I've often thought, with such a high risk of catching COVID-19 and such a high risk of serious illness, both short and long term from 'long COVID', that people must be mad not to take up the offer of the initial vaccine and the regular boosters.
Now a Swedish team at the Karolinska Institutet have analysed data from seven studies in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia and Scotland and found a significant correlation between unmedicated mental illness and low vaccine take-up.
One of creationism's putative major success in the last 100 years, has been its new (as of 2019) coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – Corona Virus - 2.
Creationism's divine malevolence is not giving up on its stunningly successful SARS-CoV-2 virus that killed millions, made hundreds of millions suffer and wrecked economies worldwide in the worst pandemic since its 'Spanish Lady' influenza pandemic of 1918-19.
Just because medical science produced the very effective mRNA vaccines against in in record time, bringing the pandemic under control, and its effects down to manageable proportions, is no reason to give up on it and admit defeat.
It is now designing ever more variants, some of which, like the latest, LB.1 (aka D-FLiRT) is currently surging in parts of the world, having succeeded XBB, JN.1, FLiRT and FLuQE.
How Sars-CoV-2 needs to keep infecting people, or it will become extinct as its supply of hosts dries up by becoming resistant to it. How it keeps on evolving to keep infecting people by overcoming natural and acquired immunity as vaccines are updated to try to keep up with it, is the subject of an article in The Conversation by Professor Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia. His article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons License, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
The risk of long COVID has declined over the course of the pandemic, although it remains a persistent threat. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identified vaccination as a primary factor in reducing the risk of long COVID.
According to a report published today by scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, the risk of contracting long COVID after an infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus fell significantly when people were vaccinated. This was true for both the Delta and Omicron strains as well as for original.
The researchers attribute almost 72% of this reduction to the vaccines and the rest to changes in the SARS-CoV-2 virus and improved detection and management of infected patients. Their results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine and in a Washington University School of Medicine new release:
According to data published in Annals of Internal Medicine, people who experience flu-like symptoms - chills, tiredness, headaches, and feeling unwell, after a COVID mRNA vaccination tend to have a higher antibody count. This was based on a prospective cohort study of 363 participants from the San Fransico Bay area of California, US, who were vaccinated in 2021 and self-reported their symptoms.
Those who reported these symptoms had antibody levels about 1.5 time those of people who had no such symptoms after 1 month and at least 6 months after vaccination. In addition to those with self-reported symptoms, comparable results were found in 147 people who were objectively assessed for elevated skin temperature and increased heart rate.
The conclusion is that rather than acting as a deterrent, these symptoms should not be a deterrent but should be welcomed as evidence that the vaccine has worked.
More details are given in the report in Annals of Internal Medicine:
Despite a continuing high death toll from COVID-19 - 23,000 so far this year in the USA - only 25% of Americans had the booster last Autumn. This year, so far in the UK under 60% of 75+ age group invited have taken up the offer of a booster.
One of the reasons often cited is that the boosters make you feel rough for a day or two with flu-like symptoms of headache, aches and pains and general malaise, although, speaking from personal experience, I have never had anything like that, and I have had every booster offered. The worst I've had has been a slightly sore arm for a day or two with a little stiffness which is only there when I think about it. However, even the reported adverse reactions pass within a day or two. Now a new study has shown that this is a good sign because it shows the vaccine is working well to produce a high yield of antibodies.
The study, led by UC San Francisco, has found that the symptoms indicate a robust immune response that is likely to lessen the chances of infection. The findings, explained in a UC San Franciso press release, are published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Health-care workers received the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. Repeat booster vaccination with updated versions of the vaccine promotes antibodies against a wide range of variants, as well as related coronaviruses.
A new study has shown that regular boosters of the COVID-19 vaccines against each new variant, give protection against a broad range of variants probably including variants yet to emerge, as well as related viruses.
This was the conclusion of a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The concern had been that, like the flu vaccines, earlier vaccinations tend to inhibit the formation of newer antibodies, but the study showed that not only are antibodies raised to the new variant but repeated vaccinations 'train' the immune system to produce a broad spectrum of antibodies.
This very welcome news to someone who has just had his 7th booster but still contracted a mild infection at the end of last summer on a trip to France, especially as we're going to Czechia in a few days’ time.
