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.
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:
Contrary to the bizarre antivaxxer claims that the mRNA vaccines used against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 somehow causes cancer, based on nothing more substantial than the fact that some people who developed cancer had previously been vaccinated, there is now an mRNA vaccine that is proving spectacularly effective against a highly malignant form of brain cancer.
Curiously, the fact that some people who developed cancer will previously have sung Christmas carols or eaten potatoes, is never given as a probable cause, but then few people who believe antivaxxer disinformation will understand statistics or statistical correlations.
The mRNA vaccine against the brain cancer known as Glioblastoma has shown very promising results in a small-scale study of four adults by scientists at Florida University, repeating the results of a trial in 10 dogs and preclinical trials in mice.
The vaccine successfully, and very quickly, reprograms the immune system to produce highly specific antibodies against the tumour. Intelligent design proponents (or 'cdesign proponentcists' as they have been known since the Kitzmiller trial) might like to explain why the immune system, supposedly intelligently designed to protect us, needs to be artificially reprogrammed by human medical science.
The trick has been to create clusters of nanoparticles of lipid-enclosed mRNA wrapped around one another like a miniature onion. These means the mRNA will be released slowly and reprogram the immune system more effectively than a single burst would. The specific mRNA is tailor-made for the patient's tumour and creates antibodies against specific tumor proteins, in the same way the mRNA anti-COVID vaccines target the virus's spike proteins, so is specific to that particular cancer.
The results are reported in the journal Cell and are also explained in a University of Florida Health News release:
In a first-ever human clinical trial of four adult patients, an mRNA cancer vaccine developed at the University of Florida quickly reprogrammed the immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor.
The results mirror those in 10 pet dog patients suffering from naturally occurring brain tumors whose owners approved of their participation, as they had no other treatment options, as well as results from preclinical mouse models. The breakthrough now will be tested in a Phase 1 pediatric clinical trial for brain cancer.
Reported May 1 in the journal Cell, the discovery represents a potential new way to recruit the immune system to fight notoriously treatment-resistant cancers using an iteration of mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticles, similar to COVID-19 vaccines, but with two key differences: use of a patient’s own tumor cells to create a personalized vaccine, and a newly engineered complex delivery mechanism within the vaccine.
“Instead of us injecting single particles, we’re injecting clusters of particles that are wrapping around each other like onions, like a bag full of onions,” said senior author Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., a UF Health pediatric oncologist who pioneered the new vaccine, which like other immunotherapies attempts to “educate” the immune system that a tumor is foreign. “And the reason we’ve done that in the context of cancer is these clusters alert the immune system in a much more profound way than single particles would.”
Among the most impressive findings was how quickly the new method, delivered intravenously, spurred a vigorous immune-system response to reject the tumor, said Sayour, principal investigator of the RNA Engineering Laboratory within UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy and a UF Health Cancer Center and McKnight Brain Institute investigator who led the multi-institution research team.
“In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’ — immune cold, very few immune cells, very silenced immune response — to ‘hot,’ very active immune response,” he said. “That was very surprising given how quick this happened, and what that told us is we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very rapidly against these cancers, and that’s critical to unlock the later effects of the immune response.”
Glioblastoma is among the most devastating diagnoses, with median survival around 15 months. Current standard of care involves surgery, radiation and some combination of chemotherapy.
The new publication is the culmination of promising translational results over seven years of studies, starting in preclinical mouse models and then in a clinical trial of 10 pet dogs that had spontaneously developed terminal brain cancer and had no other treatment options. That trial was conducted with owners’ consent in collaboration with the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. Dogs offer a naturally occurring model for malignant glioma because they are the only other species that develops spontaneous brain tumors with some frequency, said Sheila Carrera-Justiz, D.V.M., a veterinary neurologist at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine who is partnering with Sayour on the clinical trials. Gliomas in dogs are universally terminal, she said.
After treating pet dogs that had spontaneously developed brain cancer with personalized mRNA vaccines, Sayour’s team advanced the research to a small Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial designed to ensure safety and test feasibility before expanding to a larger trial.
In a cohort of four patients, genetic material called RNA was extracted from each patient’s own surgically removed tumor, and then messenger RNA, or mRNA — the blueprint of what is inside every cell, including tumor cells — was amplified and wrapped in the newly designed high-tech packaging of biocompatible lipid nanoparticles, to make tumor cells “look” like a dangerous virus when reinjected into the bloodstream and prompt an immune-system response. The vaccine was personalized to each patient with a goal of getting the most out of their unique immune system.
“The demonstration that making an mRNA cancer vaccine in this fashion generates similar and strong responses across mice, pet dogs that have developed cancer spontaneously and human patients with brain cancer is a really important finding, because oftentimes we don’t know how well the preclinical studies in animals are going to translate into similar responses in patients,” said Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program and a co-author of the paper. “And while mRNA vaccines and therapeutics are certainly a hot topic since the COVID pandemic, this is a novel and unique way of delivering the mRNA to generate these really significant and rapid immune responses that we’re seeing across animals and humans.”
While too early in the trial to assess the clinical effects of the vaccine, the patients either lived disease-free longer than expected or survived longer than expected.
The 10 pet dogs lived a median of 139 days, compared with a median survival of 30 to 60 days typical for dogs with the condition.
The next step, through support from the Food and Drug Administration and the CureSearch for Children’s Cancer foundation, will be an expanded Phase I clinical trial to include up to 24 adult and pediatric patients to validate the findings. Once an optimal and safe dose is confirmed, an estimated 25 children would participate in Phase 2, said Sayour, an associate professor in the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery and the department of pediatrics in the UF College of Medicine, part of UF Health.
