Children with natural immunity were better protected from COVID-19 infection and hospitalization than children who were vaccinated, according to a new study.
Children aged 5 to 11 with post-infection protection, or natural immunity from an infection with Omicron or a subvariant, and no vaccination had 88.4 percent protection against reinfection, researchers in North Carolina found. That was compared to 59.7 percent protection against Omicron from a primary series of a messenger RNA vaccine, or two doses of vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna, among the uninfected.
The protection remained higher over time until month eight when the protection from natural immunity among the unvaccinated was estimated to be 18.8 percent and the protection from vaccination was pegged at 22.5 percent.
Fifty percent effectiveness is considered the threshold for an effective vaccine, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, but the effectiveness of the shots remained above that bar for just one month, the researchers found.
A monovalent booster, or a discontinued booster, elevated the protection for the vaccinated, including children with a previous infection, by just 24.4 percent after one month, dipping to 19.3 percent after five months. A bivalent booster, or one of the new shots cleared in the fall of 2022, boosted the protection by 76.7 percent after one month but the shielding fell to 47.3 percent on top of the original series after one more month.
Researchers did not provide separate estimates for the naturally immune and unvaccinated, and the vaccinated and infected, against hospitalization and death.
They pegged natural immunity for the 5 to 11 group against hospitalization and death at 87.5 percent after one month, compared with 73.3 percent from a primary series. After three months, natural immunity was estimated at 83.8 percent protection versus 39.3 percent from vaccination; after six months, natural immunity was pegged at 76.2 percent, compared to 2.9 percent for vaccination.
Even though the vaccines are authorized for the prevention of COVID-19, they have become increasingly worse at preventing infection. Authorities have shifted to promoting them as a tool to prevent severe disease, but that protection has also become subpar against Omicron and its subvariants, real-world data and studies show.
The waning effectiveness prompted not only the authorization of boosters with the same formulation as the primary series, but, later, the authorization without clinical data of new boosters aimed at the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron for all Americans aged 6 months and older.
The North Carolina researchers drew from The North Carolina COVID-19 Surveillance System, which contains testing data and COVID-related hospitalization and death information, as well as the COVID-19 Vaccine Management System, which holds vaccination records. The study focused on North Carolina residents 11 years of age and younger, from Oct. 29, 2021, to Jan. 6, 2023. They estimated the effectiveness of vaccination and natural immunity against infection, hospitalization, and death.
Researchers did not provide estimates of booster effectiveness against hospitalization and death. They said there was only one hospitalization and no deaths after receipt of a booster dose.
The study population was primarily unvaccinated because most children in the United States have not received a vaccine.
0–4 Year-Olds
Data from children aged up to 4 years was also analyzed.
The protection from Omicron infection against reinfection among all children was estimated at 83.1 percent after one month. It was pegged at 55.7 percent one month after two doses of a vaccine among the uninfected. At five months, the former was 69.6 percent and the latter was 58.6 percent.
Natural immunity in the youngest age group after an Omicron infection was estimated at 63.3 percent against hospitalization and death one month later, remaining above 50 percent after 10 months.
Researchers included both the vaccinated and unvaccinated in the naturally immune group and did not provide a separate estimate of the protection the unvaccinated and naturally immune enjoyed.
Researchers did not provide an estimate of effectiveness for a primary series or boosters among the population against hospitalization and death.
The study was published as a preprint on Jan. 19.
Researchers said the study showed that “previous SARS-CoV-2 infection induced strong immunity against future infection, although the immunity waned gradually over time” and that “omicron infection induced strong immunity in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children.” SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19.
The researchers also said the results showed vaccination “was effective against omicron infection, hospitalization, and death, although the effectiveness waned over time” and that boosters “were effective.”
“Our study showed that the additional benefits of vaccination were similar between previously infected and previous uninfected children,” Dan-yu Lin, a professor in the University of North Carolina’s Department of Biostatistics, told The Epoch Times via email.
“Serious side effects are very rare. The benefits of vaccination outweighs the risk of side effects,” he added. The study did not evaluate vaccine safety or COVID-19 symptoms and Lin declined to provide evidence for the risk-benefit statement.
Limitations of the research include researchers wrongly believing that the Pfizer primary series for children aged 0 to 4 is only two doses. It’s actually three doses (pdf), because a two-dose regimen didn’t induce an adequate immune response, according to Pfizer. The third dose is a bivalent as of late 2022.
Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.
Pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole has observed alarming health trends since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, including unusual cancers, other immune system diseases, heart damage, and deaths. Cole said the vaccines are formulated for a strain of the virus that is extinct, but the spike protein in the injections is from the original Wuhan strain and is causing these health problems.
“Now we know the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus itself, because the vaccine still has all those pro-clotting abilities, has all those inflammatory abilities, whereas the spike from Omicron does not,” Cole told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program during a recent interview.
At the outset, COVID-19 was a clotting disease, said Cole, but with the Omicron variant, the risk for clotting has decreased.