The research findings are the subject of a pre-edited paper in nature which is sadly behind a paywall, so we only have the Abstract. However, the researchers have provided more detail in a Washington University news release:
In the first few months of 2020, when the news was full of overflowing hospitals, doctors and nurses dying, shortages of personal protection equipment, respirators and oxygen cylinders and people dying in the streets from COVID-19, going outside was a hazardous business.
I well remember the first time I ventured outside as I had to go to my bank. I put on a face mask and plastic gloves before I got out of my car; parking charges had been suspended because using the ticket machine was too hazardous, and besides there no-one to refill it or even issue the spot fines for non-display of the parking ticket.
I walked from the car-park, through an almost empty pedestrianized shopping precinct, crossing to the far side to avoid a queue of anxious-looking people in facemasks, standing two metres apart, waiting to be admitted one at a time to a pharmacy - one of the only shops open.
It was surreal; the air we breathed had suddenly become toxic and touching any surface meant using a hand-cleansing anti-viral gel before we touched our face or handled anything else. Only essential shops were open. As soon as we came in the house, we used the hand-cleanser on the hall table then went straight to the bathroom to wash our hands with soap for the recommended 20 seconds - our hands had never been so clean.
When we had our weekly groceries delivered, we had them put in our garage, put on plastic gloves to put frozen food in the freezer, and of course washed our hands immediately, and left the rest for several hours before touching them, to allow the virus to die. Soon, all available delivery slots were taken by vulnerable people, and we had to use click and collect.
Our son, who was on a visit from the Czech Republic when the pandemic hit, got stranded here by the ban on travel, until, in April 2020, the Czech government arranged a repatriation coach for Czech nationals, with strict quarantine regulations. His Czech mother-in-law had made some face masks for him for the journey, but they arrived two weeks later. I drove him to Victoria in London through eerily empty streets, fully prepared to pay any fixed penalty for making a ‘non-essential’ journey. Trafalgar square, normally packed with people, was deserted and the normally heavily congested streets of London were strangely empty. Nothing moved on the M40 motorway.
Life had become strange and rather frightening, and we lost 50 lbs in weight to give ourselves a better chance if we caught the virus. We had gotten used to click and collect food shopping as a weekly routine - checking which local supermarket had a vacant slot, sometime needing to go as far afield as Reading or Wantage to find one. Gradually the restrictions were eased, but Christmas was a write-off. We got used to wearing face covering in public, using hand-cleanser as we entered any building and maintaining a 2-meter distance. Arrows on walkways showed us which side to walk on.
And we did twice-weekly lateral flow tests with the free test-kits we ordered online and dutifully reported the results to the NHS.
Then, in February 2021, we got the long-awaited phone call inviting us to get the new COVID vaccine and on Saturday, 6 February, 2021, everything changed. We had the first of our two vaccinations at a mass-vaccination centre in a social centre in a village some 5 miles away. It felt like a weight had been lifted from our shoulders; we had gotten through the pandemic! In 10-14 days, we would be protected against the more severe form of COVID-19. Medical science, in the form of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, had delivered humanity from the worst of the pandemic and made it possible to begin to restore normal life.
Last year, after having had just about every booster going in spring and autumn, we both caught COVID-19 on a trip to France - it was a mild, flue like infection that lasted about a week - nothing worse than a 'bit of a cold'. Without the protection of the vaccines, the outcome could have been very different.
And soon we are going to Czechia to visit our son, free from any worries or restrictions on travel; Czechia that 4 years ago, our son could only enter in a sealed, specially quarantined coach. What has made the difference is the vaccines, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies using techniques developed by the Oxford scientists in association with AstraZeneca (AZ).
And now, the European Union has decided to withdraw authorization for the AZ. Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, explains why in an article in The Conversation, reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine withdrawn – right to the end it was the victim of misinformation
AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine withdrawn – right to the end it was the victim of misinformation
This EU announcement was preceded by an application from AstraZeneca on March 27 2024 to withdraw the EU marketing authorisation. This development has been covered in various media outlets as primarily related to the known “adverse events”, namely a very small risk of blood clots. However, other factors are far more likely to be driving this decision.
The first AstraZeneca vaccine dose, outside of clinical trials, was administered on January 4 2021. In that year, about 2.5 billion doses were administered, and an estimated 6.3 million lives saved.
It was a key product at the peak of the pandemic. This includes during the emergence of the delta variant in India, across the first half of 2021 where, amid significant global supply issues, the AstraZeneca vaccine was one of the few tools available during that humanitarian crisis.
Professor Sarah Gilbert led the Oxford University team that produced the AZ vaccine.