For the new clinical trial, Sayour’s lab will partner with a multi-institution consortium, the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium, to send the immunotherapy treatment to children’s hospitals across the country. They will do this by receiving an individual patient’s tumor, manufacturing the personalized vaccine at UF and sending it back to the patient’s medical team, said Sayour, co-leader of the Immuno-Oncology and Microbiome research program at the UF Health Cancer Center.
Despite the promising results, the authors said one limitation is continued uncertainty about how best to harness the immune system while minimizing the potential for adverse side effects.
“I am hopeful that this could be a new paradigm for how we treat patients, a new platform technology for how we can modulate the immune system,” said Sayour, the Stop Children's Cancer/Bonnie R. Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research. “I am hopeful for how this could now synergize with other immunotherapies and perhaps unlock those immunotherapies. We showed in this paper that you actually can have synergy with other types of immunotherapies, so maybe now we can have a combination approach of immunotherapy.”
Graphic abstract
Highlights
RNA-LPAs mimic dangerous emboli for lymphoreticular entrapment and systemic immunity
Systemic immunity resets both the peripheral and intratumoral milieu via IFNAR1/RIG-I
RNA-LPAs are safe and effective tumor re-modulators in canines with spontaneous gliomas
RNA-LPAs reprogram the TME and elicit adaptive immunity in human GBM patients
Summary
Cancer immunotherapy remains limited by poor antigenicity and a regulatory tumor microenvironment (TME). Here, we create “onion-like” multi-lamellar RNA lipid particle aggregates (LPAs) to substantially enhance the payload packaging and immunogenicity of tumor mRNA antigens. Unlike current mRNA vaccine designs that rely on payload packaging into nanoparticle cores for Toll-like receptor engagement in immune cells, systemically administered RNA-LPAs activate RIG-I in stromal cells, eliciting massive cytokine/chemokine response and dendritic cell/lymphocyte trafficking that provokes cancer immunogenicity and mediates rejection of both early- and late-stage murine tumor models. In client-owned canines with terminal gliomas, RNA-LPAs improved survivorship and reprogrammed the TME, which became “hot” within days of a single infusion. In a first-in-human trial, RNA-LPAs elicited rapid cytokine/chemokine release, immune activation/trafficking, tissue-confirmed pseudoprogression, and glioma-specific immune responses in glioblastoma patients. These data support RNA-LPAs as a new technology that simultaneously reprograms the TME while eliciting rapid and enduring cancer immunotherapy.
Mendez-Gomez, Hector R.; DeVries, Anna; Castillo, Paul; et al.(2024) RNA aggregates harness the danger response for potent cancer immunotherapyCell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.003
The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax
ID is not a problem for science; rather science is a problem for ID. This book shows why. It exposes the fallacy of Intelligent Design by showing that, when examined in detail, biological systems are anything but intelligently designed. They show no signs of a plan and are quite ludicrously complex for whatever can be described as a purpose. The Intelligent Design movement relies on almost total ignorance of biological science and seemingly limitless credulity in its target marks. Its only real appeal appears to be to those who find science too difficult or too much trouble to learn yet want their opinions to be regarded as at least as important as those of scientists and experts in their fields.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
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Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
In an article today in Psychology Today, psychologist, Bernard Golden, Ph.D, explains the link between Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Anger.
Although he doesn't name him, most of his article reads like a description of Donald Trump and his frequent loss of self-control and bouts of angry shouting, which characterised his term in the White House, when aids would frequently be sacked in a fit of rage because they had had the temerity to question him or hint at disagreement.
To us in Europe it often seems America was being run from the bedroom of an over-privileged, petulant adolescent that someone had given a Twitter account to and told him he runs the world, where the most bizarre things were tweeted in the small hours of the morning and the world would wake up to the latest outburst and half-baked policy announcement.
This behaviour is explained by his borderline personality disorder, as described by Dr Bernard Golden
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.
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:
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.
In the last 20 years of so, two things have featured in western culture, especially so in the United States, and recent research has shown how these are linked.
Democratization of opinion: Conflation of the belief that everyone is entitled to their opinion on every subject under the sun, as guaranteed to Americans by their constitution, and the belief that this means every opinion should carry equal weight in a debate, regardless of the evidence (or lack of it) on which it is based, or the level of expertise in the subject of the person voicing that opinion.
The attractiveness of this belief to the intellectually lazy and to those who feel alienated by the political and economic forces that shape their lives, is that they can tell themselves that they are at least the equal of the experts, and very probably their better.
For example, I was recently castigated in the social media when I disagreed with the claim that "everyone needs Jesus because without Him life is meaningless". I was informed that "This is America (it was actually Facebook!) where we are entitled to our opinions!", as though a constitutional right in one country mandates the rest of the world to respect dogma and regard it as a statement of irrefutable truth, with the implication that no-one has a right to disagree. The constitution guarantees my right to my opinion (but not your right to yours).
Similarly false claims are made by creationists daily in social media, accompanied by indignation when challenged. Creationists who couldn't define the terms 'evolution' or 'kind' and who assiduously maintain their scientific ignorance, will confidently inform the world that the millions of highly qualified working biomedical scientists who have no difficulty with the science, have it all wrong, and should listen to the creationist who knows best, having completed a 15 minute Google University degree in creationism. And they're all part of a gigantic Satanic conspiracy anyway.
