This is not a pandemic of the unvaccinated
COVID is not the flu, and it is not Ebola.
These simple facts explain much of the confusion about our government’s response to the pandemic.
The ‘superpower’ which this virus has is that it is often highly contagious in people who have no significant symptoms.
Even in people who do get symptoms, they are most contagious at the time symptoms start, and for 24 hours prior to and following the onset of symptoms.
That is very different from the flu.
Almost all of the admonitions issued by our government would be very practical if this were a flu pandemic, because flu symptoms typically mount quickly and include fever by the time the flu victim is very contagious.
When a person feels bad and has a fever, wearing a mask and staying away from other people makes sense. Likewise, it is common sense for the people around the victim to be fastidious about hand washing and other hygiene measures.
It is not common sense to live perpetually in that state, unless we are in the midst of an epidemic of an Ebola-like disease that spreads very easily and has a very high mortality. (About 50% or more of Ebola patients die, regardless of age or previous health status).
It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that COVID is like the flu. I was especially encouraged after the initial reports showed that the mRNA vaccines were 94-95% effective in preventing COVID, and the Moderna vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe COVID in the trials.
I have been disappointed that my experience has taught me differently.
A recent article in the journal Lancet (November 20, 2021), titled “COVID-19: stigmatizing the unvaccinated is not justified,” makes some of these same points.
Stigmatization of the unvaccinated might be justified if COVID behaved like the flu; it doesn’t, and to continue to act as if it does is dangerous as well as idiotic.
Evolution of these viruses will always favor lineages that spread more easily and evade host defenses, whether natural or pharmaceutical.
The reason typically given for the complete dominance of the Delta variant is that it spreads more easily, because to admit that COVID is changing to evade our vaccines would be politically incorrect, or perhaps even ideologically suspect.
Omicron is different, and its differences point up yet another important piece of misinformation. We are told, “Every time COVID is passed from one person to another, there is a chance for mutation.”
That is another incorrect and frankly dangerous misunderstanding or falsehood.
Almost certainly the collection of mutations seen in Omicron were the result of a long-lasting COVID infection within one person. Very likely this was someone who had some type of immunosuppression, such as HIV, and took one or more COVID vaccines or treatments (possibly convalescent plasma). Each one of these acted as an evolutionary pressure, thinning the viral population so that the only virus remaining after each treatment/vaccine were immune to that vaccine or therapy. Omicron has several mutations that are typical of rapidly spreading variants, and it has a mutation that has not been seen previously in the wild: E484A.
We know that E484K in the Beta variant results in substantial or complete evasion of all of our current vaccines, and may cause diminished effectiveness of our most commonly used monoclonal antibody therapies (produced by Regeneron and Eli Lily). In the March 10, 2021 edition of the journal Cell Host & Microbe, Zhuoming Liu et. al describe their efforts to predict and verify which potential mutations could be problematic; they indicate that E484A would likely cause diminished effectiveness of natural immunity. It would likely be otherwise equivalent to the E484K substitution.
It is worth noting that the spike protein on the surface of the viral particle which is responsible for COVID is the location of not only E484, but of all of the targets for the first generation of approved COVID therapeutics. There are a few different ‘handholds’ where antibodies can ‘grab on.’ Natural immunity utilizes several other sites for antibodies to grab, and natural immunity also utilizes cellular immunity that doesn’t require a handhold. The repurposed drugs that have been found to be useful in COVID include inhaled budesonide and the antidepressants fluvoxamine and fluoxetine (Prozac).
There is also evidence that hydroxychloroquine as well as ivermectin, colchicine and some antibiotics have some effectiveness, in addition to zinc and melatonin and vitamins C and D. All of these substances, as well as the new drugs discussed below, are likely to have maintained therapeutic benefit against Omicron.
I think that we have all begun to understand that “every form of refuge has its price.”
Dr. Bradly Bundrant is a physician at Ballinger Memorial Hospital
https://news.yahoo.com/not-pandemic-unvaccinated-145833267.html