This COVID vaccine, like those from Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and others, went through the appropriate levels of testing. The phase 3 trials (where the vaccine is tested on thousands of people) showed the AstraZeneca product was safe and effective. It was distributed in many countries in Europe in early 2021, including the UK.
The potential adverse events related to blood clots were publicly reported in February 2021, with, for example, the UK government and the drugs regulator (the MHRA) then publishing a statement about its continued use on March 18 2021.
This was a time when COVID levels were extremely high, and getting higher, with around 4 million confirmed new cases globally per week.
It is well established that COVID itself caused a significantly increased risk of these related blood clots and also thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). An August 2021, analysis of 30 million vaccinated people in the UK showed that the risks of thrombocytopenic events were much higher following a COVID infection, compared with any COVID-related vaccine.
From that study, the British Heart Foundation describe how for every 10 million people who are vaccinated with AstraZeneca, there are 66 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and seven extra cases of a rare type of blood clot in the brain. By comparisons, infection with COVID is estimated to cause 12,614 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and 20 cases of rare blood clots in the brain.
To put this into some perspective, these vaccine-associated blood clot rates are much lower than many widely prescribed medicines. For example, the combined contraception pill, prescribed widely to women, has blood clot-related risks of around one in 1,000. With women taking postmenopausal hormone therapy, around one in 300 per year are likely to develop a blood clot.
Poor public profile
The AstraZeneca vaccine did suffer from a poor public profile, arguably much of it undeserved. There was some poor quality reporting in Germany in January 2021, with claims that the vaccine was only “8% effective in the elderly”. This claim was widely repeated, but it turns out that 8% figure referred to the percentage of people aged over 65 years in the study and not the efficacy measure.
The antivaccine lobby had a field day with fuelling the “infodemic”, including other false claims such as fabricated links between the vaccine and female infertility. As with the blood clots, COVID infection is known to increase the risks of infertility, but there is no link between infertility and the vaccine.
For individuals and families likely to have been injured by any medicine, including any of the COVID vaccines, compensation schemes are available. Many claimants report difficulties and frustrations with accessing the compensation. This is an area where the government-led schemes should be more transparent, and also where the misinformation from the anti-vaccine lobby hinders those groups they are claiming to support.
So, why would AstraZeneca withdraw this high-profile product? One reason for the withdrawal is likely to be that other COVID vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, are essentially better products.
AstraZeneca is very good, but the mRNA versions have better effectiveness and safety levels.
The initial concerns around the difficulties of the specialist refrigeration needed to transport and store the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been overcome, including in low-income countries. The mRNA vaccines are also easier to update when new variants emerge.
With those factors, orders for the AstraZeneca vaccine are probably much lower now than they were in previous years. It is being overlooked in favour of better-performing vaccines.
For the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, perhaps it’s time has indeed passed. But it has been a safe and effective vaccine and a key part of the pandemic response for most countries around the world.
Correction. The sentence that read: It is well established that COVID itself caused a significantly increased risk of these related blood clots (thrombocytopenia). Now says: It is well established that COVID itself caused a significantly increased risk of these related blood clots and also thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton
Published by The Conversation. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)
Because of the widespread claim by antivaxxer propagandists and purveyors of disinformation, that the AZ vaccine had not been fully tested and was somehow 'experimental', the full AZ test methodology and results are in the following PDF of the open access report in The Lancet:
There are some scary questions for creationists at the end of this article. They follow on naturally from what's being discussed, so creationists should probably avoid reading too far, unless they have a responsible adult with them.
This article from The Conversation is from May 2022, when we were into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and most vulnerable people had had the two-step vaccinations and many would have had the spring booster. At that point neither me nor my partner had had COVID-19, which we put down to rigorously following the recommendations regarding mask-wearing, social distancing, hand washing, etc. and had tried to reduce our vulnerability to the sever forms of it by losing about 3 stone in weight and, in my case, getting my blood pressure under control with medication. We also tried to ensure our immune systems were healthy by taking vitamin D3, vitamin C, zinc and iron supplements.
In the early days of the pandemic, even before the official restrictions on social contact, we had observed the basic rules of hygiene and everyone who came into the house used hand-cleanser at the front door. I had even managed to obtain a supply of face-masks and plastic gloves online, which we wore at all times outside the house. Every package that was delivered to the house was left for several hours before we touched it, and all our weekly shopping was delivered or bought with click and collect. Delivered bags were left for four hours before unpacking. And we took weekly tests just in case we had it asymptomatically. All that might seem a little over the top now, but we were vindicated as events were to prove.
