In my last post I wrote about Radical Uncertainty and the fact that many things are simply unknowable.
More people (especially experts) should admit "I don't know" when confronted with a question that is uncertain or unknowable.
More people should also take a step back and ask "What is going on?" when they are in a situation with a lot of uncertainty.
We should have had more of both as we confronted Covid-19.
There is much that is unknowable. There is a lot of uncertainty about what comes next.
What is going on?
I have asked this question a lot during the pandemic.
I have posed this question considerably more since we started the vaccination program and seen cases spike and deaths double since this time last year when NO ONE WAS VACCINATED.
How could this be the case?
What is going on?
Let's explore that question with one possible answer.
It is not an answer that I want to be correct. In fact, I hope it is flat-out wrong.
However, as things are unfolding right now there are signals that it might provide some answers to what is going on.
I first heard of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche earlier this year when he wrote an open letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) warning against implementing a mass vaccination program during the middle of a pandemic.
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| Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche |
The letter got my attention as Bossche is anything but an anti-vaxxer. In fact, at one time he was Senior Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation working on their global health and vaccine initiatives. He also worked for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) as Senior Ebola Program Manager
The thesis by Bossche is simple.
Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is a prescription for disaster. The vaccinations are going to lead to "viral immune escape" by which the virus will continue to mutate around the Covid vaccines creating more variants that will be increasingly dangerous to mankind.
His thesis is similar to what we hear about the overuse of antibiotics to treat bacterial infections. The more that they are used (or overused) the greater the chance that the bacterial infections will get stronger and eventually evade all antibiotics.
In his open letter, he argued that we were heading to a disastrous situation of our own making if we did not cease the mass vaccination efforts. We could be planting the seeds for a mutant virus that could not be handled by the human immune system. This would be of particular danger to those who were vaccinated because their natural immune systems would be compromised by the vaccines but it would also pose severe risks to the unvaccinated.
Bossche's thesis was not very comfortable to consider when I first heard it. I took comfort in the fact that there were no other experts who supported his conclusions. As you might expect, he has been censored and marginalized for his views.
Fast forward to today.
What is going on?
I recently read a blog post in the Merogenomics blog by Dr. M. Raszek that dissects the theories of Dr. Bossche.
It is important to note that this post was written in July when Covid cases in the United States were one-fourth of what they are today despite increasing vaccinations since then. Israel had not initiated its booster shot program.
Joe Biden had just said this to a Town Hall audience on CNN on July 21.
“You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky had stated emphatically in April that vaccinated people do not transmit Covid.
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| Source: https://fortune.com/2021/04/01/its-official-vaccinated-people-dont-transmit-covid-19/ |
These charts provide perspective as to what has occurred with Covid in the last two months in the United States.
It should be clear to everybody that something is going on.
WHAT IS GOING ON?
Is there something to Bossche's theory to answer the question "What is Going On?"
I am going to draw heavily from quotes in the above blog because I am not a scientist or doctor and this is a complex topic. That blog relied on material on Bossche's website but the author of the blog post states that he does not know if any of this is correct. He did the research and wrote the blog post just to better understand the theory.
Take it for what that is worth which could be nothing. I hope it is.
Let's start with the basic question. What is immune escape?
By immune escape, we mean a virus that has mutated to be able to be completely unaffected by the antibodies meant to stop it from working. Basically, the mutations impact the ability of the antibodies to either bind the virus or be able to prevent it from infecting cells, even if they are bound to the virus.
Simply stated, that is a virus that you have no defense against either through your natural immune system or through antibodies created by a vaccine.
The worst case outcome according to Bossche is that the mass vaccination efforts cause more and more variants trying to evade the vaccine which gets stronger and stronger.
This is bad for everyone but especially for those who are vaccinated because the vaccines weakened their natural immune system. As stronger variants emerge they will be left defenseless. The unvaccinated will also be threatened as they may still have a good natural immune system but having to fight off new variants while their immune system has been weakened in fighting off a previous variant may be too much for them to handle. Those best protected will be those who were previously infected with Covid who did not get vaccinated. They will have the broadest, strongest ability to fight new variants.
