mosley in the Daily Mail has written a piece criticising those like Novak Djokovic who say they regard themselves as in no need of vaccination as they have protection from a previous Covid infection. In the article Dr. Mosley – who is medically qualified but no longer a registered doctor and has worked as a BBC journalist for the past 37 years – makes a series of claims about the vaccines and natural immunity that don’t withstand scrutiny.
The first is that previous infection provides much less protection against Omicron infection than does vaccination.
Just because you have antibodies against a previous strain of Covid, that does not mean you are protected against catching, or spreading it to more vulnerable people such as patients with cancer or pregnant women. A study published in December, by researchers from Imperial College London, concluded that the protection against Omicron, if you have had a prior Covid infection “may be as low as 19%”. A course of vaccines – the double dose plus the booster – on the other hand, offers something like 75% protection.
What Dr. Mosley doesn’t mention is that the December study from Imperial was a preliminary study that also found no evidence of Omicron “having lower severity than Delta”. Omicron is now known to be considerably less severe than Delta, suggesting the study should not be taken as the final word on Omicron and natural immunity. A more recent study puts the protection provided by natural immunity against Omicron infection at 56%. This is higher than the level of protection reported for the boosters by the UKHSA, which finds just 40-50% protection at 10 weeks. The protection provided by previous infection is also more resilient.
Dr. Mosley’s explanation of why the protection from vaccines is supposedly superior to that from previous infection also makes no sense. He writes:
Why the difference? It appears that our immune systems are very good at learning from experience. The more often your immune system is challenged by a virus (or a vaccine, which is mimicking that virus), the better it gets at defending itself against it.
The first time your immune system encounters a virus it isn’t quite sure how to react and it takes time to start building an effective response. While that is happening, the virus is busy replicating, spreading and doing damage.
If you’re lucky, your immune system will spring into action and you will recover after a trivial illness. If you are unlucky, you end up in hospital, perhaps in intensive care. The idea of a vaccine is that your immune system gets the nudge to start working long before you are exposed to the real thing.
The reason for a second, and even third jab, is this amplifies and refines your immune response to protect you, and others, in the future.
This of course fails to explain why encountering the virus should provide less effective immune protection than a vaccine. Just because while your body is working out how to counter the virus the virus can make you unwell tells you nothing about how strong your subsequent immunity to re-infection will be. It is true that a vaccine mimics a virus to prime your immune system, and the idea of multiple shots is to improve that response. However, there is plenty of evidence that the vaccines are weaker and less resilient against infection than natural immunity. For example, see the chart below from a large Danish study, where the orange line for the previously infected (but not vaccinated) is higher and stays much higher than the green line for the vaccinated (but not previously infected).
It’s been suggested that the reason vaccine protection against infection (contra Dr. Mosley) is relatively weak and declines fast is because the vaccines, being based only on part of the virus and injected into muscle, do not produce the full immune response that encountering the full virus does. For example, encountering the virus produces mucosal (IgA) antibodies in the respiratory tract that are important in mounting an early response to infection; however, these are absent following vaccination.
Dr. Mosley then implies that vaccination is superior for protecting against new variants like Omicron and therefore better for preventing transmission and protecting the vulnerable.
Multiple exposures seems to be particularly effective at educating your T-cells, immune cells responsible for seeking out and killing dangerous viruses, and which are vital for conferring long-term immunity. T-cells also seem to be much better than antibodies at detecting and destroying new variants of Covid.
And this matters because one of the main reasons for getting vaccinated, as far as I’m concerned, is that by doing so you’re protecting others — particularly the vulnerable who cannot have a jab.
We know that people who are vaccinated carry a lower load of virus, and clear it faster from their bodies, so there is a much lower chance they will pass it on. Vaccines, of course, can have side-effects and are not 100% effective. One of the criticisms of Covid vaccines is that, despite being triple jabbed, you can still get infected and become ill.
As noted above, though, the evidence is that natural immunity is superior to vaccine immunity for protecting against infection, particularly over time and against new variants, so this argument fails. It’s also noteworthy that UKHSA data shows the vaccinated having significantly higher infection rates than the unvaccinated since the autumn, as does Public Health Scotland data, implying it is not true that the vaccinated spread the virus less than the unvaccinated.
The claim that people who are vaccinated carry a “lower load of virus” is also not supported by evidence. For instance, a study in the Lancet found no difference in household secondary attack rate depending on whether the index case was vaccinated, and correspondingly no difference in viral load. A study by the U.S. CDC also found no difference in infectiousness and concluded: “Clinicians and public health practitioners should consider vaccinated persons who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 to be no less infectious than unvaccinated persons.” UKHSA and others have also found viral load no lower in the vaccinated. These studies are all pre-Omicron, which is likely to be even more able to evade vaccines.
Dr. Mosley points out that protection from vaccination plus previous infection is superior to that from previous infection alone. This appears correct; however, as can be seen in the chart above, the difference is relatively small and almost all the protection comes from the previous infection rather than the vaccine. The difference will also likely diminish over time without frequent boosters.
Dr. Mosley disputes that antibodies from previous infection should be used as an indicator of protection.
Some people who are against mandatory vaccinations for NHS staff suggest we could test people for antibodies to COVID-19, and if they have them that would mean they are safe to work. But just because you have antibodies doesn’t mean you can’t infect others or get infected. That’s why regulators, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have recommended that antibody tests should not currently be used to evaluate a person’s level of immunity or protection from a Covid infection.
However, this argument applies with at least as much force to vaccination, as it’s evident that the vaccinated can and do frequently contract and transmit the virus, seemingly more than the previously infected. So on that argument, why should vaccination status not equally be deemed inadmissible as evidence of being ‘safe’?
Dr. Mosley’s article is a classic example of only presenting the findings and data that back up one’s point of view, rather than looking at all the evidence in the round. Perhaps the Mail will now allow a better informed (and even registered and practising) medic to write a more accurate piece so as to avoid its readers remaining misinformed?
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That’s socialism!
The rich have never paid taxes that’s the whole point of getting rich, Once they have about five million they hire a retired tax inspector, of which there are many to deal with those pesky affairs. They don’t even see it as a bad thing merely the next appropriate step. Rupert Murdoch boasts that he has paid minimal tax throughout his life and he is lauded as a folk hero for his bucanerieng spirit.If democracy was all it is cracked up to be then submitting your tax returns would be a joyous occasion because you would feel the deilight of pooling your money with others for the betterment of the common weal but it doesn’t really have that kind of vibe about it.
They don’t mean really rich people, just everyone richer than they are. Paying more tax doesn’t really truly rich people’s lifestyles anyway. What they mean is tax the middle class especially those working in the private sector, and the self employed.
That’s true. In economics they call it the hourglass effect. The top and the bottom swell up and the middle is squeezed out entirely.
People getting paid for doing nothing, parasites on wealth producers. There is a transfer from private sector, wealth creating workers to non-producers.
As for the public sector workers – even the ones like the holy NHS lot – since their output is not sold in a free competitive market, there is no price system by which the value of output v value of input can be assessed.
I would wager the cost of providing that output far exceeds its value, particularly since they get paid more and more without any link to revenue absent a price system, or any means to ensure more out for more payment.
It is the politics of envy.
You confuse tax amount with marginal tax rate.
10% tax on £1 million is more than 20% of £30 000, for example.
The problem is we have a large trough called tax revenue, and a population of pigs desperate to get their snouts into it to snuffle up as much plunder as possible.
A population that thinks others should provide for them what they don’t provide for themselves, greedy voters who believe they have a right to other people’s money (particularly if wealthier) to be used to serve their interests.
The obsession about taxation is because everyone thinks they have a right to live of each other.
Time people learned to expect to support themselves.
Jeremy Kyle talking sense here. Prioritizing migrants for housing over natives…could this be the solution for social cohesion we’ve all been waiting for? <max sarc>
”Jeremy Kyle slams Angela Raynor’s housing policies that will allow terrorists to have council houses. British taxpayers will no longer be given priority for social housing over migrants.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1826913762466476050
It’s just a post on Twitter, so no source, but if this is really the case across England then is it any wonder they’re getting to jump the queue?
”One of my followers connected with social housing brings us the sheer entitlement of Muslims in the South-East.
“Hi David, I saw your post regarding social housing & would like to share with you. I can’t publicly post due to my job so this is completely anonymous.
“Ninety-five percent of people presenting as homeless to our local council are Muslim, they refuse to be put into temporary accommodation due to religious reasons. I assume its due to male & female family members having to share a room.
“They therefore are given keys immediately to long term council housing & completely bypass the waiting list, approximately 3- 5 years in hostels for British applicants.”
Absolutely outrageous.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1827048865511391590
Just happened tonight in Germany. It never stops. Attacker still at large;
”Several people were killed and more injured in a knife attack in the western German city of Solingen on Friday, German media reported.
According to reports, a man stabbed passers-by at random with a knife at a festival celebrating the city’s 650th anniversary.
The local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt reported that three people had been killed and others were in a life-threatening situation.
Philipp Müller, one of the co-organizers, said paramedics are fighting to save the lives of nine people.”
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-several-reported-killed-at-street-party-in-solingen/a-70037172
”Police have deployed helicopters to search for an “Arab-looking perpetrator” responsible for a mass stabbing spree in Solingen this evening.