We put the fact that we hadn't caught it by mid-2022 down to our preventative measures, not to luck or genetics - a view that was vindicated last year when we both came back from a two-week vacation in France with a mild form of COVID-19, despite having had all the boosters on offer. We probably picked it up in a crowded airport or on the plane, where all the social distancing measures had been forgotten and even face masks were no longer worn. We both felt like we had a mild case of flu for a couple of days and after a week we were testing negative. Had we contracted it in Spring 2020, the outcome would probably have been very different as we had no immunity, and both had three of the risk-factors - overweight, high BP and over 70. In addition, my partner had had a mastectomy and was receiving treatment for breast cancer.
One reason you can't ever be sure that you won't catch COVID-19 is because the virus keeps mutating to produce new variants so, even if you were fortunate enough to have natural or acquired immunity to the variants so far, it is quite possible that the next or subsequent variants will have evolved a way round it. The following chart from the UK NHS, shows the rise and fall of the main variants over the course of the pandemic:
But still, a few people managed to stay free from the virus. In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, Lindsay Broadbent, Research Fellow, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, explains why. Her article has been reformatted for stylistic consistency:
Online spaces attract conspiracy theorists. Social media has helped propagate conspiracy theories faster than was possible with more traditional media. This has driven engagement with political parties that focus on conspiracy theories.
According to a news item carried today by Agence France-Presse (AFP), US antivaxx conspiracists are deliberately spreading fear and disinformation to sell quack medical kits to gullible fools and in doing so are risking the lives of anyone foolish enough to believe them. And a recent paper published by a Japanese research group has shown how extremist parties are trading on growing antivaxx paranoia, originating in Trump-supporting conspiracists in the USA, by incorporating it into the political platforms.
This team of researchers recall how Donald Trump first of all tried to take credit for developing the mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, as though he had personally directed the research and invented the science behind mRNA vaccines, then switched to curry favour with the antivaxxers by casting doubt on the need for boosters. And of course, antivaxxer conspiracy theories became a central theme of the rabidly pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theorists.
If you listen to antivaxxer covidiots you would believe:
COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19, is a deadly organism developed by the Chinese for biological warfare.
COVID-19 was a hoax (which even normally hostile nations had signed up to, apparently).
God sent the virus to punish America for legalising same-sex marriage (and the rest of the world was collateral damage)
The vaccines developed against it don't work (regardless of what the clinic trials showed).
The vaccines contain microchips and special genes to make you become gay and/or subject to satellite control.
The vaccines contain deadly viruses that can be activated via the 5G phone network.
Millions of people have died or will die soon because they've been vaccinated.
[Fill in your own crackpot theory because someone will already have claimed it to be true].
The truth is, however, that millions of people died of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, before a vaccine was generally available and this death rate fell to low levels following the roll out of the first vaccines and subsequent boosters to allow for new variants. Although the virus is still very much with us, people have been able to resume normal activities and the economic and health impact of the virus is now no more than that of seasonal flu, but there were concerns that antibody levels produced in response to the mRNA vaccines were short-lived, giving only temporary protection.
Now a large-scale analysis conducted by leading microbiologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has shown that antibody responses induced by COVId-19 vaccines are long-lasting. The results of this analysis are published, open access, in the Cell Press journal, Immunity, and are discussed in a Mount Sinai press release:
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in late 2019 sparked the global pandemic that is now in its fifth year. Vaccines that were developed at record speed have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease. The common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly. However, this assumption is largely based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.
The Mount Sinai research team’s analysis of more than 8,000 samples collected over a three-year period in New York City examined how antibody responses to the virus’s spike protein changed after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, and during breakthrough infections.
They found that upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity (those who had previously been infected with the virus) mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than individuals who had not been previously infected. The waning of antibody response was characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay from the strong peak after vaccination, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay, suggesting that antibody levels were very long-lasting. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without pre-existing immunity. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar levels as an additional vaccine dose in individuals who had not previously been infected.
This investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Its major conclusion is that changes in the virus that allow it to evade immunity, rather than waning immunity, are the major reason for breakthrough infections.
Ours is one of the longest-running COVID-19 studies out there. Following the same group of people monthly over time is rare and powerful because you can compare immune responses on an individual level. SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, so this research is important to provide an understanding about the impact of new variants and new vaccine doses on a healthy immune system, and to guide all of us to make the best choices to maintain protection against the virus that continues to circulate in our communities.