Let's see how Bossche predicted this would play out and compare that to what we see today.
He predicted that at first mass vaccinations would lead to a large reduction in cases.
Prior to the emergence of any new strains, as a consequence of immune pressure imposed on the virus due to mass vaccinations, the very first expected outcome of mass vaccination will be to see cases dramatically go down.
Refer to the graphs above. Cases started dropping dramatically beginning in January shortly after the vaccination program started.
However, according to Bossche, hidden within the drop in cases, mutations of a new virus strain will be slowly developing in trying to avoid the immune pressure created by the vaccines. It is working to get stronger and find new hosts to infect.
But that drop in cases, seen as a flat line of very little observed cases, is referred to as the valley of fitness. This is where the new virus strain that has mutated to overcome this immune pressure is slowly and seemingly imperceptibly establishing itself in the population, before it can take over and dominate the infection in the population.
Was that period in May, June and the first part of July the "valley of fitness"?
This appears to be the period when the Delta variant was gaining strength.
The second big outcome to occur under Bossche's thesis is that more and more cases would first be seen in the unvaccinated cohort. This group is initially the most susceptible hosts.
The second outcome would be to force the virus to move to an unvaccinated cohort. This also means that we should see more younger and younger people being infected and coming down with COVID-19.
We seem to have seen this with all the talk we heard initially about this surge being a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" and a higher proportion of younger people who have lower vaccination rates testing positive.
See how the cases among those under age 40 have increased more dramatically in this wave compared to those age 65 and older.
That is consistent with what Bossche predicted months ago.
The good news is that these cases are not causing more deaths among the same age groups thus far.
Despite what you hear in the media, the CDC data does not show any more deaths from Covid in ages under 30 than this time last year for the most recent week that complete numbers are available.
Notably, those under age 12 (who are not currently eligible for the vaccine) had less Covid deaths this year than last year at the same time.
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| Covid weekly deaths per 100,000 Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime |
This is why Bossche states that we should not be vaccinating the young. We should allow them to build up herd immunity since they are at little risk due to their young and strong natural immune systems.
This leads us to Bossche's next prediction which also seems to be proving true.
At this stage, the blame for this will be shifted (inaccurately, according to Dr. Bossche) on the unvaccinated for preventing to reach herd immunity, whatever that level would be, as no matter how high the level of fully vaccinated people any nation will reach, we can never end up seeing an effective end of this pandemic as a consequence of vaccination.
This stage will also result in a tragic consequence of coming to the wrong conclusion that we need to continue vaccinating more of the young people on the account that they are now contributing to the ever higher, increasing rates of infection and hospitalization. Along the way, no one seems to ask as to why this is happening - where the population that was previously completely “protected” is suddenly now vulnerable.
We may also be in the initial stages of what Bossche predicts next.
This stage will be first identified by an increasing level of breakthrough cases among the vaccinated with a greater and greater number of hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus bypassing the immune pressure imposed by the vaccines. This will continue to be blamed on a lack of achieving mass vaccination or the lack of continuing stringent lockdowns even though it is the mass vaccination itself that will be the cause of this progression. The emergence and propagation at this point will be carried out by the vaccinated people, but potentially not noticed at first as many countries have stopped their general screening of the population, thus preventing the catching of asymptomatic cases among this cohort. This is the stage where the new vaccine boosters will be introduced to help fight against these strains which might afford some temporary protection but will ultimately always fail.
Of course, the CDC also initially stopped testing vaccinated people unless they were showing symptoms even if they were in close contact to an infected person. They have now reversed course and are now recommending testing those vaccinated within 3-5 days of being in contact with any positive case.
The CDC had also earlier recommended that the vaccinated only be tested in the lab to determine a positive case using a cycle threshold of <28. The standard for unvaccinated was <40. In effect, there were using two different standards as to what was a positive test.
