According to the latest data, there has been a surge in cases, deaths, and hospitalizations among fully vaccinated individuals.
Many countries that vaccinated a higher percentage of their populations and far quicker than the US are now noticing that over fifty percent of new cases, deaths, and hospitalizations are among the vaccinated population.
In the US, the same trend seen in countries with higher vaccination rates is beginning to occur. Cases, deaths, and hospitalizations are surging among the vaccinated population.
The current COVID-19 vaccines were developed to protect against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 that became the dominant strain worldwide. As other variants spread, scientists have raised questions about whether ineffective vaccines can lead to ADE.
Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), is a phenomenon in which the binding of a virus to suboptimal antibodies induced by ‘leaky vaccines,’ enhances its entry into host cells, followed by replication.
This is bad because it would mean a vaccine can make people more at risk for severe disease.
So far, there have been no studies linking the COVID-19 vaccines to ADE, but the concerns about ADE with COVID-19 vaccines have resurfaced with the emergence of new virus variants.
However, one study from earlier this year suggests this could potentially be an issue with the current vaccines.
“Current SARS-CoV-2 vaccines appear to be providing protection with high antibody titers; the possibility of ADE risks associated with waning titers of antibodies over time remains unknown.”
Another study, Jaume et al., points out the potential pitfalls associated with immunizations against SARS-CoV-1. The study predicts that new attempts to create either SARS-CoV-1 vaccines, MERS-CoV vaccines, or SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have potentially higher risks for inducing ADE in humans facilitated by antibody infection of immune cells.
In 2016 a dengue vaccine was developed and given to almost one million children in the Philippines. Among the children who were vaccinated and later exposed to the disease, 14 died from more severe illness. Since then, the vaccine is normally only given to children over 9 years old who have already been exposed to dengue.
Another example comes from the U.S. when ADE occurred during a clinical trial for a vaccine against the RSV virus. In 1967, children who participated and received the vaccine, developed more severe RSV illness when they later encountered the virus in public. Two toddlers died. The vaccine was associated with an immune complex formation that caused lung obstruction, stalling the RSV vaccine development.
Similarly, in the 1960’s cases of ADE also occurred with an inactivated measles vaccine that was being developed in the U.S. at the time. After vaccinated children developed more severe illnesses, the vaccines were withdrawn. The live, weakened measles vaccines that are currently in use today in the U.S. have not been associated with ADE.
According to some studies, some types of vaccines that do not prevent transmission could allow more virulent and deadly versions of a disease to spread.
Perfect vaccines are referred to as such because they mimic the perfect immunity that humans naturally develop after having diseases.
Over the past fifty years, Marek’s disease—a highly contagious viral neoplastic disease in chickens—has become much more deadly over time.
In the 1970s, new vaccines brought the disease under control, but within ten years, the virus started evolving into more virulent strains. These new strains now trigger more severe cancers and afflict chickens at earlier ages.
Andrew Read, an infectious disease expert from Pennsylvania State University, said in an interview in 2015, that the vaccines were responsible.
This problem, where vaccination fosters the evolution of more virulent diseases, does not apply to most human vaccines. Vaccines against mumps, measles, rubella, and smallpox are so-called “perfect vaccines.” They protect against disease and stop people from transmitting the viruses. “You don’t get onward evolution,” says Read.
Read was concerned however with the next generation of vaccines that are being developed against diseases like Ebola, HIV, and malaria.
“The candidate Ebola vaccines are also foremost in my mind,” Read says. If they leak, and some vaccinated individuals are capable of passing on Ebola, “that might lead to the evolution of very dangerous pathogens.”
The current COVID-19 vaccines, according to recent data, seem to be turning out to be less than imperfect.
Nobel Prize Winner Luc Montagnier said during an interview in May that epidemiologists know but are “silent” about the phenomenon, known as “Antibody-Dependent Enhancement” (ADE).
The French Virologist also contended that “it is the vaccination that is creating the variants.”
Research recently presented to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) warned a future strain could be as deadly as MERS – which could kill 35 percent of infected people – could be on the way.
The researchers concluded extra lethality would be expected ‘even in the face of vaccination since vaccines do not provide absolute sterilizing immunity.’
The group predicted however predicted that a more ‘realistic possibility’ in the long term is that as Covid continues to mutate it will actually cause less serious disease.
The group wrote: ‘In other words, this virus will become like other human CoV that causes common colds, but with much less severe disease predominantly in the old or clinically vulnerable.’
Natural immunity to COVID-19 seems to last a lifetime according to most data, and the perfect natural immunity humans seem to build up to the virus, would be the main driver of coronavirus becoming just another cold.
According to doctors, the dominant Delta variant’s symptoms are much milder, and the fatality rate is far lower than previous coronavirus variants. Dr. David Priest, an infectious disease specialist with Novant Health, said while the loss of taste and smell was the most telltale sign of the coronavirus throughout the pandemic, many getting sick with delta present with more mild symptoms, like a runny nose or sore throat.
The symptoms closely resemble the common cold or hay fever.
While national news outlets are sounding the alarm about the Delta variant of the virus, the actual number of COVID-19 deaths is extremely low.
Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff recently pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In the US, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”
The graph he shares is from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at extreme lows.
It’s beginning to become clear to many experts, COVID is here to stay just like influenza, As the virus runs through populations over the course of a couple of years, our immune systems – which are superior to fighting just about every virus that exists – will accustom.
For most viruses, it is generally the scientific consensus that natural infection provides a better and more robust immunity than vaccines are able to.
According to the vast majority of new data, COVID is one of those viruses where natural immunity is the superior treatment.