Professor Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, lead author
Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
This in-depth analysis was made possible through the Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS) study, an observational, longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System that was initiated in April 2020. At that time, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase in severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, and essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to the crisis, a team of leading virologists, physician-scientists, and pathologists at Mount Sinai established a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to accurately measure the SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers. This test was used to measure immune responses in the PARIS cohort in order to determine how quickly the antibody defenses were mounted and much these changed over the months and years of follow up.
In addition to showing the impact on a person’s individual antibody response to vaccines based on the type of vaccine received and whether or not they were infected before receiving the first dose, the PARIS study made possible the development of a mathematical model that can be used to predict and characterize antibody responses of both individual people and populations.
People have pandemic fatigue and vaccine uptake has slowed, especially after the vaccines started to be charged to insurance*. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the booster doses promoted a large antibody response regardless of a person’s personal infection history, so we are hopeful that our study findings will encourage people to get their vaccine boosters when eligible and to stay engaged in research. Our work also showcases the impact of viral evolution over time and why it’s critical to keep studies like this going, despite the pandemic fatigue.
Komal Srivastava, MS, Co-first author
Director of Strategy and Operation
Mount Sinai Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness.
According to the research team, the PARIS model has broad applications for studying the kinetics of antibodies produced to different COVID-19 vaccines in diverse populations. They stress much more work remains to analyze side effects, applications of the antibody model and continued research about new vaccines and viral variants.
This study adds an essential piece of data to understand the intricate immune response elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination. In light of the emerging viral variants, which predominantly induce a cross-reactive antibody response against the spike protein, it will be exciting to characterize in depth the role of these antibodies - in particular the non-neutralizing ones - in protection against the most recent circulating viral variants. Likewise, monitoring the induction of variant-specific antibodies after multiple exposures by breakthrough infections and by administration of updated COVID-19 vaccines, such as the XBB.1.5 monovalent booster, will be key to understand the evolution of the antibody response over time.
Assistant Professor Dr Juan Manuel Carreno Quiroz, PhD, Co-first author.
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
*Note: in the UK, vaccines are provided free by the NHS. Other non-US countries will have their own health-care systems which may or may not include charges for the vaccines.
More technical detail and the background to the research is given in the team's paper in Immunology:
Graphical abstract
Highlights
COVID-19-vaccine-induced immunity wanes but stabilizes at an individual setpoint
Pre-existing immunity results in rapid antibody responses upon vaccination
Boosters equalize antibody titers between individuals with and without hybrid immunity
Antibody kinetics show two phases: an initial rapid decay followed by a steady state
Summary
It is thought that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) wanes quickly, based mostly on short-term studies. Here, we analyzed the kinetics and durability of the humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination using >8,000 longitudinal samples collected over a 3-year period in New York City. Upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than naive individuals. Antibody kinetics were characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without hybrid immunity, but the peak antibody titers decreased with each successive antigen exposure. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar titers as an additional vaccine dose in naive individuals. Our study provides strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses are long lasting, with initial waning followed by stabilization.
Introduction
The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in late 2019 sparked the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that is now in its 4th year. Vaccines to mitigate the impact of the pandemic were developed at record speed and have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants1 and waning immunity2 have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease.3 These two issues, the emergence of antigenically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity, are often conflated and used interchangeably but represent two different phenomena.4 Most vaccines used in North America and Europe are based on lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) containing messenger RNA (mRNA) produced by Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273), and the common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly.5 However, this assumption is mostly based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.2,5
In March of 2020, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase of severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, resulting in a staggering number of fatalities and a severely overburdened healthcare system.6,7,8 Due to shortages of personal protective equipment, essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to this crisis, we established (1) a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to measure humoral immune responses,9 and (2) an observational longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System to determine the kinetics of these humoral responses. This study, named Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS),10 aims to capture the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses to infection as well as vaccinations, to determine re-infection rates, and to assess correlates of protection in the context of individual immune histories.
With over 8,000 longitudinal study visits across a single cohort during the first 3 years of the pandemic, our investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Using this longitudinal cohort, we determined the kinetics of antibody responses to spike protein after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, as well as during breakthrough infections. Our findings indicate that, in contrast to common perception, COVID-19 mRNA vaccination induces long-lasting antibody responses in humans. The PARIS Study also provides insights into the effect of booster vaccination and breakthrough infections on the stability of antibody responses.