Why did they do that? 90% of positive Covid cases only show up by using a cycle threshold test over 28.
Alex Berenson commented about that decision at the time that seemed calculated to suppress reported confirmed case numbers in the vaccinated.
Is it telling that the CDC has now quietly removed that guidance to labs?
Is it also telling that the CDC Director was also acknowledging the concept of immune escape at the end of July.
The coronavirus could be just a few mutations away from evading existing COVID-19 vaccines, according to the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death, but the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge - just a few mutations potentially away - could potentially evade our vaccines," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a Tuesday press briefing.
What is particularly dangerous in this period is that a lot of the spread could be coming from those who are fully vaccinated but are carrying high viral loads that can infect others but they are asymptomatic according to Bossche's thesis.
This is already shown to be occurring based on a recent study in Wisconsin that was reported on by National Geographic recently.
If the Wisconsin study finding holds up, then people with breakthrough infections—many of whom do not develop COVID symptoms—can unknowingly spread the virus. “It [is] an alarming finding,” explains Katarina Grande, a public health supervisor and the COVID-19 Data Team Lead of Madison & Dane County, U.S., who led the study.
What concerns Eric Topol, the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, is that fully vaccinated individuals who are infected with the Delta variant can transmit the virus and this can happen at a higher rate than previous strains in the days before symptoms, or in the absence of symptoms.
If the world finally figures it out at this point - that mass vaccination generated this problem - we will have to shift to a completely new method of dealing with the problem. But likely the response will be to redevelop another leaky vaccine to fight the new strains. The issue is that it will likely, once again, be a non-sterilizing vaccine, so the problem will not be solved in this way, while the number of casualties will continue to mount.
A non-sterilizing vaccine is one that does not prevent infection, disease or transmission. It is considered a "leaky" vaccine.
Despite the fact that the Covid vaccines were given their Emergency Use Authorization based on the assertion that they PREVENTED disease it was clear to anyone who looked at the clinical trial data this was not true.
This is taken directly from the FDA Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer vaccine last December. The same is true for the Moderna and J&J vaccines.
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| Source: https://www.fda.gov/media/144416/download |
At this point, there is no Covid vaccine that is a sterilizing vaccine. However, some companies are working on it.
If Bossche is correct, what do we do?
First, we should forget about vaccinating children and we should stop mandating the vaccines. That seems unlikely to happen right now.
In any event, Bossche believes we are past the point of no return in achieving any herd immunity protection for the population based on what we have already done with the mass vaccination program.
While at the start of the mass vaccination Dr. Bossche was calling for immediate halt of the program, he admits that at this point the damage has already been done on such grand scale, that stopping vaccinations now is irrelevant in terms of protecting the population. Achieving herd immunity at this point is no longer possible due to the introduction of long term vaccinal antibodies in so many people.
What can you do individually to best protect yourself according to Bossche?
No matter what your vaccination status, you need to make sure you practice a healthy lifestyle that is intrinsically linked to innate immunity quality.
Bossche also believes large mass gatherings should be avoided by everyone to try to limit infection and the development of new mutations.
He actually believes that this is the time we should be locking down. We should have not locked down at the beginning. We should have protected the vulnerable and let the virus run its course in the healthy population.
More specifically, what should the UNVACCINATED do to protect themselves?
Avoid contact with vaccinated people as they are at high risk of being asymptomatic carriers of a new dangerous strain that could overwhelm your natural immunity protection (but how practical is this now in real life in highly vaccinated countries? Pretty impossible!)
Screen regularly for antigen specific IgG antibody presence. If antibodies are detected, long quarantine is required until they disappear. This is because you are now exposed to get a disease as you no longer have a protection because the IgG antibodies are suppressing your innate antibodies from being able to protect you from the virus. So, if you get reinfected at this stage, you are in danger of developing COVID-19 because you temporarily have suppressed protection.
