The verdict is in on Omicron and the vaccine; the vaccine fails against omicron alike for Delta and will for new variants...boosting will fail, 3rd, 4th boost...Pfizer and Fauci knows, not you yet

Some have come to me and told me “Paul, can you step back a little ‘for now’ and say ‘roughly’ that the vaccines have grown weak against delta and are not effective against omicron…maybe you could also suggest that there is some evidence that fresh booster works against delta, at least for a little while. Can you say it so and not be too definitive?

Well, I prefer to not BS and play around the edges. The vaccine has failed, period! It is clear it has failed on Delta e.g. we have present research findings by Singanayagam et al. (fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts), by Chau et al. (viral loads of breakthrough Delta variant infection cases in vaccinated nurses were 251 times higher than those of cases infected with prior strains early 2020), and by Riemersma et al. (no difference in viral loads when comparing unvaccinated individuals to those who have vaccine “breakthrough” infections and if vaccinated individuals become infected with the delta variant, they may be sources of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to others) that reveal the vaccines have very sub-optimal efficacy. This troubling situation of the vaccinated being highly infectious and transmitting the virus has also clearly emerged in seminal nosocomial outbreak papers by Chau et al. (HCWs in Vietnam), the Finland hospital outbreak (spread among HCWs and patients), and the Israel hospital outbreak (spread among HCWs and patients). These studies also troublingly revealed that the PPE and masking were essentially ineffective within the healthcare setting. All of the HCWs were double vaccinated yet there was extensive spread to themselves and their patients.

In addition, Nordström et al. (vaccine effectiveness of Pfizer against infection waned progressively from 92% day 15-30 to 47% day 121-180, and from day 211 and onwards no effectiveness), Suthar et al. (a substantial waning of antibody responses and T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, at 6 months following the second immunization), Yahi et al. (with delta variant, neutralizing antibodies have a decreased affinity for the spike protein, whereas facilitating antibodies display a strikingly increased affinity), Juthani et al. (higher numbers of patients with severe or critical illness in those who received the Pfizer vaccine), Gazit et al. (SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant, and substantially elevated risk of symptomatic COVID and hospitalization), and Acharya et al. (no significant difference in cycle threshold values between vaccinated and unvaccinated, asymptomatic and symptomatic groups infected with Delta) collectively reveal the poor efficacy and even negative efficacy of the COVID vaccines. Levine-Tiefenbrun et al. reports that the viral load reduction effectiveness declines with time after vaccination, “significantly decreasing at 3 months after vaccination and effectively vanishing after about 6 months.”

Anything on omicron? Two new studies on the omicron variant, both low quality studies, but good enough to give a decent indication of how the vaccine behaves…one is in vitro and one a very small case series, make it clearer that the vaccine fails (certainly the vaccines have grown weak against delta and are not effective against omicron). We knew this would happen as the vaccine is geared only to the initial Wuhan strain March 2020 and that strain is long gone. The March 2020 Wuhan strain is long gone and the vaccine does not hit Delta.

The vaccine does not stop infection or transmission and allows for immune escape and so is non-sterilizing (does not provide for neutralizing antibodies). It cannot as the mounted antibodies are to the Wuhan strain and vaccine immunity is not robust and comprehensive and bullet proof and durable and complete like natural immunity that sees the complete viral ball and all proteins (nucleocapsid protein, membrane protein, envelope, spike, all attachments, all nooks and crevices on the viral ball while the vaccine sees only the spike…one protein target with a few epitopes…its as if I am natural immunity and when I look at you, I take a snap shot for my memory of your hair, eyes, mouth, weight, height, nose, ears, scars etc. and Jimmy next door is vaccine immunity and all Jimmy is concerned with is your nose and imprints that in his memory. Now if you went away a couple weeks and returned and you did a nose job on vacation, I will still recognize you as you for I know all other parts of you…I really do not care if you changed your nose as all others things remained the same on you…Jimmy on the other hand does not know it is you for all he used to recognize you with was your nose all the time and now it is changed, he does not have any clue who you are. This is a rudimentary explanation of what happens each time the virus mutates on the spike for the spike is the hot spot and where the mutations take place (RBD, receptor binding domain…), so when the spike mutates (variant), your vaccine immunity that is Jimmy, and who only focuses on the spike, cannot recognize the rest of the virus…clueless…and so you (the virus) simply walks by or ‘breaks through’….the immunity.

So, what is the evidence on omicron thus far? Well, we have two small but interesting and important preliminary studies that continue to show that the vaccine is failed…and will continue to…it is almost as if the vaccine was designed to fail…the key CDC finding was approximately 80% of the omicron cases were double vaccinated.

1. Wilhelm et al. reported on reduced neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant by vaccine sera and monoclonal antibodies. “in vitro findings using authentic SARS-CoV-2 variants indicate that in contrast to the currently circulating Delta variant, the neutralization efficacy of vaccine-elicited sera against Omicron was severely reduced highlighting T-cell mediated immunity as essential barrier to prevent severe COVID-19.” 

2. CDC reported on the details for 43 cases of COVID-19 attributed to the Omicron variant. They found that “34 (79%) occurred in persons who completed the primary series of an FDA-authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccine ≥14 days before symptom onset or receipt of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result.”