What is clear from this study is that antibody levels remain at protective levels for very much longer that was previously thought and that they continue to give protection against the severe form of the disease. However, as the virus evolves in an environment in which the vast majority of possible victims have already been vaccinated or have had previous infections so have high antibody levels, the variants that can 'escape' this protection will continue to evolve and become the predominant variant.
This diagram from UK data shows how the different variants have evolved and either replaced earlier variants or have reached an equilibrium with them:
Changes in proportions of SARS-CoV-2 variants in UK over time. This diagram is a good illustration of how the proportions of different alleles of a gene change in a species gene pool over time as the species evolves.
It is essential then that regular boosters, which provide protection against the latest variants, should continue to be given. We are in a long-term struggle with this virus and vaccines keep us ahead of the game.
To anyone but a reality-denying creationist, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, is a classic example of evolution by natural selection, as it continually mutates and those mutations that make it more successful are retained, so it continually improves in its ability to infect and be passed on to another victim, so producing more offspring in the virus gene pool than rival versions.
The latest version to gain predominance, JN.1, currently spreading across the world, is yet another variation on the omicron version, which itself ousted delta as the predominant variety. This new improved version may prove to be so different to omicron that is should be given a new Greek letter designation.
One point that shouldn't go unnoticed is that because, unlike the original, the virus now exists in an environment in which most of its potential victims have a degree of immunity to it, either by vaccination or by previous infection. Because that immunity usually means the ability to produce antibodies to the 'spike' proteins on the surface of the virus, most of the mutations of progressively more successful variants are in the genes that code for those proteins - making it more difficult for antibodies to bind to them.
To a creationist, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, like all the other pathological viruses, presents the paradox of trying to believe their putative designer god is the supreme ruler of and creator of everything in, the universe and is the only entity capable of creating biological organisms, but, because it is omnibenevolent, it would not have designed SARS-CoV-2 and would not be responsible for continually redesigning it to continue making us sick, by evading the immune system it supposedly also designed to protect us from viruses and other pathogens.
Curiously, creationists who continually present what they think is evidence of design as evidence for their magic creator on the grounds that it is the only entity capable of biological design, never use evidence of malevolent design as evidence for the same magic creator. That has to be ascribed to another entity with even greater powers than their supposedly supreme-in-all-things god and with the ability to outwit it, even though that claim is blasphemous within their own religious beliefs. They need to hold those two diametrically opposite views of 'creation' simultaneously to continue to deny the evidence for evolution by natural selection of which the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a perfect example.
And those creationists who do actually believe the religion they purport to believe and who won't contemplate blasphemy, have no recourse but to believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not only designed by their putative designer god but that it also regularly updates it to continue making us sick despite the efforts of biomedical scientists, because the alternative it to accept the unthinkable and ascribe it all the a god-free natural process of evolution by natural selection, just as science claims.
The following article by Suman Majumdar, Associate Professor and Chief Health Officer - COVID and Health Emergencies, Burnet Institute; Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO, Burnet Institute; Emma Pakula, Senior Research and Policy Officer, Burnet Institute; and Stuart Turville, Associate Professor, Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Australia, explains why the emergence of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is a significant evolutionary step change. It is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
Creationists stuck with the evidence of parasites and viruses that appear to be designed for two purposes only - making more copies of themselves and increasing the suffering in the world by making us sick and die - traditionally try to ride two horses. They blame something else, like 'The Fall' or 'Sin' for them, whilst still arguing that their putative designer god is supreme in all things and the only entity capable of creating complex organisms.
They also get in a terrible muddle when asked whether their 'designer' god included an immune system to protect us from these parasites when it designed us before 'The Fall', in which case it was planning for it all along, or whether there was a subsequent upgrade to V.1.2, in which case it couldn't have been omniscient and had to redo its design to account for the unforeseen.
But whatever rationalisation creationists can think up for these mutually contradictory beliefs, we are left with the fact that viruses like the SARS-CoV-2 virus and our immune system are locked in an arms race, in which human medical science has had to get involved because the immune system isn't fit for purpose, and the protection it gives us is only temporary.
Meanwhile, medical scientists, aware of the fact that evolution by natural selection is going to continually produce new variants of the virus and that these viruses may become better at evading our defences, continue to apply that knowledge and develop new vaccines against the latest variants.
