Covid came out of nowhere and really surprised the world. I first learned about it in mid-January 2020, when I was watching videos from China where people were dropping in the street; whole cities were under lockdown; apartment buildings were quarantined and barricaded; dump trucks were emptying rubble in front of apartment doors to keep the people from leaving the building; they were welding doors shut; teams in plastic hazmat suits were walking down the streets spraying something into the air to sanitize everything. Looking back, most of us now know that this was all theatre and over-reaction. We do not normally behave this way. Why this time. Years later we learned that some of the footage was actually filmed in the USA. Part of a psy-op and injected into social media. Unthinkable at the time.
But still, at the time we were frightened. We did not know what was going on, and our own news media were adding to the fear by posting daily case counts that were climbing straight up. They were telling us the hospitals were filling up and would soon be overrun - we needed 2 weeks to flatten the curve! Except, when they said that, the deaths had already peaked and counts were plummeting downwards just as fast as they had gone up. They forgot to mention that and most people didn't notice. We now know the hospitals were never overrun, they were actually emptied down to about 50% and then came back up to around an 80% occupancy rate where they seemed to have remained ever since. When historically, before this even happened, they were closer to 100%, and during some years even more during peak flu season.
Now, two years later, we have the data and the hindsight to determine what actually happened. So that is the point of this blog. I am publishing the results of all my research along the way to serve as a reference and help with the talking points. There is a reason why it happened and there is a reason why it is not over yet. That is actually the scary part.
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We overreacted. There were no extraordinary deaths in Canada despite the reported high "counts" of seniors dying in the LTC's. On average covid swept through the LTC's killing about 15%. Which sounds significant but the problem with that is that is about the amount that occurs every flu season. We just never payed attention before and it was being reported as if it was extraordinary news. When in fact it was routine.
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Why do they think everyone needs a vaccination? Do they not understand what a healthy immune system does? And countless studies that prove that natural immunity is superior to vaccination.
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Why do they think that years of experience with safety protocols for pharmaceuticals should be thrown out the window and a massive emergency inoculation program should be undertaken? Did this situation pass the test of an actual emergency.
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Are they not aware of just how novel the mRNA technology is and how disastrous the animal trials went.
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Are they just not aware of the adverse events that occurred during clinical pre-trials and were obviously occurring in the first month of the vaccine rollout. How were they able to continue.
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Are they not aware of the scientific examination of long term harm that the mRNA protocol could have on those that receive it?
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Are they not aware of the nature of the organizations that are behind this? The WEF is Malthusian and openly meets about Limits to Growth and Population Control. The pandemic and the worldwide response was coordinated. Take a look at Event201 if you are at all skeptical of this. They knew. They planned for it. It happened as planned.
The Omega Hypothesis is the argument which is foisted to end all argument, period. Social Skeptics work to defend this set of beliefs through several means. First they codify these beliefs into a partly unacknowledged, but comprehensively protected set. Further then, through application of an inverse negation fallacy, and conflating the ethics of skepticism with corrupted methods of cynicism they establish the preeminence of their favored beliefs, without or by skirting the rigor of science. All this stems from a principle of parsimony called Corber’s Burden.
Corber’s Burden When one makes an authoritative claim as to possessing knowledge of a complete set of that which is incorrect, one must be 100% correct (or at least appear to be so). https://theethicalskeptic.com/2015/08/25/skepticisms-corbers-burden-and-the-omega-hypothesis/
Reference sites
Official website of the US Government. Many of the spike protein papers can be found here.
Source for several thousand pre-print studies on Covid-19
https://www.authorea.com/browse-all?tags=%5B%22covid-19%22%5D
A separate blog post about the validity of pre-print science articles can be found here
Covid19 Origins
https://alexwasburne.substack.com/p/zoonotic-origin-evidence-we-dont
Came from Bat soup from a wet market in Wuhan. Yet evidence that it was detected months earlier. Wuhan lab ties to Canada's and USA Level 4 labs, including expelling Chinese scientists back to China. Yet to this day, details have still not been disclosed to the public.
Evidence that Fauci and his CID? organization actually did fund gain of function work in the Wuhan facility.
What scientific experiments were being conducted in that facility? World wide moratorium against recombinant DNA meddling in human virus but China did not sign and seems to have carried on with it.
Had this been a really serious virus and not just a common cold, large numbers of people would have died. Say, had the severity been close to 50%, then our only hope would have been to catch it in the beginning, isolate the sick and rely on contract tracing to keep it our of the general population. If it got into the general population then you would realize that all those none pharmaceutical interventions that were used with Covid19 such as wearing face masks, coughing into your elbow, obsessive hand washing, floor markers signifying distant and direction, plastic shields at checkouts etc would have had no effect.
I think the evidence is more likely that it came out of dual-use research, and is actually a product of bio-weapons research. They added in the spike protein and cleavage site to a virus in nature that can affect humans. Gain of function research. To what end?
They can measure the presence of IGG4 in those that have been inocculated more than once. IGG4 has the affect on the body of surpressing the immune system. This means we have a portion of the population that took the mRNA shot and has a suppressed immune system and a body of the population that did not take the shot and do not have this suppression affect. The chinese did not innoculate their population with mRNA or spike based shots. Our own dual-use researchers were collaborating with chinese dual-use researchers.
Production of Synthetic influenza since 2002
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12034104/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22infectious+clones%22&sort=date https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22synthetic+virus%22&sort=date https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22pseudovirus%22+or+%22pseudo+virus%22&sort=date https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34298099/
Was there a virus
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-i-dont-believe-there-ever-was-a-covid-virus/
Patents
Sorry but this section is still a work in progress. Started by dumping in links to interesting resources.
Moderna patent for the Coronavirus filed back in 2004 Moderna patent for pcr test, the only method of detecting Covid also filed back then.
2020
https://brownstone.org/articles/proof-vaccines-were-military-backed-countermeasure/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US8057993?oq=moderna+patent+covid goes back to 2004
https://www.citizen.org/article/modernas-mrna-1273-vaccine-patent-landscape/
https://assets.modernatx.com/m/55e0f0ef1337a0e7/original/US9868692.pdf
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10933127B2/en?q=(mnra+vaccine)&oq=mnra+vaccine&page=4
"Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV...
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10130701B2/en?oq=10130701
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060257852A1/en?oq=us20060257852a1
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9884895B2/en?oq=US9884895B2
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16115318/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7279327B2/en?oq=US7279327B2
https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3172319A1/en
They held the patent for the proprietary rights to the disease Patent US 7279327 in 2003, to the virus, Patent US 7220852 and to its detection, Patent US 7776521. From 2003-2018, they controlled 100% of the cashflow on the coronavirus.
Gates? https://patents.justia.com/inventor/charles-m-lieber
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8580522/
System and Method for Testing for COVID-19 (Rothschild) priority 201/10/13 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200279585A1/en?oq=us-2020279585 https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-11024339-B2
The Fauci/COVID-19 Dossier
This document is prepared for humanity by Dr. David E. Martin. https://www.davidmartin.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The_Fauci_COVID-19_Dossier.pdf https://rumble.com/v2mwrgm--dr.-david-martin-documenting-coronavirus-gain-of-function-research-at-the-.html https://plandemicseries.com/
Biosafety and biosecurity.
Reported studies were initiated after the University of North Carolina Institutional Biosafety Committee approved the experimental protocol (Project Title: Generating infectious clones of bat SARS-like CoVs; Lab Safety Plan ID: 20145741; Schedule G ID: 12279). These studies were initiated before the US Government Deliberative Process Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS and SARS Viruses
(http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf). This paper has been reviewed by the funding agency, the NIH. Continuation of these studies was requested, and this has been approved by the NIH."
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Covid19 Severity
This has become a large topic and is now covered in another blog post.
Non-pharmaceutical Interventions
Ok, so we believed that Covid19 was harmful and we wanted to avoid getting it or if we get it we want to reduce its severity and overall risk to us. That is perfectly understandable, but we do need to separate fact from fiction, and not take measures that just make us feel good but do not actually do anything. If this had been a real emergency, foolish measures would just doom us. Seriously, we need to get better at this.
So what did we do?
Social distancing was a big part of our intervention. People were told to keep 6 feet apart. Plastic barriers were erected at cashier's checkouts. Separate doors for entry and exit. Arrows in aisles to indicate direction. Certain shelves of products were taped off and we were not able to purchase those particular products but could purchase other products. They reduced the hours that stores were able to be opened. Certain stores were allowed to be open, others had to remain closed. They closed parks and children's playgrounds. They added curfews and gave people tickets for being out during the curfew. At first people could go out to walk their dog, but they eventually stopped allowing even this.
It is partly understandable. The virus moves through the population from person to person, so we are led to believe. The thinking is that if you restrict person to person contact, this will stop the spread. Theoretically. However,there was no signal in the data to indicate that this has had any affect whatsoever. I have been digging away at scientific papers and textbooks for several years now and I am just not seeing clear indications about transmission. In fact, attempts to force transmission to test the effectiveness of vaccines have failed.
