“Attempting to control mucosal respiratory viruses with systemically administered non-replicating vaccines has thus far been largely unsuccessful.” ~ Dr A Fauci (former director of NIAID), 2023, commenting on vaccines for Covid-19.
The journal Cell Host & Microbe published recently one of the most significant papers of the Covid era; it revisits the question of a new generation vaccine against the coronavirus, flu viruses, and other respiratory viruses. It has generated surprisingly little fanfare, given its authors and substance.
For one thing, the ultimate author is Dr. Anthony Fauci, recently retired Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and media darling. Secondly, because Dr. Fauci and his co-authors provided proof that what he and other authorities told the public about the Covid vaccine ended up not being true.
Dr. Fauci notes: “…our best approved influenza vaccines would be inadequate for licensure for most other vaccine-preventable diseases.”
He adds: “…it is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses have ever been effectively controlled by vaccines.”
The authors present clear explanations for this lack of efficacy: “The vaccines for these two very different viruses have common characteristics: they elicit incomplete and short-lived protection against evolving virus variants that escape population immunity.”
The paper succinctly concludes coronavirus and influenza vaccines are no good:
“The vaccines for these two very different viruses have common characteristics: they elicit incomplete and short-lived protection against evolving virus variants that escape population immunity.”
It is best to look at the paper in three ways:
-Examine the evidence presented by the authors
-Note residual dogma persisting in spite of contradicting that evidence
-Examine the implications of the paper with respect to public health responses to Covid.
Poor Vaccine Efficacy vs. Superiority of Natural immunity.
The review makes it clear that vaccinations for respiratory viruses, such as influenza or the coronaviruses (e.g. , the Covid-causing SARS-CoV-2) are very unlikely to reach the levels of efficacy that we have come to expect with other vaccines.
The authors point out that data from the CDC shows that flu vaccines, which are currently promoted to everyone ages six months and up, have had an efficacy rate between only 14% and as high as 60% since 2005 (extending that to 17 years will reduce that figure to 10%, and average vaccine efficacy (VE) is a little less than 40%).
“Vaccines against these two vastly different viruses share common characteristics: They induce incomplete, short-lived protection from evolving viral variants that evade population immunity”
. . They reproduce primarily in local mucosal tissues, do not induce viremia, and are not meaningfully challenged by systemic immune systems or by the full strength of adaptive immune responses, which require at least 5-7 days for maturation, typically long after viral replication has peaked and spread further.
As that candid assessment notes, it is impossible to predict that a Covid vaccine will ever substantially decrease infections or transmission. “The importance of mucosal secretory IgA (sIgA) in the specific response against respiratory viral infections has been recognized long ago in the case of influenza viruses, RSV, and most recently, SARS-CoV-2. . The relevance here is that systemic vaccines, the authors point out, do not induce mucosal IgA production.
Although CDC has shown that vaccination in addition to natural immunity provides little additional clinical benefit, claims for a reduction in Covid death rates (as opposed to all-cause death) from vaccines in between the initial period of potential immunosuppression and later declines in efficacy are rationally immunologically supported.
As recognized by the NIH, T cells are also a major coronavirus defense, and there has been crossover immunity to SARS-CoV-2 observed in many individuals who were not previously infected. This suggests another mechanism for explaining vaccines lack of effectiveness relative to natural infection, even against earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants. “Vaccines against these two highly diverse viruses share common characteristics: They induce incomplete, short-lived protection against evolving viral variants that escape populations immunity.
The true value of the article is in how it pits the Covid dogma against the evidence. The authors begin by noting that up to five million people typically die worldwide each year as a result of respiratory viruses. A comparison to the 6.8 million deaths recorded for Covid over the past three years from WHO would have provided some helpful context (note: It is important to distinguish deaths due to Covid from the overall deaths due to the pandemic, which includes deaths due to both Covid and the effects of quarantine).
“SARS-CoV-2 has killed over a million people in the U.S. . This is, of course, not true. It is based on deaths following recent positive results from a PCR, and CNNs Covid analysts are now acknowledging that there was an exaggeration involved.
That a vaccine seems to have saved far too many lives for authors to consider is startling. Dr. Fauci felt free to speculate about the death numbers in the early years of the Covid epidemic, when the virus struck in a population said to be without previous immunity. The mortality numbers reported were similar the second year, once the mass vaccine was mandated, although severe illness was largely concentrated among the relatively small, clearly defined older minority that was prioritized in the vaccine schedule. It is thus more plausible that vaccines prevented comparatively few deaths.
The authors in this article do not present any novel hypotheses that would explain why the performance of the Covid vaccine has been so disappointing. They are merely restating prior knowledge. Predictions about the efficacy of the vaccine being high and lasting, that the vaccination would clear a path to the end of the pandemic, are not expected to come to pass. These claims were a ploy to entice compliance with a program that would greatly enrich a few business and public-health figures.