The following article by Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, and Wesley Freppel, Research Fellow, Institute for Glycomics, both of Griffith University, Australia explains why regular vaccination with boosters to keep out immune system primed for the latest iteration of the arms race with a latest version of the virus. The article is reproduced from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
About the last thing the politically-motivated, far right antivaxxers covidiots are interested in is protecting human life. With characteristic hypocrisy, many of the same frauds are also active campaigners against legal abortions and a woman's right to choose which, together with COVID-19 denialism and antivaxx conspiracism, have become major talking points in the Trumpanzee far right playlist.
The hypocrisy of these frauds was revealed yesterday in a study which shows there was a huge spike in the number of premature births during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic when women infected with the virus spontaneously aborted their baby. The same study also shows that in those areas where the vaccine uptake was high, the premature birth rate quickly fell back to pre-pandemic levels, but in areas where uptake was low, it took another year to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The study was carried out by Professor Jenna Nobles of Wisconsin–Madison University and Professor Florencia Torche, of Stanford University who have published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
As the Wisconsin–Madison University press release explains:
I came across this the other day while perusing NHS information sources about COVID-19, which is now declining again in UK, having had a brief revival a few weeks ago. It's a chart showing how new variant rise to dominance in the viral population, to be replaced in their turn by newer variants.
Screen clip of page 16 of the National Influenza and COVID-19 surveillance report Week 45
This diagram only covers a year since November 2022.
This, in miniature, is exactly how new gene variants can rise in the species gene pool, depending on how advantageous they are compared to other variants. Some will increase rapidly to become the predominant form and may even stage something of a rally when in competition with a new variant. Some will linger on for a long time as a small proportion of the total, while others will become extinct, or very nearly extinct as newer variants enter the fray. What allows the new variants to increase as a proportion of the total is, of course, that it produces more copies of itself than its rivals do.
Katalin Karikó (right) and Drew Weissman, the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries enabling the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
Peggy Peterson Photography Penn Medicine / Via Reuters
Of course, no serious biologist things they are fighting and invisible magic creator in the sky who is actively designing parasites to harm us, or designing anything else, for that matter, but creationists believe that's just what they are doing.
Some even go so far as claiming scientists, together with their technical staff and publishers, are all part of a secret Satanic conspiracy to mislead people about what their god has created, including the parasites and the suffering and misery they cause, apparently.
So, this piece of research must come across to genuine creationists who really do believe what their cult mandates them to believe, as scientists waging a war on their god's creation.
The war, of course, is a war that medical science has always waged against suffering and the causes of suffering, because increasing the sum total of happiness, but reducing the unhappiness in the world, is basic humanist morality - something that would appear to be lacking in creationists' putative intelligent [sic] designer.
A particularly successful recent war was the war against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still raging throughout the world, but thanks to the success of medical science, in a much less virulent form, most people having been protected by the mRNA vaccine developed by Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania and a massive world-wide effort to find a vaccine.
According to a very recent report in the peer-reviewed journal, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, the artificial intelligence chat bot, ChatGPT, is helping to dispel some of the myths surrounding vaccines, by providing the factual information that debunks the myths.
Having had all our COVID-19 vaccinations, including any seasonal boosters, and having just recovered from a mild, but unpleasant bout of it which my partner and I probably caught in France or during the flight back, I thought I would put this to the test with a little research of my own:
While I'm sitting here slowly recovering from COVID-19 which my partner and I probably either picked up in France or during the flight home, I thought I would look at some of Creationism's putative intelligent [sic] designer's other successes with lethal pandemics, so I asked my AI app for the 5 deadliest pandemics from known history.
It should be noted that the current COVID-19 pandemic, which is far from over, has to date produced 768,983,095 cases with 6,953,743 deaths and is still producing 352,943 new cases every week (WHO figures as at 2 August, 2023) This despite the fact that 13,492,099,754 (13.5 billion) vaccine doses have been administered.
Given the high mortality rate of in the early months of the pandemic, imagine what the death toll would have been without the assistance of science! Earlier pandemics had no such benefits so direct comparisons are meaningless.
A survey published in The Lancet in June 2022 estimated that about 20 million deaths from COVID-19 had been prevented in the first year following COVID-19 vaccination, so human medical science has deprived the malevolent designer of an even more stunning success with its SARS-CoV-2 virus. If it had occurred a century earlier, it would have ranked about 2 or 3 in the pandemic deaths league table - up there with the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.