For the VACCINATED?When it comes to SARS-CoV-2 your innate immunity is gone as long as you continue producing vaccinal antibodies, but you can still gain from having a strong innate immunity against other pathogens. If your vaccinal antibodies protect you from current circulating strains, you are good. If a new strain emerges that can bypass vaccinal antibodies altogether, anyone who has been vaccinated is a sitting duck, and at a dangerous risk of developing COVID-19. This is where still having a strong innate immunity against other pathogens might be still very valuable, to protect you against other additional infections. This is the price to pay for vaccinating yourself if vaccines fail.
Screen regularly for viral presence (for example with a test like PCR). If a virus is detected, regular quarantine is required to protect others in case you become an incubator for the virus to mutate into a new strain.
FOR THOSE WHO GET SICK.
Early antiviral treatment with drugs such as Ivermectin or a cocktail of such drugs could be the only option remaining for those who have been vaccinated or those who are unvaccinated but whose innate immune system has not sufficed to protect them, or who get re-infected while still presenting suboptimal induced antibodies from the first infection.
As I stated before, I hope Dr. Bossche is wrong. I hope the vaccines are safe and effective and we are able to bring this pandemic to an end.
However, almost nothing that has been predicted by the "experts" has proven true.
Like it or not, some of what Bossche predicted is coming to pass.
If the totality of what he believes is even partially correct, there are going to be tough times still ahead.
I don't even want to think about it if he might be more right than wrong.
The worst vision that Bossche has is as follows:
He (Bossche) predicts that once the reality dawns on the populace of how horribly this pandemic has been mismanaged, leading to massive unnecessary death tolls in those who chose to be vaccinated - that the realization will lead to a form of revolutionary outbreak by a deeply disenchanted and grieving public. Because heads will have to roll. He even thinks that ultimately this will affect how people view vaccines in the future and might even require banning the use of the word vaccine due to the negative impact that current mass vaccine use will have. He really put a lot of thought to his vision of the future!
I know what I describe here is 180 degrees opposed to everything we have been told about the Covid vaccines.
It is hard to grasp that the views of Bossche could be so completely contrary to what everyone else is saying.
He could he be possibly be right if there is no one else publicly saying what he is?
However, at the same time, it appears to me that the predictions of Dr. Bossche match what we see unfolding in the data to a greater degree than anything else I have seen to this point.
Yes, it is hard to imagine that Dr. Bossche could be so alone in such an important understanding of how to properly control this pandemic. So hard that it almost seems implausible that he could be right, while the rest of the world gets it wrong. But perhaps this is not unlike Sweden being isolated (and ridiculed) for not enforcing stringent lockdowns as a nation when everyone was doing the same.
How is Sweden looking in that strategy compared to the UK, USA and Israel right now?
Considering that the stakes for humanity have rarely been higher do you think more of the "experts" should have said "I don't know" in dealing with our Covid response and been open to other ideas?
In addition, as we have seen the cases and deaths climb in countries with high vaccination rates, shouldn't there be more people asking "What is going on"?
Dr. Bossche may not be right. I hope he isn't. However, he should be heard and his views should be debated openly and widely. That is something Bossche has wanted since he wrote his open letter to the WHO in March. However, it has never happened.
If what he says is a 1% possibility it should be considered seriously. The consequences about mass vaccinations is just too horrific if we are wrong about the current policy.
Let’s bring all the credible experts to a table and let them duke this out using scientific evidence to support their cases, including why Dr. Bossche might be so wrong, but at least, agree to a criterion of what we should be expecting from this pandemic moving forward so that we can properly judge our current efforts. Right now, he claims we do not have these criteria, we just make up excuses along the way to explain any results that might be showing up. And if he is right, then we have already proven to ourselves that we can whip up vaccines in record time, so we should immediately jump on his notion of building a sterilizing vaccine to deal with this pandemic before too many would pay the price.
What is going on?
It may be late in the game to figure that out because we shut off all debate and dissenting views a long time ago.
I hope and pray that does not prove to be our undoing in the end.
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