“The vaccinal spike is still the original Wuhan spike. That’s the clotting spike. The Omicron spike is not the clotting spike,” he said. “That spike protein, plain and simple, is pathophysiologically toxic to the human body.”
Cole has continued to observe higher rates of uncommon cancers in unusual age groups, as well as reactivation of viruses that cause illnesses such as Epstein-Barr and shingles, much of which is being confirmed by statistical data in the United States and other countries.
“I was in Kentucky last weekend. [An] interventional radiologist came up to me. He said, ‘You wouldn’t believe how many young women I’m seeing with breast cancer, stage 4, aggressive.’ I said I would believe it.”
Cole said he gets calls daily from doctors around the world who tell him they are shocked by the uptick in disease they’re seeing, and getting an appointment with any oncologist is near impossible because of the backlog, he said.
A poll commissioned by Children’s Health Defense shows that 15 percent of people polled had a new medical condition after their vaccination for COVID-19, Cole said, and he believes one of the reasons that percentage is not higher is because many people received weakened mRNA doses that had degraded due to time and temperature.
Clots removed from vaccinated patients are shown. (Courtesy of Dr. Ryan Cole)
Blood Clots
The spike protein from the original virus that’s still in many of the vaccines induces “thrombogenic clots,” Cole said.
Cole said there are receptors all throughout the human body, including on blood platelets and endothelial blood cell linings.
“Once that spike binds, it just starts this whole little cascade, this little waterfall,” he said, adding that the chemical binds with various receptors and creates blood clots.
Cole has seen these clots not just postmortem but in living patients, which are white and rubbery, whereas clots after death are “red and jelly-like,” he said.
In addition, Cole has seen that the vaccines suppress interferon, which “is a very important chemical that your cells make to recruit cells to react to either infections or cancer.”
High enough doses of Ivermectin can help those suffering from these types of clots, Cole said.
Compromised Immune System
These negative health trends are related to the immune system being compromised and the body not being able to fight off infections. The immune cells that are meant to immediately respond to threats in the body stop performing their proper functions, he said.
“Now you have a perfect storm of the ability for other infections to infect the human body,” he said. “That immediate response is not as robust as it’s supposed to be in the majority of people that received the shot.”
Cole said it’s not clear how long these individuals will be in an immune-suppressed state.
“It seems to be a dose accumulated effect,” he said. “The spike is dose-dependent toxicity. The more spike you get, the longer your body keeps making it, and the more adversely many systems are affected.”
There are studies suggesting that the Pfizer vaccine diminishes the body’s immediate immune response, Cole said. He mentioned one study by Dutch researcher F. Konstantin Föhse, which concluded that the mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine “induces complex functional reprogramming of innate immune responses, which should be considered in the development and use of this new class of vaccines.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Pfizer for comment.
People who have not received the COVID-19 vaccines “have a broad nonspecific response to any infection,” said Cole, and they can fight off the infection in about 10 days. But for those who have gotten the injections, the spike protein stays in the system much longer and acts as a toxin.
“Just minute levels can still trigger all these immune systems harms,” he added.
Katharina Röltgen’s study out of Stanford University found that the spike protein stays in the system for at least 60 days, said Cole.
Spike protein illustration. (Shutterstock)
Cardiac Damage
“We know that the spike protein gets into the heart tissues, that spike protein will induce all those other inflammatory cells to come in and now swell the heart,” Cole said.
He said he’s examined tissues of triathletes that died while swimming. These were athletes at their peak performance, he said, only one or two weeks after receiving their second dose of the vaccine, and the autopsy from the medial examiner’s office showed cardiomegaly, or an enlarged heart.
Cole encourages all his colleagues to look for spike protein in these sudden adult death cases to find the potential connection to the spike protein from the COVID-19 injections.
There also appears to be a correlation between the time period when younger people started getting the vaccines and incidences of heart damage and death among this cohort, said Cole.
“The spike itself doesn’t destroy the tissue,” he said. “The spike lands, and then it triggers an inflammatory reaction. The body wants to react to it, so then all those inflammatory cells release cytokines and chemicals that will end up munching away those tissues.”
Some in the mainstream medical establishment have said the myocarditis, or heart inflammation, caused by vaccines is mild and that people shouldn’t be concerned. But Cole said “there’s no such thing as mild myocarditis,” and that these cases have long-term consequences.
There is some evidence that suggests these vaccines can cause death.
Edward Dowd, a former portfolio manager for BlackRock, has been tracking excess deaths in working-age adults using insurance company data. Many countries’ statistics show excess deaths compared to prior years, with many having 30 to 50 percent higher rates of death in young or working-age people, said Cole.
“The call to action is every coroner, every medical examiner needs to request a spike and nucleocapsid stain on every organ in the body of every young deceased person,” he said.
Experimental
The vaccines continue to be used under emergency use authorization, so the companies and agencies are protected from liability, Cole said.
“They can harm the hearts of children, they can kill children with their spike protein, but they have no repercussions,” said Cole. “That’s why we’re not giving children an approved product, because it would be pulled off the market posthaste.”
The boosters and the bivalent COVID-19 shots are still harmful because they have the original Wuhan spike in them, said Cole.
“It’s all risk, in terms of those harms we’ve listed, with no advantage,” he said. “It gives a small window of protection, supposedly.”
Every time someone gets a booster shot, their immune system becomes more damaged, he said.
Cole does not recommend the outdated shots for COVID-19. Instead, he suggests early treatment for someone who becomes ill from a COVID-19 variant.
A medic prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Netanya, Israel, on Jan. 5, 2022. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Maligned for Following the Data
Even though there have been no patient complaints filed against him, Cole said one of the major insurance companies stopped working with him, and his medical practice has suffered. He has six children, four of whom are in college, which has been financially challenging, he said.
He has been maligned by the mainstream media and medical establishment.
“I’ve invited anyone and everyone in the world, if you disagree with me, bring better data,” he said. But the response has been silence.
“I’m always willing to be wrong,” he said. “That’s science. Science is asking the question and testing the hypothesis and saying, ‘Huh, we could be right or wrong, but let’s prove it.’”
Cole said his only reason for talking about these harms is to uphold the oath he took to do no harm to his patients.
“I have no narrative other than ‘Here is the science and data.’ That’s my job,” he said. “I come to the scene of the accident as the pathologist and report what’s at the scene of the accident. The cancer, the cells, the tumor.”
Real Science
Real science should not have an agenda and needs to be unbiased, so it can’t be done by the big scientific journals because they’re corrupted by money from Big Pharma, said Cole, adding that institutions like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) control much of the research funding.
Cole said he thinks fear of repercussion and reprisal are keeping more universities and researchers from studying the effects of the COVID-19 vaccines.
The Epoch Times reached out to the NIH for comment.
All doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, which requires them to promise to do no harm to their patients, said Cole, but doctors should also consider the harm of omission by not thoroughly studying the vaccines.
“I think we have a societal apology, as a medical profession, that is owed to humanity for not doing all of these things earlier on in this pandemic. Not only early treatment, but these studies that have been widely available but not funded,” said Cole.
A small group of scientists has organized themselves to ask questions about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 treatments, but many more have not, said Cole.
“It’s time for integrity and science to happen again. It’s time for my colleagues in those large ivory towers, it’s time for the scientists in those federal agencies, to step up and say, ‘OK, we messed up, but we’ll do science going forward.”
Many pathologists are talking about these issues privately but not publicly for fear of being maligned and losing their careers, he said.
“I think the challenge is, a lot of them in the university settings have large grants. They know if they speak out against the NIH’s narrative, they won’t get funding,” Cole said. “I think some of the private groups fear for what I experienced, and that’s a cancellation by their medical community and their insurance companies if they speak out against the narrative.”
“If it’s inconvenient to what you want to tell yourself, that’s fine,” he said. “But the cells don’t lie. The clots don’t lie. The damaged organs don’t lie.”
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Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times and host of the show, “American Thought Leaders.” Jan’s career has spanned academia, media, and international human rights work. In 2009 he joined The Epoch Times full time and has served in a variety of roles, including as website chief editor. He is the producer of the award-winning Holocaust documentary film “Finding Manny.”
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Masooma Haq began reporting for The Epoch Times from Pakistan in 2008. She currently covers a variety of topics including U.S. government, culture, and entertainment.
A new study published this week found that the second COVID-19 booster that was made available to U.S. adults older than 50 this year was highly effective at protecting nursing home residents from hospitalizations and deaths, though its ability to prevent infections was not as potent.
The analysis, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, compared nursing home residents who received a second original mRNA booster dose to those who did not get the additional shot.
According to the study, the second shot was 90 percent effective at preventing coronavirus-related deaths and 74 percent effective at preventing severe cases that led to either hospitalizations or deaths.
The shot was about 26 percent effective at preventing infection, however. This study looked at cases between March 29 and July 25. It was within this period that the BA.5 omicron subvariant grew to become dominant in the U.S.
By the end of July, BA.5 was accounting for four out of five coronavirus cases, and experts had noted its ability to evade protection from immunization and prior infection.
The 9,527 nursing home residents who were included in the study had received their booster within 60 days when they were followed up on by researchers. In order to be eligible, participants had to have stayed in a nursing home for more than 100 days, spent less than 10 outside of the facility and received three prior vaccine doses, with the last dose received more than 120 days beforehand.
Nearly 200 nursing homes from 19 states were included in the study.
Nursing homes have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus throughout the pandemic. Roughly three out of four COVID-19 deaths have been among those over the age of 65. When the delta variant spread throughout the U.S. last year, coronavirus deaths rose at a faster rate in nursing homes than in the rest of the country.
“These findings suggest that among nursing home residents, second mRNA COVID-19 vaccine booster doses provided additional protection over first booster doses against severe COVID-19 outcomes during a time of emerging Omicron variants,” researchers wrote.
“Facilities should continue to ensure that nursing home residents remain up to date with COVID-19 vaccination, including bivalent vaccine booster doses, to prevent severe COVID-19 outcomes.”
White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha hailed the study’s findings.
“This is why we’re so focused on ensuring folks, particularly the high risk, get the latest vaccine,” Jha tweeted.
If they have not been recently vaccinated once more or infected with the virus, many of the participants in this study would now be eligible to receive the bivalent omicron-specific COVID-19 booster. The updated shot was authorized at the end of August.
The White House has strongly encouraged eligible individuals to get the bivalent booster, hoping to avoid another surge in coronavirus cases in the fall and winter. The dose has been followed by some uncertainty, as it was approved before a full human study was completed, with both Pfizer and Moderna submitting animal data, as is done for annual flu shots.
Pfizer and Moderna have recently submitted applications seeking authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to administer their shots in younger populations. Pfizer’s bivalent booster is authorized for children as young as 12, while Moderna’s is currently only authorized for adults.
When something goes wrong inside a cell’s DNA, the cell fires a signal that tells other cells, “I’ve gone bad. Please kill me.”
This early warning helps the immune system stop cancer cells from multiplying. It stops a virus from replicating. So it’s a very important early response tool that works across the whole body.
Recent studies suggest that COVID-19 vaccines may be damaging this early warning system, and fundamentally, they’re changing how our immune system reacts to cancer cells and new infections. We still don’t know if that’s a temporary change.
On Frontline Health, we share a story of a perfectly healthy man who developed stage 3 esophageal cancer five months after taking his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. His wife believes it was the jab that spiraled her husband’s health out of control. Her suspicions are supported by a huge spike in cancers that have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) since the start of COVID-19 vaccinations. Meanwhile, doctors on the ground are seeing the same spikes of cancer diagnosis in their patients.
Read the original article here.
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Increased menstrual bleeding was linked to COVID-19 vaccines in a new study.
Approximately 42 percent of respondents in a survey about post-vaccination menstruation with a regular period reported bleeding more heavily than usual after getting a vaccine, according to the study, published in Science Advances after peer review on July 15.
A majority of respondents who were not menstruating, meanwhile, reported breakthrough bleeding after getting one of the vaccines, including 66 percent of post-menopausal women who were not taking a hormonal treatment and 65.7 percent of those who were using one or more treatments.
The survey was launched in April 2021 and data from it was downloaded on June 29, 2021.
Over 128,000 responses came in, but many were excluded for reasons such as being diagnosed with COVID-19, not fully completing the survey, or not reporting at least 14 days after their final dose of a primary series.
Additionally, women aged 45 to 55 were excluded in order to avoid including women going through perimenopause.
“We focused our analysis on those who regularly menstruate and those who do not currently menstruate but have in the past. The latter group included postmenopausal individuals and those on hormonal therapies that suppress menstruation, for whom bleeding is especially surprising,” Kathryn Clancy, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement.
She led the research with Katharine Lee, an anthropology professor at Tulane University.
About 39,000 responses ended up being used.
‘We Don’t Tend to Talk About It Publicly’
The researchers said that women began sharing instances of unexpected bleeding after getting COVID-19 vaccines in early 2021, but that doctors who responded often quickly dismissed the experiences.
Limitations of the study include that women self-reported through the survey, but Clancy and others involved said the trends uncovered by the results can help trigger further research and spur discussion on the matter.
“Menstruation is a regular process that responds to all kinds of immune and energetic stressors, and people notice changes to their bleeding patterns, yet we don’t tend to talk about it publicly,” Lee said in a statement.
Most respondents received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, but others received the other shots, such as those from AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that women who menstruate may experience “small, temporary changes” in menstruation after COVID-19 vaccination, pointing to a January U.S. study that concluded the vaccines were associated with a change in cycle length and research from Norway published the same month that found “a significant increase” in menstrual irregularities following vaccination, particularly after a second dose.
U.S. researchers said the vaccinated cohort they studied was back in line with an unvaccinated comparison group by six cycles, but the Norwegian researchers said that it was unclear how long the irregularities lasted.
Nearly 300 women participating in another observational study, published in May, reported menstrual irregularities.
The European Medicines Agency earlier this year launched an investigation into reports of the COVID-19 vaccines being linked to menstrual changes. The agency concluded the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both built on messenger RNA technology, do not cause an absence of menstruation. The committee is still probing possible links to heavier periods.
The body’s internal clock affects the immune system in ways scientists in the burgeoning field of circadian immunology are beginning to unwind.
Why it matters: Leveraging the circadian clock’s effects on the immune system could help to improve the effectiveness of some treatments for a range of diseases and conditions, a new book and scientific review suggest.