Now for the top 5 pandemics:
Way out in the lead we have the Black Death or Bubonic plague, with 72-200 million deaths.
Please note that my knowledge is based on information available up to September 2021. These references provide more detailed information about each pandemic and their impacts. Additionally, there have been other significant pandemics throughout history, but these five are among the deadliest. [ChatGPT3]
Having tested positive for COVID-19, I thought I would spend a little time finding out more about what's going on inside my body right now.
But the research has collided with the work I normally do in exposing the absurdity of creationism in all its guises and the futility of trying to force-fit real world evidence into origin myths made up by people from the fearful infancy of our species who thought Earth was just a small flat disc with a dome over it to keep the water above the sky out, centered on the Canaanite Hills where they hearded their goats, told their camp-fire tales of magic sky-gods and imagined it was all made just for them.
What occurred to me is the problem creationists would have if they knew enough about the subject and weren't too afraid to question their cult dogmas. For example:
The standard creationist excuse for all the nasty little parasites such as viruses, bacteria, etc., is that they are the result of 'sin' which entered the world because of 'The Fall' (so betraying the fact that creationism isn't the science their cult leaders pretend, but religious superstition after all).
It always amuses me how cult leaders like Michael J. Behe make a big issue of the 'irreducible complexity' of bacteria such as E coli as evidence that creationism putative designer must have designed them, only to have them dismissed on another day in a different argument, as the creation of another 'evil' entity - 'sin'.
But with creationism, the tactic is to use whichever argument will work on the current audience, regardless of if consistence of intellectual integrity.
Incidentally, blaming 'sin' flatly contradicts the claim in the Bible that God told Isaiah that He created evil because he created everything.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)
So, either God lied to Isaiah or Isaiah lied in the Bible - or creationist cult leaders are lying to their cult.
But let's forget that bit of Bible awkwardness and think things through a little more:
Humans were allegedly created before 'The Fall' so would have had no need for an immune system, which is our defense, imperfect though it is, against the parasites 'sin' created after 'The Fall'.
So, were we given an immune system after 'The Fall'? There is no mention of a major redesign in the Bible, but wouldn't it have been simpler for the creator to have forgiven Adam and Eve and stopped 'sin' creating these things in the first place? And of course, most multicellular species also have an immune system which wasn't needed before 'The Fall'.
Or, if he was really going to need to have himself sacrificed later in a blood offering first why did he wait several thousand years? Why couldn't he impregnate Eve, have Adam do the dirty deed and solve the problem there and then?
Or did he omnisciently anticipate what would happen and design immune systems for the (future) parasites right from the start? If so, he must have anticipated 'The Fall' and the creative powers of 'sin', including details of what it would create, and being omnipotent, could have stopped it.
Anyway, those are just a few of the many problems that creationism causes for itself by trying to fit reality into such an absurd myth, like trying to ram a large square peg into a small round hole, without changing its shape in any way.
Here then is the account of how our immune system tries, often unsuccessfully because it isn't very efficient, to cope when an infection enters our body. It is an article from The Conversation by Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, and Wesley Freppel, Research Fellow, Institute for Glycomics, both of Griffith University, Australia. It is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
The thing about being a follower of the intelligent [sic] design cult is that you have to believe whatever the 'design' is, that was precisely what your putative intelligent [sic] designer intended to design because, although you should never say so, your designer god is one and the same god that fundamentalist Christians and Moslems believe in, i.e., it is omniscient, omnipotent and inerrant so is incapable of making a mistake.
So, what the cult now has to explain is why their favorite sadist gave some people a gene which protects then against symptomatic COVID-19, but not everyone, if, as the normal excuse for these parasites is valid - i.e., it wasn't God, it was something called 'sin' which creates viruses (and apparently the supreme, omniscient ruler of the universe is powerless to stop it or uncaring enough to not bother, or maybe even unaware of it).
In which case, why create the protective gene?
Of course, a ready explanation which fits in with the intelligent [sic] design superstition is that it wanted a few people to catch COVID-19 but not know they has=d it, so they could spread it around - the infectious but asymptomatic cases that are believed to have been responsible for a great deal of the pandemic's success.
So, creationists need to explain whether their intelligent [sic] designer deliberately created these super-spreaders to infect as many people as possible and if not, what did it create them for and how come it didn't know what the outcome would be?
The discovery of this gene was made by a group led by researchers from the University of California San Francisco, who have just published their findings, open access, in Nature. As the UC San Francisco news release explains:
