Several datasets have shown what appears to be negative vaccine effectiveness against infection – of higher infection rates among the vaccinated than among the unvaccinated. While this was phenomenon was initially ascribed to the use of incorrect denominators when estimating infection rates, it’s now too widespread to ignore.
One possible explanation for negative vaccine effectiveness is original antigenic sin – a property of the immune system’s response to some viruses.
When the immune system encounters a novel pathogen, it responds to the pathogen’s antigens. Original antigenic sin means that when it encounters a related version of the pathogen, it may respond to the antigens carried by the original version. The result is weaker immunity.
If original antigenic sin exists for the Covid vaccines, then vaccinated people might actually have weaker immunity against certain variants – either now or in the future – because the vaccines have ‘programmed’ their immune systems to target the Wuhan strain.
While a number of sceptics and other ‘non-mainstream’ commentators have mentioned original antigenic sin in this context, we haven’t heard much about it from ‘mainstream’ commentators.
One exception was an op-ed written by three virologists, two of whom resigned from the FDA when the Biden Administration approved booster shots for 16 and 17 year olds without consulting a key advisory panel. In the op-ed, Philip Krause and colleagues point out that “boosting on the original antigen could be counterproductive”.
More recently, original antigenic sin found its way into the New York Times – America’s ‘newspaper of record’. “Some experts have raised concerns,” the article notes, that getting boosters too often “may even be harmful”. And one “plausible” reason why is “original antigenic sin”.
The article goes on to quote Harvard vaccine scientist Amy Sherman as saying, “We have enough clues that it could be a problem.”
There’s certainly no proof that original antigenic sin exists for the Covid vaccines. But the evidence is growing. And it’s summarised in this detailed piece for the Epoch Times by Todd Zywicki. He concludes:
More evidence will be needed before one can raise definitive concern about the risk of OAS with respect to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. But theory, laboratory evidence, and clinical analysis all point to this as a rapidly emerging risk of the current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and one that could be exacerbated by widespread application of booster shots,
As to the alternative explanation that’s been put forward for higher infection rates among vaccinated people – that they take more risks – Zywicki offers a comprehensive rebuttal:
Reams of data and studies demonstrate that not only are these suppositions groundless, they are also exactly opposite to reality. Studies demonstrate what everyday experience during the pandemic tells us – that vaccinated individuals are much more likely to fear SARS-CoV-2 more than unvaccinated and more likely to take precautions against potential COVID-19 infection.
Original antigenic sin ought to be getting a lot more attention from public health authorities. In the meantime, Zywicki’s article is worth reading in full.
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But, as we know, pro-lockdown “science” is science and anti-lockdown science is conspiracy theories. At east that’s what the Guardian told me.
“Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this article are subject to criticisms that are being considered by the Editors.”
All scientific papers are subject to criticisms. That’s sort of the point of science.
If you don’t agree with it, write a response paper.
yes, its a funny remark
‘the paper is going through a normal review process’
Boris Johnson and the British Government’s respond to covid-19 can be compared to imbeciles trying to micromanage a skip fire.
It’s one of those classic British disasters. The Somme. The Scott South Polar mission. The Comet. Thalidomide. Grenfell Tower.
Arrogance. Ignorance. The class system. And a wildly misplaced sense of intellectual superiority. All conspiring to inflict the maximum amount of misery and suffering on people too gullible and otherwise invested in British cultural bullshit to know when they are about to be murdered.
“Boris Johnson and the British Government’s respond to covid-19 can be compared to imbeciles trying to micromanage a skip fire.”
I like this!
but its hardly a British phenomenon in this case
Leave out the Comet – that was a case of the genuine unknown, not willful malpractice. And the Scott expedition was the risk balance going tits up, rather than the reverse.
I agree with much of what you say, but think that the term ‘class system’ needs to be re-defined.
For many, the class system appears to be some sort of pyramid with aristos etc. at the top and people such as me & the family I was born into at the bottom. That’s the way I saw it as a youth.
Thanks to the good fortune of going to a grammar school, various scholarships, perhaps decisions along the way but probably – mostly – luck, I have had a life that brought me into contact with much of that hierarchy both in this country & abroad. 50+ years after leaving school I still see a class system, but it has little to do with the one I thought I saw as a schoolboy.
The modern ‘upper class’ toffs are the self-serving political establishment. In my experience, psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists and the like are over represented there. They exist in governments and acadaemia at all levels – look at local council behaviour over the past year. Very few of them seem to come from the traditional idea of upper class (i.e. aristos, public schools etc.), but if you look at their behaviour you see the same psychological traits. Mostly, they seem to be concerned with protecting and extending their own privileged existence. Other countries don’t have the same historical connotations of ‘class’, but they are suffering from the same mis-governance as the UK. They do, however, have the same class system and are burdened with the same consequences.
In a nutshell, Herr Dr Gauss’ distribution describes it. There are a few saints at one end, a few sinners at the other & most of us are somewhere in between. At present, however, governments around the world (not just the Westminster Windbags, but the Whitehall Wormtongues – at all levels) are skewed strongly towards the sinner tail. How to fix that? History doesn’t help, but maybe Mao Tse Tung’s ‘cultural revolution’ had some merit.
Even if lockdowns reduced covid deaths they still wouldn’t be justified
But Imperial’s model shows lockdowns increase covid deaths
Plus lockdown deaths
Should have stuck to the normal pandemic response plan – after all it was designed for something like this
Good article by Will Jones, ‘new study confirms lockdowns don’t reduce covid deaths’
The studies continue to show lockdowns don’t work from a data analysis perspective.
And as Will explains there are many solid scientific reasons to explain why they don’t work and even could make things worse, although it’s clearly multi-factorial and hard to pin down the inter-related contributions of each factor.
And that’s before you consider all the indirect deaths caused by enforced lockdowns, and the damage caused by destroying freedoms and societies.
The sad thing is that if the government and the concensus opinion of the science industry (which I take to mean conflicted ‘scientists’ failing to apply the scientific method of testing hypotheses) tell us lockdowns do work, it seems that most people will just believe the government and science industry. And the mainstream media are set up to communicate this one sided narrative only. How much evidence there is is irrelevant, if it is simply ignored.
All we can do is to try and communicate the reality through whatever means we can find. But at the moment it’s simply not enough.
I would like to think most people don’t want to live this way and that’s the only real force that will get us out of this mess.
You’ve touched on what is the key central point : Lock-ups can only be justified if there is clear, indisputable evidence of a beneficial effect that outweighs the massive costs. We’re not talking about marginal effects that are hard to discern.
In fact, there is increasing evidence that the effects of lock-up are entirely on the debit side – and that obviously increases as time goes on.
So – the case against lock-ups is clear : they have no benefit whatsoever.
Looking at the study in Nature, it seems the age of the population is not taken into account. I doubt how you can make relevant comparisons then.