How it works: The body’s central clock, or suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), is a collection of about 20,000 neurons in the brain that receives signals from the eye when it detects light or other environmental cues from the body.
The signals trigger the clock’s components — a network of genes that regulate the production of different proteins in the neurons. (Other cells in the SCN also tamp down the neurons’ activity). The amounts of those proteins in the cell oscillate over 24 hours, setting the clock’s pace.
The central timekeeper then coordinates other clocks in the body and sets the rhythm for regulating body temperature, sleep schedule, the release of hormones and a slew of other biological processes.
“Without this precise regulation by an internal clock, our entire biology would be in chaos,” writes Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford, in his new book, “Life Time” about the science of the body clock and its connection to health.
The immune system is also under the control of the clock: The functions of different immune cells have been found to oscillate over the course of a day.
The circadian clock “synchronizes the whole body to the outside world but we don’t know exactly how an immune cell sees it,” says Christoph Scheiermann, an immunologist at the University of Geneva and a co-author of a recent review about the circadian immune system.
What’s new: Studies suggest the time of day that a vaccine is given can change the immune system’s response to it.
The immune response to vaccination against influenza or tuberculosis in two different studies tended to be greater in people vaccinated in the morning compared to those who received shots later in the day.
Two other small studies found the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination depended on the time of day — but the optimal timing depended on which vaccine was administered.
Earlier work found the timing of when medications or treatments for some cancers, asthma, heartburn and other conditions are given can influence their effectiveness.
But, but, but … The variations between someone’s immune system and their body’s rhythms mean the best time for a treatment could vary from one person to the next.
The rhythms are generally the same for most individuals and its likely recommendations can be made for most of the population most of the time, says Jacqueline Kimmey, a professor of microbiology at UC Santa Cruz.
But making recommendations for individuals isn’t possible “until we have better ways of measuring what ‘time’ someone’s body says it is, and more specific knowledge on what ‘time’ we should be doing something,” she says.
There can be differences due to genetics, behavior and environment. “Morning” in the body of a night shift worker may be 3pm so if they go for a vaccine at 8am, they may not benefit from the effects of time, says John Hogenesch, a professor of human genetics and director of Center for Circadian Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Altering the time may also not be practical for certain therapies like cancer treatments that hospitals have a limited capacity to administer at particular times.
The big picture: Scientists have known about immune rhythms for decades but new tools are allowing them to better understand the cues and components of the body’s clocks.
Immune rhythms coordinate and balance the immune system’s different responses over the course of the day.
Parts of the adaptive immune system — which learns to target pathogens through vaccination or infection — are throttled against new invaders during the day.
At other times, the responses are turned down so the immune system doesn’t turn on itself and trigger an autoimmune disease.
The innate immune system, a more immediate and blanket response to pathogens is also controlled by the clock.
In a study published last week, researchers found when mice and marmosets rested, skin cells produced proteins that protected the animals from staph infection and jumpstarted the innate immune response.
The impact: Sleep disruptions can alter the body’s clock and throw off the immune defense system, making it more susceptible to disease.
It can also push the body to produce stress hormones, which suppress the immune system.
Some viruses, like influenza, also disrupt the immune system’s circadian rhythm, blunting the immune response and enhancing the virus’ own replication.
The malaria parasite reproduces in sync with the circadian clock and releases a flood of parasites that overwhelms the immune system at night when its guard isn’t as high, Foster writes.
When people are being infected or treated is “a huge variable we’re not paying attention to,” Kimmey says.
Knowing that the adaptive immune system is not as turned up at night compared to the day, employers can take measures to better protect shift workers — like providing protective equipment for frontline medical workers caring for people with a virus, Foster says.
Some people don’t get COVID despite being exposed to the virus — a mystery researchers are trying to unravel.
Why it matters: Understanding the small cohort of “never COVID” people could lead to new vaccine targets or other protections as the world enters the third year of the pandemic.
Various possibilities for how these people are protected are being tested: immune defenses stemming from other infections, human genetics, viral load or environmental factors. And then there’s simple luck.
The idea of resistant people may be “very intriguing,” but“we don’t know very often why someone did or did not get infected in sufficient detail to nail it,” John Brooks, chief medical officer for the CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team, tells Axios.
Driving the news: Using a highly debated method called a human challenge study, a British trial deliberately exposed people who were unvaccinated and had no evidence of prior infection by placinga droplet of SARS-CoV-2 in their nose. They found 16 out of 34 participants did not get infected, according to the pre-print paper posted recently.
The study is small and has not yet been peer-reviewed, butit appears to support anecdotal evidence that sometimes people in close contact with contagious people are not getting sick or not testing positive for the virus.
The “most surprising finding” was that roughly half of the participants became infected after exposure tothe very smallest dose possible, says study co-author Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London.
And, the number of people with apparent resistance raises a key question: “Why is it that some people are more vulnerable than others?” Openshaw says.
The latest: Researchers are now trying to zero in on that question.
1) Cross-immunity from the four endemic human coronaviruses is one hypothesis. Those other coronaviruses cause many of the coldspeople catch and could prime B-cell and T-cell response to this new coronavirus in some people.
There’s no compelling evidence one way or the other yet, Brooks says. But, infectious diseases often prompt some longer-term immune memory that can provide some assistance, he adds.
It’s also possible people didn’t realize they had a prior asymptomatic COVID infection and gained enough immune cell memory to offer some protection.
2) Multiple genetic variations may make someone’s immune system more or less susceptible to the virus.
“I think there’s probably something approaching 20 different genes already described that affect the likelihood of developing severe infection,” Openshaw says.
A genetic predisposition to not getting infected“is seen in other diseases where people have one or multiple factors that interfere with the virus binding to cells or being transported within,” says Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
This rapidly evolving field offers promising research but “really isn’t ready for prime time yet,” Brooks says.
3) Mucosal immunity may play an underrecognized role in mounting a defense.
If someone’s mucosal system is healthy and able to respond to a range of invading pathogens,“it will often counter the infection before the immune system involving antibody and T-cells and all of those other things has time to step in,” Openshaw says.
This is also a reason experts saynasal vaccines and boosters are being explored as a possible part of the regimen, as the “vaccine may work better if it’s introduced the same route that the pathogen itself takes,” Brooks says.
4) Where the virus settled on the human body, how large the particle was, the amount and length of exposure, how good the ventilation was and other environmental circumstances may also play a role, Openshaw says.
The bottom line: Vaccination and boosters, wearing masks, washing hands and good ventilation remain our most important tools in preventing infection or mitigating symptoms, Brooks says.
Research into the “never COVID” cohort is important for potential medical countermeasures, but “I hope that people don’t think they’re superhuman” and protected against SARS-CoV-2 just because they haven’t gotten it yet, Gronvall says.
Health authorities in New Zealand have said they believe a 26-year-old man’s death is connected to a side effect from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
A preliminary post-mortem analysis indicated that the probable cause of the man’s death was myocarditis, which is a rare side effect of the vaccine that causes the heart muscle wall to become inflamed, according to Bloomberg.
“With the current available information, the Board has considered that the myocarditis was probably due to vaccination in this individual,” a statement from New Zealand’s Covid-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said of the man, who died within two weeks of receiving his first Pfizer vaccine, per Bloomberg.
The statement noted that “Covid-19 infection can itself be a cause of myocarditis” and said “it remains safer to be vaccinated than to be infected with the virus.”
The board also highlighted that “the benefits of vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 continue to greatly outweigh the risk of such rare side effects.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged that “a very rare signal of myocarditis” has been reported from some COVID-19 vaccines. The organization added that most myocarditis cases occur in young men between the ages of 16 and 24, typically within a few days of their second vaccination.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also said it is “actively monitoring reports of myocarditis” but that it “continues to recommend that everyone ages 5 years and older get vaccinated for COVID-19.”
When the U.S. made COVID-19 vaccines available for all adults in the spring, Americans, including government officials, hailed the development as a turning point in the pandemic.
President BidenJoe BidenSenate confirms Rahm Emanuel to be ambassador to Japan NY governor plans to add booster shot to definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ Photos of the Week: Tornado aftermath, Medal of Honor and soaring superheroes MORE himself echoed the optimism that the U.S. may be turning a corner.
“Today we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. That’s not to say the battle against COVID-19 is over. We’ve got a lot more work to do,” he said in July.
“It no longer paralyzes our nation, and it is within our power to make sure it never does again,” he added.
But fast-forward to December, and pandemic history appears to be repeating itself.
In the course of just a few weeks this month, the omicron variant and a steep rise in U.S. cases have triggered COVID-19 restrictions reminiscent of the early part of the outbreak.
Professional sports leagues have begun postponing games, some schools have started transitioning to remote learning and city officials have acknowledged they were reconsidering implementing prior coronavirus protocols such as mask mandates.
The current situation in the U.S. has also promoted concern from health experts.
“You know, I’m extraordinarily worried,” Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and professor of global health law at Georgetown University Law Center and a contributor to The Hill, said in an interview.
“I’ve always thought that there would be surges and waves but the overall arc would be toward containing the virus and getting back to normal. And now that omicron is here, I’m not sure about that,” Gostin said. “And I think for the foreseeable future, we’re going to have a fairly rough ride with the variant.”
The omicron variant, first detected in South Africa, has spread across the United States since the first case was reported earlier this month.
Scientists are racing to learn more about the new variant, which some health officials say is anticipated to be the dominant strain in the United States in a matter of weeks.
A study,still under peer review, from researchers from the University of Hong Kong’s LKS Faculty of Medicine suggests that while the omicron variant can infect 70 times more quickly in humans than previous strains, “the Omicron infection in the lung is significantly lower than the original SARS-CoV-2, which may be an indicator of lower disease severity.”