At least 3 people are dead and several others seriously injured after the attack during a street festival celebrating diversity.”
https://x.com/RMXnews/status/1827097475485688005
A German Twitter post suggests he shouted the magic ‘Allah’s Snackbar’ before the murders and was a regular visitor to the local terrorist centre – oops mosque.
Yep, that source is here;
”A report from the Solingen police, which WELT AM SONNTAG has access to, states verbatim: “A witness who was injured in the attack stated that the unknown suspect was ‘known from Solingen’ and that he was also a visitor to a local mosque. A witness reported that the suspect shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ during his actions.”
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article253170104/Solingen-Polizeibericht-Zeuge-hoerte-Allahu-Akbar-Ruf.html
No riots in Germany then?
They don’t have a Far Right any more do they – except for Far Right anti-free speech laws against anyone who criticises government or office holders apparently.
If you are in Germany and do that on X etc you go to chokey.
National socialism is not dead it just exists under a different identity. Apparently there are loads to choose from including 108 different gender identities thanks to our Far Left national socialist friends around the world.
“Destabilise, destabilise, destabilise.” screeched the Daleks in the BBC’s new woke version of Dr What.
No longer Dr Who because apparently the good Doctor will regenerate in a new gender identity every episode – with all the fabulous clothes the costume department can run riot with.
Are there so many Pride marches, Pride months, Pride flags, Pride articles etc because they need to convince themselves there is something about all of this to be proud of?
Maybe there will one day be heterosexual pride months and marches and flags and articles.
Nah. ‘Born heterosexual and proud of it’ seems unnecessary.
“It can’t be right that we have no limits on one part of our economy and yet we force real-terms pay cuts [on others].”–YES IT IS. ——Government employees make NOTHING. They sell NOTHING. They create no wealth. If I manufacture a product and everyone wants to buy it, then why should I not benefit from that? But it is not only me who benefits. All the people I employ benefit through good employment. There is a supply chain that benefits providing all the stuff I need to make my product. ——This Tax the rich idea is the politics of envy. I believe we tax oil and gas companies at a rate about 70%. This is absurd.
It’s why the oil/gas companies are leaving the North Sea: there are more profitable opportunities elsewhere. And then the UK will need to import even more!
The main beneficiary is the consumer who has something they want and value.
Sound money – value backed – is created when a good/service consumers want and value is produced.
Where nothing is produce valueless money is created out of thin air by Government to supplement money taken from producers to pay non-producers. This debauches the currency, causes inflation which further transfers wealth from producers to non-producers. Producers have to produce more, but get less in exchange making them poorer. Non-producers don’t have to work harder to increase their income, it’s guaranteed by Government printing money.
This post should make it absolutely clear. Dale Vince is a snake oil salesman. His business is “Renewable Energy”, or to be more accurate, harvesting enormous subsidies for wind turbines and solar panels,
“Solutions” that absolutely don’t work for “Problems” that don’t really exist.
No wonder he can give a £5 Million public bung ( and doubtless many nice private tokens of his affection) to corrupt and totally incompetent politicians who want to impoverish and replace YOU.
Yep——Infact no one would ever build a wind turbine without the massive subsidy because they are totally uneconomical. For every watt of electricity they produce you need the same amount ticking over in the background from a full time source like gas as backup for when the wind stops (which is often) This is like having to buy two televisions or two cars or two houses when one should be all that is required.
Spot on.
They’ll all want what the Doctors get, and still won’t be content!
Bonfire of the public sector and QUANGO’s is needed, and why should taxpayer funded public sector employee’s be allowed to unionise? It’s not the government that pays their income, pensions and pay rises, its the long suffering taxpayer, who they have no qualms inconveniencing and abusing!
They need reminding they are public SERVANTS.
Mr Vince is not short of a bob or two. let him start, he should send a cheque for 95% of his wealth to HMRC
Back to the future. Voting for the Dark Lord Starmer’s Socialist Party was a vote for the 1970s.
Reminder: 22% inflation, 16% mortgage rates, powerful unions, 14% union wage claims, 35% to 83% Income Tax rates, 46% corporation tax, strikes, strikes, strikes in the public sector and strategic industry, power cuts, increasing unemployment, flight of wealthy abroad, Brain Drain as professionals also fled abroad, general air of gloom and misery.
The good old days. Makes me almost nostalgic.
In the good old days, workers in the public sector accepted a lower pay rate during their working lives for an index linked pension at the end of it.
So the unions must surely now be quite happy for the government to reverse that position and not have anymore index linked ‘inflation proof’ pension funds and make all the public sector employees have the same state pension arrangements as the private sector.
If only the private sector workers could go on strike to get their pay raised to the 2011 equivalent level. Or perhaps private companies should charge public sector workers more for their services?