Pfizer, BioNTech and Israeli researchers have said that Pfizer’s booster appears to provide good protection against the omicron variant.
Gostin said that “there’s no question” the boosters would be helpful in combating the variant. However, it’s a question of how protective the boosters would be against infections and hospitalizations and how long that protection would last.
“Because a lot of the studies of the boosters have been, you know, in the first few weeks after the booster is given and whether that third shot immunity will wane is an open question,” Gostin said. “But our experience is that it will wane … and we don’t know how long, so we’re just really heading into a concerning unknown here.”
These developments have Americans scratching their heads over whether the U.S. might see a return to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Already, some families have canceled holiday gatherings, students have transitioned to remote learning, entertainment venues have shut down and city officials are grappling with how to approach mitigation of the new outbreak.
Prince George’s County, Md., public schools announced Friday that they would temporarily return to virtual learning amid a surge of coronavirus cases.
“The increased positivity rates have significantly challenged the ability to … [teach in person], causing anxiety among many school communities and disruption to the school day,” Prince George’s County CEO Monica Goldson said.
Holiday shows have also been canceled amid a surge of the virus.
In New York City, “The Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” has canceled all of its upcoming performances due to coronavirus cases among the crew.
Jay Varma, a top public health adviser to Mayor Bill de BlasioBill de BlasioNYC announces new measures as cases spike: ‘We’ve never seen this before’ Anti-vaccine protesters arrested in New York during organized ‘sit-in’ at Cheesecake Factory, Applebee’s Metropolitan Opera requiring boosters for employees, audiences MORE (D), said earlier this week that “we’ve never seen this before in #NYC”amid daily cases doubling in just three days.
De Blasio also unveiled a six-pronged approach to combating the spread of the new variant, including investing in K-95 masks and distributing rapid home tests.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel BowserMuriel BowserDC reports second consecutive day of record-breaking coronavirus cases DC mayor considering reinstating mask mandate amid record COVID-19 cases Greene, GOP colleagues call for firing of DC Corrections official who ‘despises’ Trump and supporters MORE (D) announced this week that she was considering reinstating an indoor mask mandate just a few weeks after the requirement was lifted in the nation’s capital.
On Friday, the District reported its second day of record-breaking new coronavirus cases.
“I think that we should absolutely try to mitigate the spread as much as we can through indoor masking mandates, vaccination mandates, social distancing and ventilation. But in my view, I think there’s such enormous pandemic fatigue that people are not going to tolerate in America, you know, closures of schools or lockdowns,” Gostin said.
Gostin added that the lack of knowledge about the new variant means that Americans should act preemptively, assuming that the threat is serious.
“We really don’t know if it’s less serious. There’s no good data to suggest that it’s less serious, so I think we should act as if it has the same progression to serious disease and hospitalizations as … other former variants did, including delta,” Gostin said. “If it turns out to be significantly less serious, we’ll still see our hospitals filling up to capacity because of the sheer numbers, even if it’s just a smaller rate.”
But some areas of the U.S. have already started to feel the effects.
States in the Midwest have seen a rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the past few weeks, with hospital systems’ intensive care units reaching capacity.
Wisconsin last week reported that 96 percent of the ICU beds in the Badger State were occupied. And the state’s governor, Tony EversTony EversWisconsin Democrat attorney general says he won’t enforce potential abortion bans Supreme Court denies appeal by Wisconsin conservative think tank over press access It’s more than midterms next year: State fights that matter MORE (D), called for 100 FEMA workers to assist health care workers. Sixty National Guardsmen have been called up to serve as nursing assistants.
Michigan has also been battered by a wave of COVID-19 infections and on Monday was one of 14 states that reported that their overall inpatient bed capacity had reached 80 percent.
Indiana’s largest hospital system also requested help from the National Guard last week for most of its locations due to COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Gostin said that officials should hesitate before considering reimplementing lockdowns or other harsh measures. He noted that the country should instead focus on getting as many Americans fully boosted as possible and making Pfizer’s antiviral drug, Paxlovid, available.
Experts are concerned, however, that the supplies of Paxlovid — which still awaits emergency use approval from the Food and Drug Administration — will not be able to keep up with demand amid high numbers of COVID-19 cases.
In addition, vaccine hesitancy remains among a good portion of the American public, and the Biden administration has battled several legal challenges its vaccine mandates for businesses, federal employees and health care workers.
“Right now, we do need to get a very, you know, much higher percentage of our population vaccinated and boosted because, ultimately, living with the virus — yes — we are going to need to live with the virus,” Gostin acknowledged. “But when we live with the virus, we have to live with it so that it’s not making us sick. That’s the really important part.”
The first case of the omicron variant of COVID-19 has been detected in Los Angeles County, health officials said Thursday.
The fully vaccinated adult came back to LA County after traveling to South Africa via London, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The infected person traveled Nov. 22.
The person was isolating at home, and anyone who came into contact with the infected person has tested negative.
Officials also said the person was improving without medical care.
The announcement comes soon after the first U.S. case of omicron was detected in San Francisco, in a traveler who returned from South Africa on Nov. 22 and tested positive on Nov. 29.
That person was fully vaccinated, but had not yet received a booster shot, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a Dec. 1 press conference at the White House.
With a number of cases detected in the United States so far — including as many as five in New York — and omicron continuing to spread worldwide, here’s what we do and don’t know about the new variant so far.
What is Omicron?
Omicron is a new variant of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization designated a “variant of concern” on Nov. 26, 2021. The name comes from the letter in the Greek alphabet.
The omicron variant was first detected by scientists in South Africa, where it is believed to be the cause of a recent spike in cases in the Gauteng province.
It’s unclear where the variant first emerged. After South Africa alerted the WHO to the presence of omicron, the Netherlands stated they saw omicron cases up to a week earlier. The variant has since been seen in travelers arriving in several countries, from Australia to Israel to the Netherlands, since South Africa alerted the WHO.
Because the variant was announced so recently, there is still much we don’t know about how it differs from other forms of COVID-19. Scientists worldwide are studying the omicron variant to gather more information.
The variant appears to have a high number of mutations, or genetic changes, on its spike protein, a protein found on the surface of the virus that plays a role in how easily the virus spreads between people.
Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, described omicron as “the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen.”
Is Omicron More Transmissible?
It’s not yet known for sure if the omicron variant of COVID-19 is more transmissible. There’s not yet much data, and the data that exists hasn’t been studied thoroughly at this point in time.
However, scientists are concerned that the large number — more than 30 — and kind of genetic changes to the spike protein, make omicron more transmissible.
Scientists are closely watching how the new variant might affect people who caught COVID-19 and recovered.
A group of experts the organization gathered to discuss available data led the WHO to say that “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant,” as compared to other variants.
That means people who have immunity to COVID-19 could catch it again, with the omicron variant.
Sharon Peacock, who has led genetic sequencing of COVID-19 in Britain at the University of Cambridge, says that while the mutations in omicron match the kinds that would increase transmissibility, “the significance of many of the mutations is still not known.”
Delta is still, by far, the most dominant form of COVID-19 worldwide.
Does Omicron Cause More Severe Disease?
Like the data about transmissibility, we don’t yet know for sure whether omicron causes more severe illness than other forms of COVID-19, or whether there is an increased risk of death.
There is not yet any indication omicron causes more severe disease.
Early reports from scientists in South Africa, who are already dealing with a rapid increase in cases, suggest that omicron cases tend to have mild symptoms.
“We’ve seen a sharp increase in cases for the past 10 days. So far they have mostly been very mild cases, with patients having flu-like symptoms: dry coughs, fever, night sweats, a lot of body pains,” said Dr. Unben Pillay, a general practitioner in South Africa’s Gauteng province where 81% of the new cases have been reported.
Most of those cases were mild enough to be treated at home, rather than in hospitals. However, Pillay noted that, with COVID-19, hospitalizations tend to occur several days after cases start to rise.
The omicron variant of COVID-19 isn’t in the U.S. yet, but health officials urge Americans to get vaccinated and get their booster shot as soon as possible. Toni Guinyard reports for Today in LA on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021.
Most of the omicron cases in South Africa so far have been in relatively young people, in their 20s and 30s, Pillay noted. Older people may see more severe symptoms if infected.
And, as has been the case with other forms of COVID-19, vaccinated people appear to fare better than unvaccinated people when it comes to omicron.
How Can I Protect Myself Against Omicron?
The same tools used to stop previous versions of COVID-19 will help when it comes to omicron.
Masks in indoor settings, where ventilation tends to be worse and the virus tends to spread more easily if it’s present, can help protect you from becoming infected, or protect others if you’re sick and haven’t yet realized it.
And vaccines are still important. Scientists are studying whether current vaccines are less effective against omicron, which we don’t have enough data to say for certain is the case.
Even if we end up needing an omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine, partial protection from the vaccines we have now is better than no protection at all.
“There’s lots of reasons for optimism that this is not some horrible situation that we’re in. The vaccines should hold up against severe disease, especially with people who are boosted,” Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told CNBC on Tuesday.
Boosters can also play an important role, reintroducing your body to what the virus is like, causing your immune system to produce higher levels of antibodies against COVID-19.
All vaccines also boost T cells, another part of the immune system’s response to disease, and one that is less affected by the differences between variants of COVID.
“Our T cells are very insensitive, not affected by variants, to any significant degree,” Topol said.
In the end, gathering solid data to make certain statements about the effects of omicron will take time.
“Careful studies take time,” Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, said on the TODAY show. “You have to grow the virus, run the tests, see what’s happening in people. There is no way to go any faster than that.”
In the meantime, President Joe Biden said on Monday, “this variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”