Here is a range of comments from a variety of people in a recent twitter post.
- Natural immunity is stronger
- Masking doesn't work
- The vax has side effects
- The vax doesn't stop spread
- Lockdowns are harmful & ineffective
- School closures are a disaster
- Covid isn't spread outside or on surfaces
- It may have come from a lab
- The vax doesn't stop infection
- Without comorbidities the disease is easily healed
- The vax doesn't induce mucosal immunity
- FDA is captured & will indemnify vax mfgs by putting it on the childhood sched.
- remdesvir maims or kills people more often than it helps
- ivermectin is horse paste and dangerous to humans, and has been "proven " ineffective for covid
- Covid-passes don't work.
- Covid-passes are senseless discrimination.
- Severe covid restrictions are not sustainable for ever (see China) and can't be the "new normal".
- Cleaning shopping trolley's is useless.
- Distancing is anti-social
- Hand gels are toxic
- Breathing doesn't kill granny
- Medical ethics is an oxymoron
- Nature and The Lancet aren't the Bible.
- Modelers are pour court astrologers.
- Omerta is opposed to science.
- Insult and exclusion is anti-ethical to science.
- distancing is pointless.
- children are essentially unaffected by covid
- Funding silo-science leads to disaster.
- Copy-paste science leads to disaster.
- Copy-paste governments lead to disaster.
- Unity of consultancy leads to disaster.
- Politicians lack courage and brains.
- Controlling a virus is an illusion.
- Controlling nature is an illusion
- Censorship and indoctrination disrupt society.
- Collateral damages has to be factored into all decisions.
- Bad science undermines science, healthcare and pharma.
- Critics are worthy of debate.
- 90% of the population is capable of doing visibly foolish things
Obsessive hand washing and sanitizer
The biggest failure has been our response to C-19. We claimed it was a novel virus We claimed it was a pandemic, similar to past serious pandemics, yet, it was no more that a regular normal flu season We failed to investigate its origins when lab leak was suspected
A lot of the NPI were based on a zero-covid policy which itself is highly suspect. The idea that you can completly sanitize the entire population so that the virus no longer exists.
Face Masks
What are the value of face masks? Do masks slow the spread of influenza? Are there any harms associated with their use? What about the affect of masking on children?
influenza is a human respiratory virus similar in many ways to SARS-CoV-2: it is transmitted the same way, is about the same size, and often has similar health consequences. It has been studied extensively for decades.
Explanation on how the PCR test works
https://criticalcheck.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/pcr-and-real-time-rt-pcr-under-critical-review/
Are the PCR tests effective?
https://controlstudies.substack.com/p/rapid-antigen-test-controls
Vaccine Effectiveness
So how many people has the vaccine saved? How would you know? Since more than 99% of people survive Covid, then by definition they were not in danger of dying and so the vaccine could not be saving them. And the number might actually be 99.99%. What about the ones that Covid did kill? How many of those would have been saved if they had the vaccine? That is a better question. Remember, most of those were sick and frail with comorbidities and in LTC's (Long Term Care). Do we know if the vaccine actually helps them survive?
This is going to be a huge topic because there are so many nuances here. Vaccines are not like taking an antibiotic because you have an infection and being very aware of whether it is working or not. Or taking an advil for a headache, where it either works or it doesn't. Vaccines are in a different category. More like a prophylactic. But they are not sanitizing and they are not shielding.
Couple things to start with. First of all, most people do not die when exposed to Covid. The average IFR suggests it is around 99.98% survivable. So for 99.98% of the people, a vax will not save their life because they were never in danger of dying. That is a very important point. Secondly, most people do not even come into contact with Covid19 in any given year. So again, it will not save their life either. Hard to know how many people are exposed but we do know that there are about 6% of positive cases per year.
Finally, we all have a natural immune system that exists to address virus infestations and keep us safe. It is particularly important to know what that is and how it works, and how a vaccine might affect the operation of the immune system, good or bad.
So having said that what is a vaccine and why do we need one.
Vaccine Harm
"a recent study showed that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of human cells."
Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line
Genotoxicity and Carcinogenicity studies were NOT done because... the WHO
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/genotoxicity-and-carcinogenicity?utm_medium=email&s=rreferences
End of the COVID-19 pandemic
(https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1508491869847797760/photo/1)
400-studies-on-the-failure-of-compulsory-covid-interventions
Judicial Watch announced today that it received 221 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which include a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that was submitted in referencesreferences. The grant application appears to describe “gain of function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
Collateral Global is a UK registered Charity (No. 1195125) dedicated to researching, understanding, and communicating the effectiveness and collateral impacts of the Mandated Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (MNPIs) taken by governments worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.]
(https://collateralglobal.org/)referencesreferencesreferences
SCIENCE BRIEFS. Informing Ontario’s response to COVID-19
https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/science-briefs/#epidemiology-public-health-implementation
Voice for Science and Solidarity
The importance of understanding SARS-CoV-2 evolution cannot be overlooked. Recent studies confirm that natural selection is the dominating mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 evolution, which favors mutations that strengthen viral infectivity. Here, we demonstrate that vaccine-breakthrough or antibody-resistant mutations provide a new mechanism of viral evolution. Specifically, vaccine-resistant mutation Y449S in the spike (S) protein receptor-binding domain, which occurred in co-mutations Y449S and N501Y, has reduced infectivity compared to that of the original SARS-CoV-2 but can disrupt existing antibodies that neutralize the virus.
Miracle or Mirage? mRNA, Moderna, BioNtech, and COVID-19 Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna and BioNtech had never produced a single product. The biotech outfits were founded in 2008 and 2010 respectively, with the stated goal of pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies to the world of healthcare. Moderna and BioNtech share a history rife with secrecy, speculative hype, the benefits of networking effects, and most notably, a failure to deliver the goods.
(https://dossier.substack.com/p/miracle-or-mirage-mrna-moderna-biontech?s=r)
Abstract 10712: Observational Findings of PULS Cardiac Test Findings for Inflammatory Markers in Patients Receiving mRNA Vaccines...Baseline IL-16 increased from 35+/-20 above the norm to 82 +/- 75 above the norm post-vac; sFas increased from 22+/- 15 above the norm to 46+/-24 above the norm post vac; HGF increased from 42+/-12 above the norm to 86+/-31 above the norm post vac. These changes resulted in an increase of the pre vac PULS score of predicted 11% 5 yr ACS risk to a post vac PULS score of a predicted 25% 5 yr ACS risk, based on data which has not been validated in this population.
(https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712)
deaths by vaccination status england
Pfizer’s Clinical Trial data strongly indicates their Covid-19 Vaccine causes the recipient to develop Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
(https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/11/13/pfizer-trial-data-suggests-covid-19-vaccine-causes-aids/)
Hospital Beds Staffed and In Operation, 2018–2019
https:// cihi.ca/sites/default/ files/document/beds-staffed-and-in-operation-2018-2019-en-web.xlsx …
Summary of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, cases following vaccination, testing and variants of concern across Canada and over time.
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html
Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial
Science Brief: SARS-CoV-2 Infection-induced and Vaccine-induced Immunity
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html
After release of their MMWR study, CDC releases this BRIEF on Infection-induced vs. Vax-induced Immunity. It is a CONFUSED document – both accepting NI, but illogically recommending VAX anyway. This 🧵🧵 appraises the BRIEF
https://twitter.com/mahesh_shenai/status/1455235148895694852
Lancet Study Finds COVID Shots Do Not Prevent Transmission
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
Nov 1, 2021
ORLANDO, FL -- A recently released yearlong study by the Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal comparing the efficacy of COVID injections has shown that people who have received the COVID shots can be equally as infectious and are just as likely to spread the Delta variant of the virus to contacts in their household as those who have not received the shots.
In the study of 621 people in the U.K. with mild COVID-19 between Sept 13, 2020, and Sept 15, 2021, scientists found that their peak viral load was similar regardless of vaccination status. The analysis also found that 25 percent of vaccinated household contacts still contracted the virus, while 38 percent of those who had not taken the shots became infected.
In fact, the researchers noted, “Fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”
The researchers performed PCR tests on swab samples provided daily by each participant for 14-20 days. Changes over time in viral load -- the amount of virus in a person's nose and throat -- were estimated by modeling PCR data.
The study found that the viral load declined more rapidly among vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant compared with unvaccinated people with Delta, Alpha, or pre-Alpha. However, the authors note that vaccinated people did not record a lower peak viral load than unvaccinated people, which may explain why the Delta variant can still spread despite vaccination as people are most infectious during the peak viral load phase.
In addition, the statistics regarding the harm from these injections is staggering. The VAERS data shows 837,593 reported adverse events, including 17,619 deaths as of October 22, 2021.
How effective is immunity after Covid recovery relative to vaccination? An Israeli study by Gazit et al. found that the vaccinated have a 27 times higher risk of symptomatic infection than the Covid recovered. At the same time, the vaccinated were nine times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid. In contrast, a CDC study by Bozio et al. claims that the Covid recovered are five times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid than the vaccinated. Both studies cannot be right.
A Review and Autopsy of Two COVID Immunity Studies
https://brownstone.org/articles/a-review-and-autopsy-of-two-covid-immunity-studies/
Polio vs. C19 Vaccine Trials
1/ Vaccinating Children for Polio v. Covid-19: Controlled (placebo & obs controls) 1954 polio vax field trial https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/301691 for a lethal, crippling childhood illness involved ~1.83 million total, ~1.35 million in paralytic polio analysis
2/ Covid-19 RCT https://fda.gov/media/153409/download for 5 to 11 year olds given Pfizer mRNA vax involved ~2300 for a disease whose mortality in the pediatric age range approaches ZERO, while childhood “long covid” = “long pandemic” (i.e.,=psychosomatic) references
3/ The 1954 polio field trial paralytic polio analysis recorded 516 cases of paralytic polio; the Pfizer C19 RCT in 5 to 11yos recorded ZERO cases of severe C19 despite recruiting ~20% with comorbidities
4/ The 1954 polio field trial showed vax ↓ed paralytic polio by 71.1% & 62.4% vs. the pbo- and obs-control grps, respectively; the Pfizer C19 had ZERO severe outcomes to ↓, but “sniffles syndrome” was ↓ed by 90.7%
A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products...Myocarditis rates reported in VAERS were significantly higher in youths between the ages of 13 to 23 (p<0.0001) with ∼80% occurring in males. Within 8 weeks of the public offering of COVID-19 products to the 12-15-year-old age group, we found 19 times the expected number of myocarditis cases in the vaccination volunteers over background myocarditis rates for this age group.
Efficacy Studies that Rebuke Vaccine Mandates
As some people have now been vaccinated for more than half a year, evidence is pouring in about Covid vaccine efficacy. The gestalt of the findings implies that the infection explosion globally that we have been experiencing– post double vaccination in e.g. Israel, UK, US etc. –may be due to the vaccinated spreading Covid as much or more than the unvaccinated.
https://brownstone.org/articles/16-studies-on-vaccine-efficacy/
Respiratory Virus Report, week 41 - ending October 16, 2021
Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Review Memorandum
Development and Licensure of Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19
Death Spiral - Medical Assisted in Canada
Long lasting Immunity
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“Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans. Nature | Vol 595 | 15 July 2021 | 421
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“The data suggest that immunity in convalescent individuals will be very long lasting… Nearly 93% of the plasma neutralizing antibody activity is retained between 6 and 12 months after infection”
Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection Nature | Vol 595 | 15 July 2021 | 426
Cross-neutralizing with high potency
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“Our study demonstrates that convalescent subjects previously infected with ancestral variant SARS-CoV-2 produce antibodies that cross-neutralize emerging VOCs with high potency.”
Ultrapotent antibodies against diverse and highly transmissible variants. Science 373, 759. 13 August 2021.
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“Substantial immune memory is generated after COVID-19 [infection and recovery], involving all four major types of immune memory. About 95% of subjects retained immune memory at ~6 months after infection… simple serological tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies do not reflect the richness and durability of natural immune memory to SARS-CoV-2.”
Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection. Science 371, 587 (2021) 5 February 2021
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“Our findings demonstrate that robust cellular immunity against SARS-CoV-2 is likely to be present within the great majority of adults at 6 months following asymptomatic and mild-to-moderate infection.”
Robust SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity is maintained at 6 months following primary infection. Nature Immunology | VOL 22 | May 2021 | 620–626
- “Protection against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection is comparable with the highest available estimates on vaccine efficacies.”
SARS-CoV-2 re-infection risk in Austria. Eur J Clin Invest. 2021; 51:e13520 February 2021.
- “This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN). The Lancet, volume 397, issue 10283, p1459-1469, April 17, 2021
- “Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months.”
SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy. EClinicalMedicine Volume 35, May 2021.
- “policy makers should consider recovery from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection equal to immunity from vaccination for purposes related to entry to public events, businesses, and the workplace, or travel requirements.”
Protective immunity after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The Lancet, November 2021.
Natural Immunity is far superior to vaccine
- “SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccines had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected [but not vaccinated]. This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”
Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections. medRxiv preprint August 2021.
- “Nine clinical studies were identified… All of the included studies found at least statistical equivalence between the protection of full vaccination and natural immunity; and, three studies found superiority of natural immunity.”
Equivalency of Protection from Natural Immunity in COVID-19 Recovered Versus Fully Vaccinated Persons: A Systematic Review and Pooled Analysis. medRxiv preprint September 2021
unlikely to benefit from vaccination
- “Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study. Conclusion: Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination”
Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals. medRxiv preprint, June 2021.
- “This study suggests that both the BNT162b2 vaccine and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection are effective against both subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection and other COVID-19 related outcomes. Moreover, the effectiveness seems similar for both cohorts. This puts into question the need to vaccinate recent (up to six month) previously-infected individuals.”
Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel. medRxiv preprint, April 2021
- “The protective effect of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on re-infection is high and similar to the protective effect of vaccination… There is consistent epidemiologic evidence that prior SARS-CoV-2 infection provides substantial immunity to repeat SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
A Systematic Review of the Protective Effect of Prior SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Repeat Infection. medRxiv preprint, August 2021.
- “Prior infection in patients with COVID-19 was highly protective against reinfection and symptomatic disease. This protection increased over time, suggesting that viral shedding or ongoing immune response may persist beyond 90 days and may not represent true reinfection. As vaccine supply is limited, patients with known history of COVID-19 could delay early vaccination to allow for the most vulnerable to access the vaccine and slow transmission.”
Reinfection Rates among Patients who Previously Tested Positive for COVID-19: a Retrospective Cohort Study. Clinical infectious diseases, March 2021.
- “Although neutralizing antibody titres decline from the initial peak response, robust neutralizing activity can still be detected in a large proportion of convalescent sera at up to 10 months POS [post onset of symptoms]. These data highlight [that] the polyclonal nature of convalescent sera enables antiviral functionality against mutant Spikes present in emerging viral variants.”
Antibody longevity and cross-neutralizing activity following SARS-CoV-2 wave 1 and 2 B.1.1.7 infections. medRxiv preprint, June 2021.
- “We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination.”
Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination. bioRxiv preprint, July 2021.
- “While both infections and vaccines induce memory B cell (MBC) populations that participate in secondary immune responses, the MBCs generated in each case can differ… infection-induced primary MBCs have undergone more affinity maturation than vaccine-induced primary MBCs and produce more robust secondary responses.”
High affinity memory B cells induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection produce more plasmablasts and atypical memory B cells than those primed by mRNA vaccines. Cell Reports. Sept. 2021.
- “This in depth longitudinal study demonstrates that durable immune memory persists in most COVID-19 patients, including those with mild disease… Recovered COVID-19 patients are likely to better defend against the variants than persons who have not been infected but have been immunized with spike-containing vaccines only.”
Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-2 CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells. medRxiv preprint, April 2021.
- “Here we performed a comprehensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses from COVID-19 convalescent subjects. as well as recipients of the Moderna (mRNA-1273) or Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) COVID-19 vaccines… Overall, the results demonstrate that CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in convalescent COVID-19 subjects or COVID-19 mRNA vaccinees are not substantially affected by mutations found in the SARS-CoV-2 variants.”
Negligible impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on CD4+ and CD8+ T cell reactivity in COVID-19 exposed donors and vaccinees. BioRxiv preprint, March 2021
- “Conclusion: No neutralisation escape could be feared concerning the two variants of concern in both [previously infected but unvaccinated] populations. The reduced neutralising response observed towards the [variants of concern] in fully immunized subjects with the BNT162b2 vaccine is a striking finding of the study.”
Live virus neutralisation testing in convalescent patients and subjects vaccinated against 19A, 20B, 20I/501Y.V1 and 20H/501Y.V2 isolates of SARS-CoV-2. medRxiv preprint, May 2021.
No difference in viral loads when comparing unvaccinated
- “We find no difference in viral loads when comparing unvaccinated [but PCR+] individuals to those who have vaccine ‘breakthrough’ infections. Furthermore, individuals with vaccine breakthrough infections frequently test positive with viral loads consistent with the ability to shed infectious viruses.”
Vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads in communities with a high prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant. medRxiv preprint July 2021.
- “These results suggest that following a typical case of mild COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells not only persist but continuously differentiate in a coordinated fashion well into convalescence, into a state characteristic of long-lived, self-renewing memory.”
Protracted yet coordinated differentiation of long-lived SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells during COVID-19 convalescence. bioRxiv April 2021.
- “Eleven large cohort studies were identified that estimated the risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 reinfection over time… These data suggest that naturally acquired SARS‐CoV‐2 immunity does not wane for at least 10 months post‐infection”
Quantifying the risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 reinfection over time, Rev Med Virol. 2021;e2260. May 2021.
- “We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequences and viral loads from 1,373 persons with COVID-19 from the San Francisco Bay Area from February 1 to June 30, 2021. Fully vaccinated were more likely than unvaccinated persons to be infected by variants carrying mutations… Differences in viral loads were non-significant between unvaccinated and fully vaccinated persons. These findings suggest that vaccine breakthrough cases are preferentially caused by circulating antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants, and that symptomatic breakthrough infections may potentially transmit COVID-19 as efficiently as unvaccinated infections.”
Predominance of antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants in vaccine breakthrough cases from the San Francisco Bay Area, California. medRxiv preprint August 2021.
- “Group 1 [naive] had an incidence [of infection] of 25.9 per 100 person-years… Group 2 [convalescent] had an incidence [of re-infection] of 0 per 100 person-years… Group 3 [vaccinated] had an incidence [of breakthrough infection] of 1.6 per 100 person-years”
Incidence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 infection among previously infected or vaccinated employees. medRxiv preprint July 2021.
- “Despite 290 symptomatic infections in 10,137 non-immune HCWs [health care workers], there were no symptomatic reinfections in over 1000 HCWs with past infection”
Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with protection against symptomatic reinfection. Journal of Infection. Vol 82, No 4, E29-E30, April 2021.
- “During July 2–August 11, 2020, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) occurred at a boys’ overnight summer school retreat in Wisconsin. The retreat included 152 high school-aged boys, counselors, and staff members. An important feature of this outbreak was that 24 attendees had documented evidence of antibodies [from previous infection] to SARS-CoV-2 before arrival. None of these persons received a positive SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test result at the retreat… Excluding the 24 attendees with previous positive serologic results, the COVID-19 attack rate on the remaining susceptible population was 91%.”
COVID-19 Outbreak at an Overnight Summer School Retreat — Wisconsin, July–August 2020. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Wkly Rep. 2020 Oct 30; 69(43): 1600–1604.
- “From March 1 to July 31, 2021, a total of 227 UCSDH health care workers tested positive… 57.3% were fully vaccinated. Symptoms were present in 109 of the 130 fully vaccinated workers (83.8%) and in 80 of the 90 unvaccinated workers (88.9%). No deaths were reported in either group; one unvaccinated person was hospitalized”
Resurgence in Highly Vaccinated
Resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Highly Vaccinated Health System Workforce. The New England Journal of Medicine. Sept. 2021.
- “None of the three individuals who had neutralizing antibodies [from previous infection] were infected during the subsequent outbreak… In contrast, among the other 117 of 120 individuals with pre-departure serological data who were seronegative or lacked spike-reactive antibodies prior to departure, 103 of 117 were infected…”
Neutralizing antibodies correlate with protection from SARS-CoV-2 in humans during a fishery vessel outbreak with high attack rate. Journal of Clinical Microbiology Vol. 58, No. 11. Oct. 2020.
- “During July 2021, 469 cases of COVID-19 associated with multiple summer events and large public gatherings in a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, were identified among Massachusetts residents; vaccination coverage among eligible Massachusetts residents was 69%. Approximately three quarters (346; 74%) of cases occurred in fully vaccinated persons (those who had completed a 2-dose course of mRNA vaccine [Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna] or had received a single dose of Janssen [Johnson & Johnson] vaccine ≥14 days before exposure). Among five COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, four were fully vaccinated”
Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Including COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Associated with Large Public Gatherings — Barnstable County, Massachusetts,y July 2021. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) August 6, 2021 / 70(31);1059-1062.
- “SAR (secondary attack rate) among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases. Fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”
Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study. The Lancet. October, 2021.
- “No statistically significant difference was detected in the duration of viral culture positivity between participants who were fully vaccinated compared with those who were not fully vaccinated… Ct values were comparable between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons… Cumulatively, available data have not clearly or consistently identified markers of reduced transmission potential in vaccinated persons with SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Transmission potential of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta. medRxiv preprint November, 2021
Severity of reinfections rare and mild
- “Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections… None [out of 1300 reinfections] led to hospitalization in an ICU, and none ended in death. Reinfections were rare and were generally mild, perhaps because of the primed immune system after primary infection.”
Severity of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections as Compared with Primary Infections. New England Journal of Medicine. November, 2021.
"Understanding immune memory to Common Cold Coronaviruses (CCCs) is relevant for assessing its potential impact on the outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and for the prospects of pan-corona vaccines development. We performed a longitudinal analysis, of pre-pandemic samples collected from 2016–2019. CD4+ T cells and antibody responses specific for CCC and to other respiratory viruses, and chronic or ubiquitous pathogens were assessed. CCC-specific memory CD4+ T cells were detected in most subjects, and their frequencies were comparable to those for other common antigens. Notably, responses to CCC and other antigens such as influenza and Tetanus Toxoid (TT) were sustained over time. CCC-specific CD4+ T cell responses were also associated with low numbers of HLA-DR+CD38+ cells and their magnitude did not correlate with yearly changes in the prevalence of CCC infections. Similarly, spike RBD-specific IgG responses for CCC were stable throughout the sampling period. Finally, high CD4+ T cell reactivity to CCC, but not antibody responses, was associated with high pre-existing SARS-CoV-2 immunity. Overall, these results suggest that the steady and sustained CCC responses observed in the study cohort are likely due to a relatively stable pool of CCC-specific memory CD4+ T cells instead of fast decaying responses and frequent reinfections."
Immunological memory to Common Cold Coronaviruses assessed longitudinally over a three-year period
"This paper is rather complex, but the abstract is fairly easier to understand. Authors tested and found one of the causes for the lymphopenia (in a crude way, immune suppression) in severe patients, that frequently leads to death. They found virus antigen (parts) and infectious viral particles in lung T cells and peripheral blood cells (cells that can go anywhere, others blood cells go to lymphatic system, spleen, liver, or bone marrow)."
“Cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was examined among 52,238 employees in an American healthcare system. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study. Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination…”
Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals, Shrestha, 2021
“Studied T cell responses against the structural (nucleocapsid (N) protein) and non-structural (NSP7 and NSP13 of ORF1) regions of SARS-CoV-2 in individuals convalescing from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (n = 36). In all of these individuals, we found CD4 and CD8 T cells that recognized multiple regions of the N protein…showed that patients (n = 23) who recovered from SARS possess long-lasting memory T cells that are reactive to the N protein of SARS-CoV 17 years after the outbreak of SARS in 2003; these T cells displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2.”
“A retrospective observational study comparing three groups: (1) SARS-CoV-2-naïve individuals who received a two-dose regimen of the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine, (2) previously infected individuals who have not been vaccinated, and (3) previously infected and single dose vaccinated individuals found para a 13 fold increased risk of breakthrough Delta infections in double vaccinated persons, and a 27 fold increased risk for symptomatic breakthrough infection in the double vaccinated relative to the natural immunity recovered persons…the risk of hospitalization was 8 times higher in the double vaccinated (para)…this analysis demonstrated that natural immunity affords longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization due to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”
“Studied SARS-CoV-2–specific T cells in a cohort of asymptomatic (n = 85) and symptomatic (n = 75) COVID-19 patients after seroconversion…thus, asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2–infected individuals are not characterized by weak antiviral immunity; on the contrary, they mount a highly functional virus-specific cellular immune response.”
“A total of 2,653 individuals fully vaccinated by two doses of vaccine during the study period and 4,361 convalescent patients were included. Higher SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody titers were observed in vaccinated individuals (median 1581 AU/mL IQR [533.8-5644.6]) after the second vaccination, than in convalescent individuals (median 355.3 AU/mL IQR [141.2-998.7]; p<0.001). In vaccinated subjects, antibody titers decreased by up to 40% each subsequent month while in convalescents they decreased by less than 5% per month…this study demonstrates individuals who received the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine have different kinetics of antibody levels compared to patients who had been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with higher initial levels but a much faster exponential decrease in the first group”.
Researchers recorded “40 tentative re-infections in 14, 840 COVID-19 survivors of the first wave (0.27%) and 253 581 infections in 8, 885, 640 individuals of the remaining general population (2.85%) translating into an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.09 (0.07 to 0.13)…relatively low re-infection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in Austria. Protection against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection is comparable with the highest available estimates on vaccine efficacies.” Additionally, hospitalization in only five out of 14,840 (0.03%) people and death in one out of 14,840 (0.01%) (tentative re-infection). 7) mRNA vaccine-induced SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells recognize B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants but differ in longevity and homing properties depending on prior infection status, Neidleman, 2021
“Spike-specific T cells from convalescent vaccinees differed strikingly from those of infection-naïve vaccinees, with phenotypic features suggesting superior long-term persistence and ability to home to the respiratory tract including the nasopharynx. These results provide reassurance that vaccine-elicited T cells respond robustly to the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants, confirm that convalescents may not need a second vaccine dose.”
“Months after recovering from mild cases of COVID-19, people still have immune cells in their body pumping out antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Such cells could persist for a lifetime, churning out antibodies all the while. The findings, published May 24 in the journal Nature, suggest that mild cases of COVID-19 leave those infected with lasting antibody protection and that repeated bouts of illness are likely to be uncommon.”
Good news: Mild COVID-19 induces lasting antibody protection, Bhandari, 2021
“Neutralizing antibody titers against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein persisted for at least 5 months after infection. Although continued monitoring of this cohort will be needed to confirm the longevity and potency of this response, these preliminary results suggest that the chance of reinfection may be lower than is currently feared.”
Robust neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 infection persist for months, Wajnberg, 2021
“Concurrently, neutralizing activity in plasma decreases by five-fold in pseudo-type virus assays. In contrast, the number of RBD-specific memory B cells is unchanged. Memory B cells display clonal turnover after 6.2 months, and the antibodies they express have greater somatic hypermutation, increased potency and resistance to RBD mutations, indicative of continued evolution of the humoral response…we conclude that the memory B cell response to SARS-CoV-2 evolves between 1.3 and 6.2 months after infection in a manner that is consistent with antigen persistence.”
“Assessed the persistence of serum antibodies following WT SARS-CoV-2 infection at 8 and 13 months after diagnosis in 367 individuals…found that NAb against the WT virus persisted in 89% and S-IgG in 97% of subjects for at least 13 months after infection.”
Persistence of neutralizing antibodies a year after SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans, Haveri, 2021
“Eleven large cohort studies were identified that estimated the risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 reinfection over time, including three that enrolled healthcare workers and two that enrolled residents and staff of elderly care homes. Across studies, the total number of PCR‐positive or antibody‐positive participants at baseline was 615,777, and the maximum duration of follow‐up was more than 10 months in three studies. Reinfection was an uncommon event (absolute rate 0%–1.1%), with no study reporting an increase in the risk of reinfection over time.”
Quantifying the risk of SARS‐CoV‐2 reinfection over time, Murchu, 2021
The Western Journal-Makary https://www.westernjournal.com/johns-hopkins-doc-says-natural-immunity-27-times-effective-vaccine/
Makary writes “it’s okay to have an incorrect scientific hypothesis. But when new data proves it wrong, you have to adapt. Unfortunately, many elected leaders and public health officials have held on far too long to the hypothesis that natural immunity offers unreliable protection against covid-19 — a contention that is being rapidly debunked by science. More than 15 studies have demonstrated the power of immunity acquired by previously having the virus. A 700,000-person study from Israel two weeks ago found that those who had experienced prior infections were 27 times less likely to get a second symptomatic covid infection than those who were vaccinated. This affirmed a June Cleveland Clinic study of health-care workers (who are often exposed to the virus), in which none who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus got reinfected. The study authors concluded that “individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination.” And in May, a Washington University study found that even a mild covid infection resulted in long-lasting immunity.”
“The data on natural immunity are now overwhelming,” Makary told the Morning Wire. “It turns out the hypothesis that our public health leaders had that vaccinated immunity is better and stronger than natural immunity was wrong. They got it backwards. And now we’ve got data from Israel showing that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity.”
Natural immunity to covid is powerful. Policymakers seem afraid to say so, Makary, 2021
“203 recovered SARS-CoV-2 infected patients in Denmark between April 3rd and July 9th 2020, at least 14 days after COVID-19 symptom recovery… report broad serological profiles within the cohort, detecting antibody binding to other human coronaviruses… the viral surface spike protein was identified as the dominant target for both neutralizing antibodies and CD8+ T-cell responses. Overall, the majority of patients had robust adaptive immune responses, regardless of their disease severity.”
SARS-CoV-2 elicits robust adaptive immune responses regardless of disease severity, Nielsen, 2021
“Analyze an updated individual-level database of the entire population of Israel to assess the protection efficacy of both prior infection and vaccination in preventing subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization with COVID-19, severe disease, and death due to COVID-19… vaccination was highly effective with overall estimated efficacy for documented infection of 92·8% (CI:[92·6, 93·0]); hospitalization 94·2% (CI:[93·6, 94·7]); severe illness 94·4% (CI:[93·6, 95·0]); and death 93·7% (CI:[92·5, 94·7]). Similarly, the overall estimated level of protection from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection for documented infection is 94·8% (CI: [94·4, 95·1]); hospitalization 94·1% (CI: [91·9, 95·7]); and severe illness 96·4% (CI: [92·5, 98·3])…results question the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals.”
“Employees were divided into three groups: (1) SARS-CoV-2 naïve and unvaccinated, (2) previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, and (3) vaccinated. Person-days were measured from the date of the employee first test and truncated at the end of the observation period. SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined as two positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests in a 30-day period… 4313, 254 and 739 employee records for groups 1, 2, and 3…previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 were associated with decreased risk for infection or re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 in a routinely screened workforce. The was no difference in the infection incidence between vaccinated individuals and individuals with previous infection.”
“Israelis who had an infection were more protected against the Delta coronavirus variant than those who had an already highly effective COVID-19 vaccine…the newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.”
“A systematic antigen-specific immune evaluation in 101 COVID-19 convalescents; SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG antibodies, and also NAb can persist among over 95% COVID-19 convalescents from 6 months to 12 months after disease onset. At least 19/71 (26%) of COVID-19 convalescents (double positive in ELISA and MCLIA) had detectable circulating IgM antibody against SARS-CoV-2 at 12m post-disease onset. Notably, the percentages of convalescents with positive SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses (at least one of the SARS-CoV-2 antigen S1, S2, M and N protein) were 71/76 (93%) and 67/73 (92%) at 6m and 12m, respectively.”
One-year sustained cellular and humoral immunities of COVID-19 convalescents, Zhang, 2021
“Recovered individuals developed SARS-CoV-2-specific immunoglobulin (IgG) antibodies, neutralizing plasma, and memory B and memory T cells that persisted for at least 3 months. Our data further reveal that SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG memory B cells increased over time. Additionally, SARS-CoV-2-specific memory lymphocytes exhibited characteristics associated with potent antiviral function: memory T cells secreted cytokines and expanded upon antigen re-encounter, whereas memory B cells expressed receptors capable of neutralizing virus when expressed as monoclonal antibodies. Therefore, mild COVID-19 elicits memory lymphocytes that persist and display functional hallmarks of antiviral immunity.”
Functional SARS-CoV-2-Specific Immune Memory Persists after Mild COVID-19, Rodda, 2021
“Performed multimodal single-cell sequencing on peripheral blood of patients with acute COVID-19 and healthy volunteers before and after receiving the SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine to compare the immune responses elicited by the virus and by this vaccine…both infection and vaccination induced robust innate and adaptive immune responses, our analysis revealed significant qualitative differences between the two types of immune challenges. In COVID-19 patients, immune responses were characterized by a highly augmented interferon response which was largely absent in vaccine recipients. Increased interferon signaling likely contributed to the observed dramatic upregulation of cytotoxic genes in the peripheral T cells and innate-like lymphocytes in patients but not in immunized subjects. Analysis of B and T cell receptor repertoires revealed that while the majority of clonal B and T cells in COVID-19 patients were effector cells, in vaccine recipients clonally expanded cells were primarily circulating memory cells…we observed the presence of cytotoxic CD4 T cells in COVID-19 patients that were largely absent in healthy volunteers following immunization. While hyper-activation of inflammatory responses and cytotoxic cells may contribute to immunopathology in severe illness, in mild and moderate disease, these features are indicative of protective immune responses and resolution of infection.”
Discrete Immune Response Signature to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination Versus Infection, Ivanova, 2021
“Bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) are a persistent and essential source of protective antibodies… durable serum antibody titres are maintained by long-lived plasma cells—non-replicating, antigen-specific plasma cells that are detected in the bone marrow long after the clearance of the antigen … S-binding BMPCs are quiescent, which suggests that they are part of a stable compartment. Consistently, circulating resting memory B cells directed against SARS-CoV-2 S were detected in the convalescent individuals. Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans…overall, our data provide strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans robustly establishes the two arms of humoral immune memory: long-lived bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) and memory B-cells.”
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, Turner, 2021
“The SARS-CoV-2 Immunity and Reinfection Evaluation study… 30 625 participants were enrolled into the study… a previous history of SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an 84% lower risk of infection, with median protective effect observed 7 months following primary infection. This time period is the minimum probable effect because seroconversions were not included. This study shows that previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 induces effective immunity to future infections in most individuals.”
“Enrolled 200 patient-facing HCWs between March 26 and April 8, 2020…represents a 13% infection rate (i.e. 14 of 112 HCWs) within the 1 month of follow-up in those with no evidence of antibodies or viral shedding at enrolment. By contrast, of 33 HCWs who tested positive by serology but tested negative by RT-PCR at enrolment, 32 remained negative by RT-PCR through follow-up, and one tested positive by RT-PCR on days 8 and 13 after enrolment.”
“Critical to understand whether infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) protects from subsequent reinfection… 12219 HCWs participated…prior SARS-CoV-2 infection that generated antibody responses offered protection from reinfection for most people in the six months following infection.”
Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 are associated with protection against reinfection, Lumley, 2021
“Evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find durable broad-based immune responses. SARS-CoV-2 spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibit a bi-phasic decay with an extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of longer-lived plasma cells… most recovered COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection, spike IgG+ memory B cells increase and persist post-infection, durable polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cells recognize distinct viral epitope regions.”
“Used single-cell RNA sequencing and functional assays to compare humoral and cellular responses to two doses of mRNA vaccine with responses observed in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic disease… natural infection induced expansion of larger CD8 T cell clones occupied distinct clusters, likely due to the recognition of a broader set of viral epitopes presented by the virus not seen in the mRNA vaccine.”
“SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positive persons from April 16 to December 31, 2020 with a PCR-positive swab ≥14 days after the first-positive antibody test were investigated for evidence of reinfection, 43,044 antibody-positive persons who were followed for a median of 16.3 weeks…reinfection is rare in the young and international population of Qatar. Natural infection appears to elicit strong protection against reinfection with an efficacy ~95% for at least seven months.”
“Conducted a serological study to define correlates of immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Compared to those with mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, individuals with severe disease exhibited elevated virus-neutralizing titers and antibodies against the nucleocapsid (N) and the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein…neutralizing and spike-specific antibody production persists for at least 5–7 months… nucleocapsid antibodies frequently become undetectable by 5–7 months.”
“In the general population using representative data from 7,256 United Kingdom COVID-19 infection survey participants who had positive swab SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests from 26-April-2020 to 14-June-2021…we estimated antibody levels associated with protection against reinfection likely last 1.5-2 years on average, with levels associated with protection from severe infection present for several years. These estimates could inform planning for vaccination booster strategies.”
Anti-spike antibody response to natural SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general population, Wei, 2021
“A study of the blood of older people who survived the 1918 influenza pandemic reveals that antibodies to the strain have lasted a lifetime and can perhaps be engineered to protect future generations against similar strains…the group collected blood samples from 32 pandemic survivors aged 91 to 101..the people recruited for the study were 2 to 12 years old in 1918 and many recalled sick family members in their households, which suggests they were directly exposed to the virus, the authors report. The group found that 100% of the subjects had serum-neutralizing activity against the 1918 virus and 94% showed serologic reactivity to the 1918 hemagglutinin. The investigators generated B lymphoblastic cell lines from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of eight subjects. Transformed cells from the blood of 7 of the 8 donors yielded secreting antibodies that bound the 1918 hemagglutinin.” Yu: “here we show that of the 32 individuals tested that were born in or before 1915, each showed sero-reactivity with the 1918 virus, nearly 90 years after the pandemic. Seven of the eight donor samples tested had circulating B cells that secreted antibodies that bound the 1918 HA. We isolated B cells from subjects and generated five monoclonal antibodies that showed potent neutralizing activity against 1918 virus from three separate donors. These antibodies also cross-reacted with the genetically similar HA of a 1930 swine H1N1 influenza strain.”
“No significant difference was observed between the 20B and 19A isolates for HCWs with mild COVID-19 and critical patients. However, a significant decrease in neutralisation ability was found for 20I/501Y.V1 in comparison with 19A isolate for critical patients and HCWs 6-months post infection. Concerning 20H/501Y.V2, all populations had a significant reduction in neutralising antibody titres in comparison with the 19A isolate. Interestingly, a significant difference in neutralisation capacity was observed for vaccinated HCWs between the two variants whereas it was not significant for the convalescent groups…the reduced neutralising response observed towards the 20H/501Y.V2 in comparison with the 19A and 20I/501Y.V1 isolates in fully immunized subjects with the BNT162b2 vaccine is a striking finding of the study.”
“Characterized SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific humoral and cellular immunity in naïve and previously infected individuals during full BNT162b2 vaccination…results demonstrate that the second dose increases both the humoral and cellular immunity in naïve individuals. On the contrary, the second BNT162b2 vaccine dose results in a reduction of cellular immunity in COVID-19 recovered individuals.”
“Epidemiologists estimate over 160 million people worldwide have recovered from COVID-19. Those who have recovered have an astonishingly low frequency of repeat infection, disease, or death.”
“To evaluate evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection based on diagnostic nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) among patients with positive vs negative test results for antibodies in an observational descriptive cohort study of clinical laboratory and linked claims data…the cohort included 3 257 478 unique patients with an index antibody test…patients with positive antibody test results were initially more likely to have positive NAAT results, consistent with prolonged RNA shedding, but became markedly less likely to have positive NAAT results over time, suggesting that seropositivity is associated with protection from infection.”
Association of SARS-CoV-2 Seropositive Antibody Test With Risk of Future Infection, Harvey, 2021
“Investigated the risk of subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection among young adults (CHARM marine study) seropositive for a previous infection…enrolled 3249 participants, of whom 3168 (98%) continued into the 2-week quarantine period. 3076 (95%) participants…Among 189 seropositive participants, 19 (10%) had at least one positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 during the 6-week follow-up (1·1 cases per person-year). In contrast, 1079 (48%) of 2247 seronegative participants tested positive (6·2 cases per person-year). The incidence rate ratio was 0·18 (95% CI 0·11–0·28; p<0·001)…infected seropositive participants had viral loads that were about 10-times lower than those of infected seronegative participants (ORF1ab gene cycle threshold difference 3·95 [95% CI 1·23–6·67]; p=0·004).”
“Of 9,180 individuals with no record of vaccination but with a record of prior infection at least 90 days before the PCR test (group 3), 7694 could be matched to individuals with no record of vaccination or prior infection (group 2), among whom PCR positivity was 1.01% (95% CI, 0.80%-1.26%) and 3.81% (95% CI, 3.39%-4.26%), respectively. The relative risk for PCR positivity was 0.22 (95% CI, 0.17-0.28) for vaccinated individuals and 0.26 (95% CI, 0.21-0.34) for individuals with prior infection compared with no record of vaccination or prior infection.”
“Followed up with a subsample of our previous sero-survey participants to assess whether natural immunity against SARS-CoV-2 was associated with a reduced risk of re-infection (India)… out of the 2238 participants, 1170 were sero-positive and 1068 were sero-negative for antibody against COVID-19. Our survey found that only 3 individuals in the sero-positive group got infected with COVID-19 whereas 127 individuals reported contracting the infection the sero-negative group…from the 3 sero-positives re-infected with COVID-19, one had hospitalization, but did not require oxygen support or critical care…development of antibody following natural infection not only protects against re-infection by the virus to a great extent, but also safeguards against progression to severe COVID-19 disease.”
“The researchers found durable immune responses in the majority of people studied. Antibodies against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which the virus uses to get inside cells, were found in 98% of participants one month after symptom onset. As seen in previous studies, the number of antibodies ranged widely between individuals. But, promisingly, their levels remained fairly stable over time, declining only modestly at 6 to 8 months after infection… virus-specific B cells increased over time. People had more memory B cells six months after symptom onset than at one month afterwards… levels of T cells for the virus also remained high after infection. Six months after symptom onset, 92% of participants had CD4+ T cells that recognized the virus… 95% of the people had at least 3 out of 5 immune-system components that could recognize SARS-CoV-2 up to 8 months after infection.”
Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19, NIH, 2021
“The seropositive rate in the convalescent individuals was above 95% at all sampling time points for both assays and remained stable over time; that is, almost all convalescent individuals developed antibodies… results show that SARS-CoV-2 antibodies persisted at least 12 months after symptom onset and maybe even longer, indicating that COVID-19-convalescent individuals may be protected from reinfection.”
“ex vivo assays to evaluate SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in COVID-19 convalescent patients up to 317 days post-symptom onset (DPSO), and find that memory T cell responses are maintained during the study period regardless of the severity of COVID-19. In particular, we observe sustained polyfunctionality and proliferation capacity of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells. Among SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells detected by activation-induced markers, the proportion of stem cell-like memory T (TSCM) cells is increased, peaking at approximately 120 DPSO.”
“Analyzed 42 unexposed healthy donors and 28 mild COVID-19 subjects up to 5 months from the recovery for SARS-CoV-2 specific immunological memory. Using HLA class II predicted peptide megapools, we identified SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive CD4+ T cells in around 66% of the unexposed individuals. Moreover, we found detectable immune memory in mild COVID-19 patients several months after recovery in the crucial arms of protective adaptive immunity; CD4+ T cells and B cells, with a minimal contribution from CD8+ T cells. Interestingly, the persistent immune memory in COVID-19 patients is predominantly targeted towards the Spike glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2. This study provides the evidence of both high magnitude pre-existing and persistent immune memory in Indian population.”
“Current evidence points to most individuals developing strong protective immune responses following natural infection with SARSCoV-2. Within 4 weeks following infection, 90-99% of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus develop detectable neutralizing antibodies. The strength and duration of the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 are not completely understood and currently available data suggests that it varies by age and the severity of symptoms. Available scientific data suggests that in most people immune responses remain robust and protective against reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is currently approximately 8 months).”
“We conclude that memory antibodies selected over time by natural infection have greater potency and breadth than antibodies elicited by vaccination…boosting vaccinated individuals with currently available mRNA vaccines would produce a quantitative increase in plasma neutralizing activity but not the qualitative advantage against variants obtained by vaccinating convalescent individuals.”
Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination, Cho, 2021
“Measured antibodies in serum samples from 30,576 persons in Iceland…of the 1797 persons who had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection, 1107 of the 1215 who were tested (91.1%) were seropositive…results indicate risk of death from infection was 0.3% and that antiviral antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 did not decline within 4 months after diagnosis (para).”
Humoral Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Iceland, Gudbjartsson, 2020
“Analyzed multiple compartments of circulating immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 in 254 samples from 188 COVID-19 cases, including 43 samples at ≥ 6 months post-infection…IgG to the Spike protein was relatively stable over 6+ months. Spike-specific memory B cells were more abundant at 6 months than at 1 month post symptom onset.”
Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection, Dan, 2021
“Fifty-four studies, from 18 countries, with a total of 12 011 447 individuals, followed up to 8 months after recovery, were included. At 6-8 months after recovery, the prevalence of detectable SARS-CoV-2 specific immunological memory remained high; IgG – 90.4%… pooled prevalence of reinfection was 0.2% (95%CI 0.0 – 0.7, I2 = 98.8, 9 studies). Individuals who recovered from COVID-19 had an 81% reduction in odds of a reinfection (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.1 – 0.3, I2 = 90.5%, 5 studies).”
“Retrospective cohort study of one multi-hospital health system included 150,325 patients tested for COVID-19 infection…prior infection in patients with COVID-19 was highly protective against reinfection and symptomatic disease. This protection increased over time, suggesting that viral shedding or ongoing immune response may persist beyond 90 days and may not represent true reinfection.”
“The study results suggest that reinfections are rare events and patients who have recovered from COVID-19 have a lower risk of reinfection. Natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 appears to confer a protective effect for at least a year, which is similar to the protection reported in recent vaccine studies.”
“We observed no symptomatic reinfections in a cohort of healthcare workers…this apparent immunity to re-infection was maintained for at least 6 months…test positivity rates were 0% (0/128 [95% CI: 0–2.9]) in those with previous infection compared to 13.7% (290/2115 [95% CI: 12.3–15.2]) in those without (P<0.0001 χ2 test).”
“Using HLA class I and II predicted peptide “megapools,” circulating SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells were identified in ∼70% and 100% of COVID-19 convalescent patients, respectively. CD4+ T cell responses to spike, the main target of most vaccine efforts, were robust and correlated with the magnitude of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG and IgA titers. The M, spike, and N proteins each accounted for 11%–27% of the total CD4+ response, with additional responses commonly targeting nsp3, nsp4, ORF3a, and ORF8, among others. For CD8+ T cells, spike and M were recognized, with at least eight SARS-CoV-2 ORFs targeted.”
“Much of the study on the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has focused on the production of antibodies. But, in fact, immune cells known as memory T cells also play an important role in the ability of our immune systems to protect us against many viral infections, including—it now appears—COVID-19.An intriguing new study of these memory T cells suggests they might protect some people newly infected with SARS-CoV-2 by remembering past encounters with other human coronaviruses. This might potentially explain why some people seem to fend off the virus and may be less susceptible to becoming severely ill with COVID-19.”
NIH Director’s Blog: Immune T Cells May Offer Lasting Protection Against COVID-19, Collins, 2021
“Our study demonstrates that convalescent subjects previously infected with ancestral variant SARS-CoV-2 produce antibodies that cross-neutralize emerging VOCs with high potency…potent against 23 variants, including variants of concern.”
Ultrapotent antibodies against diverse and highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants, Wang, 2021
“Requiring the vaccine in people who are already immune with natural immunity has no scientific support. While vaccinating those people may be beneficial – and it’s a reasonable hypothesis that vaccination may bolster the longevity of their immunity – to argue dogmatically that they must get vaccinated has zero clinical outcome data to back it. As a matter of fact, we have data to the contrary: A Cleveland Clinic study found that vaccinating people with natural immunity did not add to their level of protection.”
Why COVID-19 Vaccines Should Not Be Required for All Americans, Makary, 2021
“Screened 21 well-characterized, longitudinally-sampled convalescent donors that recovered from mild COVID-19…following a typical case of mild COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cells not only persist but continuously differentiate in a coordinated fashion well into convalescence, into a state characteristic of long-lived, self-renewing memory.”
“Characterized the profiles of measles vaccine (MV) vaccine-induced antigen-specific T cells over time since vaccination. In a cross-sectional study of healthy subjects with a history of MV vaccination, we found that MV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells could be detected up to 34 years after vaccination. The levels of MV-specific CD8 T cells and MV-specific IgG remained stable, whereas the level of MV-specific CD4 T cells decreased significantly in subjects who had been vaccinated >21 years earlier.”
Decrease in Measles Virus-Specific CD4 T Cell Memory in Vaccinated Subjects, Naniche, 2004
“The success of vaccines is dependent on the generation and maintenance of immunological memory. The immune system can remember previously encountered pathogens, and memory B and T cells are critical in secondary responses to infection. Studies in mice have helped to understand how different memory B cell populations are generated following antigen exposure and how affinity for the antigen is determinant to B cell fate… upon re-exposure to an antigen the memory recall response will be faster, stronger, and more specific than a naïve response. Protective memory depends first on circulating antibodies secreted by LLPCs. When these are not sufficient for immediate pathogen neutralization and elimination, memory B cells are recalled.”
Remembrance of Things Past: Long-Term B Cell Memory After Infection and Vaccination, Palm, 2019
“Examined the magnitude, breadth, and durability of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in two distinct B-cell compartments: long-lived plasma cell-derived antibodies in the plasma, and peripheral memory B-cells along with their associated antibody profiles elicited after in vitro stimulation. We found that magnitude varied amongst individuals, but was the highest in hospitalized subjects. Variants of concern (VoC) -RBD-reactive antibodies were found in the plasma of 72% of samples in this investigation, and VoC-RBD-reactive memory B-cells were found in all but 1 subject at a single time-point. This finding, that VoC-RBD-reactive MBCs are present in the peripheral blood of all subjects including those that experienced asymptomatic or mild disease, provides a reason for optimism regarding the capacity of vaccination, prior infection, and/or both, to limit disease severity and transmission of variants of concern as they continue to arise and circulate.”
“T-cell immunity is important for recovery from COVID-19 and provides heightened immunity for re-infection. However, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell immunity in virus-exposed individuals…report virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell memory in recovered COVID-19 patients and close contacts…close contacts are able to gain T-cell immunity against SARS-CoV-2 despite lacking a detectable infection.”
“The CD4 and CD8 responses generated after natural infection are equally robust, showing activity against multiple “epitopes” (little segments) of the spike protein of the virus. For instance, CD8 cells responds to 52 epitopes and CD4 cells respond to 57 epitopes across the spike protein, so that a few mutations in the variants cannot knock out such a robust and in-breadth T cell response…only 1 mutation found in Beta variant-spike overlapped with a previously identified epitope (1/52), suggesting that virtually all anti-SARS-CoV-2 CD8+ T-cell responses should recognize these newly described variants.”
“Exposure to common cold coronaviruses can teach the immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2”
“Found that the pre-existing reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 comes from memory T cells and that cross-reactive T cells can specifically recognize a SARS-CoV-2 epitope as well as the homologous epitope from a common cold coronavirus. These findings underline the importance of determining the impacts of pre-existing immune memory in COVID-19 disease severity.”
Selective and cross-reactive SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes in unexposed humans, Mateus, 2020
“Better understanding of antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 after natural infection might provide valuable insights into the future implementation of vaccination policies. Longitudinal analysis of IgG antibody titers was carried out in 32 recovered COVID-19 patients based in the Umbria region of Italy for 14 months after Mild and Moderately-Severe infection…study findings are consistent with recent studies reporting antibody persistency suggesting that induced SARS-CoV-2 immunity through natural infection, might be very efficacious against re-infection (>90%) and could persist for more than six months. Our study followed up patients up to 14 months demonstrating the presence of anti-S-RBD IgG in 96.8% of recovered COVID-19 subjects.”
“Characterized humoral and circulating follicular helper T cell (cTFH) immunity against spike in recovered patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We found that S-specific antibodies, memory B cells and cTFH are consistently elicited after SARS-CoV-2 infection, demarking robust humoral immunity and positively associated with plasma neutralizing activity.”
“149 COVID-19-convalescent individuals…antibody sequencing revealed the expansion of clones of RBD-specific memory B cells that expressed closely related antibodies in different individuals. Despite low plasma titres, antibodies to three distinct epitopes on the RBD neutralized the virus with half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50 values) as low as 2 ng ml−1.”
Convergent antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in convalescent individuals, Robbiani, 2020
“COVID-19 patients rapidly generate B cell memory to both the spike and nucleocapsid antigens following SARS-CoV-2 infection…RBD- and NCP-specific IgG and Bmem cells were detected in all 25 patients with a history of COVID-19.”
“People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades…the study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting.”
Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime, Callaway, 2021
In greater Vancouver Canada, “using a highly sensitive multiplex assay and positive/negative thresholds established in infants in whom maternal antibodies have waned, we determined that more than 90% of uninfected adults showed antibody reactivity against the spike protein, receptor-binding domain (RBD), N-terminal domain (NTD), or the nucleocapsid (N) protein from SARS-CoV-2.”
“The presence of pre-existing SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells in a subset of SARS-CoV-2 naïve HD is of high interest.”
Presence of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells in COVID-19 patients and healthy donors, Braun, 2020
“The results indicate that spike-protein cross-reactive T cells are present, which were probably generated during previous encounters with endemic coronaviruses.”
SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells in healthy donors and patients with COVID-19, Braun, 2020
“A cohort of 63 individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 assessed at 1.3, 6.2 and 12 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection…the data suggest that immunity in convalescent individuals will be very long lasting.”
Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection, Wang, 2021
“Long-lasting immunological memory against SARS-CoV-2 after mild COVID-19… activation-induced marker assays identified specific T-helper cells and central memory T-cells in 80% of participants at a 12-month follow-up.”
“Immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection can persist for at least 11 months… natural infection (as determined by a prior positive antibody or PCR-test result) can confer protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Denmark, “during the first surge (ie, before June, 2020), 533 381 people were tested, of whom 11 727 (2·20%) were PCR positive, and 525 339 were eligible for follow-up in the second surge, of whom 11 068 (2·11%) had tested positive during the first surge. Among eligible PCR-positive individuals from the first surge of the epidemic, 72 (0·65% [95% CI 0·51–0·82]) tested positive again during the second surge compared with 16 819 (3·27% [3·22–3·32]) of 514 271 who tested negative during the first surge (adjusted RR 0·195 [95% CI 0·155–0·246]).”
“Adaptive immune responses limit COVID-19 disease severity…multiple coordinated arms of adaptive immunity control better than partial responses…completed a combined examination of all three branches of adaptive immunity at the level of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell and neutralizing antibody responses in acute and convalescent subjects. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were each associated with milder disease. Coordinated SARS-CoV-2-specific adaptive immune responses were associated with milder disease, suggesting roles for both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in protective immunity in COVID-19.”
“Collected blood from COVID-19 patients who have recently become virus-free, and therefore were discharged, and detected SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral and cellular immunity in eight newly discharged patients. Follow-up analysis on another cohort of six patients 2 weeks post discharge also revealed high titers of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies. In all 14 patients tested, 13 displayed serum-neutralizing activities in a pseudotype entry assay. Notably, there was a strong correlation between neutralization antibody titers and the numbers of virus-specific T cells.”
“Analysed the magnitude and phenotype of the SARS-CoV-2 cellular immune response in 100 donors at six months following primary infection and related this to the profile of antibody level against spike, nucleoprotein and RBD over the previous six months. T-cell immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 were present by ELISPOT and/or ICS analysis in all donors and are characterised by predominant CD4+ T cell responses with strong IL-2 cytokine expression… functional SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses are retained at six months following infection.”
“Performed a comprehensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses from COVID-19 convalescent subjects recognizing the ancestral strain, compared to variant lineages B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1, and CAL.20C as well as recipients of the Moderna (mRNA-1273) or Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) COVID-19 vaccines… the sequences of the vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 T cell epitopes are not affected by the mutations found in the variants analyzed. Overall, the results demonstrate that CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in convalescent COVID-19 subjects or COVID-19 mRNA vaccinees are not substantially affected by mutations.”
Israel, “out of 149,735 individuals with a documented positive PCR test between March 2020 and January 2021, 154 had two positive PCR tests at least 100 days apart, reflecting a reinfection proportion of 1 per 1000.”
“Measured plasma and/or serum antibody responses to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 in 343 North American patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 (of which 93% required hospitalization) up to 122 days after symptom onset and compared them to responses in 1548 individuals whose blood samples were obtained prior to the pandemic…IgG antibodies persisted at detectable levels in patients beyond 90 days after symptom onset, and seroreversion was only observed in a small percentage of individuals. The concentration of these anti-RBD IgG antibodies was also highly correlated with pseudovirus NAb titers, which also demonstrated minimal decay. The observation that IgG and neutralizing antibody responses persist is encouraging, and suggests the development of robust systemic immune memory in individuals with severe infection.”
“To track population-based SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity duration across the United States using observational data from a national clinical laboratory registry of patients tested by nucleic acid amplification (NAAT) and serologic assays… specimens from 39,086 individuals with confirmed positive COVID-19…both S and N SARS-CoV-2 antibody results offer an encouraging view of how long humans may have protective antibodies against COVID-19, with curve smoothing showing population seropositivity reaching 90% within three weeks, regardless of whether the assay detects N or S-antibodies. Most importantly, this level of seropositivity was sustained with little decay through ten months after initial positive PCR.”
“Progress in laboratory markers for SARS-CoV2 has been made with identification of epitopes on CD4 and CD8 T-cells in convalescent blood. These are much less dominated by spike protein than in previous coronavirus infections. Although most vaccine candidates are focusing on spike protein as antigen, natural infection by SARS-CoV-2 induces broad epitope coverage, cross-reactive with other betacoronviruses.”
“Study of 42 patients following recovery from COVID-19, including 28 mild and 14 severe cases, comparing their T cell responses to those of 16 control donors…found the breadth, magnitude and frequency of memory T cell responses from COVID-19 were significantly higher in severe compared to mild COVID-19 cases, and this effect was most marked in response to spike, membrane, and ORF3a proteins…total and spike-specific T cell responses correlated with the anti-Spike, anti-Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) as well as anti-Nucleoprotein (NP) endpoint antibody titre…furthermore showed a higher ratio of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ to CD4+ T cell responses…immunodominant epitope clusters and peptides containing T cell epitopes identified in this study will provide critical tools to study the role of virus-specific T cells in control and resolution of SARS-CoV-2 infections.”
“SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells will likely prove critical for long-term immune protection against COVID-19…mapped the functional and phenotypic landscape of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in unexposed individuals, exposed family members, and individuals with acute or convalescent COVID-19…collective dataset shows that SARS-CoV-2 elicits broadly directed and functionally replete memory T cell responses, suggesting that natural exposure or infection may prevent recurrent episodes of severe COVID-19.”
Robust T Cell Immunity in Convalescent Individuals with Asymptomatic or Mild COVID-19, Sekine, 2020
“Provide a full picture of cellular and humoral immune responses of COVID-19 patients and prove that robust polyfunctional CD8+ T cell responses concomitant with low anaphylatoxin levels correlate with mild infections.”
“The first work identifying and characterizing SARS-CoV-2-specific and cross-reactive HLA class I and HLA-DR T-cell epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 convalescents (n = 180) as well as unexposed individuals (n = 185) and confirming their relevance for immunity and COVID-19 disease course…cross-reactive SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes revealed pre-existing T-cell responses in 81% of unexposed individuals, and validation of similarity to common cold human coronaviruses provided a functional basis for postulated heterologous immunity in SARS-CoV-2 infection…intensity of T-cell responses and recognition rate of T-cell epitopes was significantly higher in the convalescent donors compared to unexposed individuals, suggesting that not only expansion, but also diversity spread of SARS-CoV-2 T-cell responses occur upon active infection.”
SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes define heterologous and COVID-19 induced T-cell recognition, Nelde, 2020
“Results have just been published of a study suggesting that 40%-60% of people who have not been exposed to coronavirus have resistance at the T-cell level from other similar coronaviruses like the common cold…the true portion of people who are not even susceptible to Covid-19 may be as high as 80%.”
Karl Friston: up to 80% not even susceptible to Covid-19, Sayers, 2020
“Screening of SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools revealed that the nucleocapsid (N) protein induced an immunodominant response in HLA-B7+ COVID-19-recovered individuals that was also detectable in unexposed donors…the basis of selective T cell cross-reactivity for an immunodominant SARS-CoV-2 epitope and its homologs from seasonal coronaviruses, suggesting long-lasting protective immunity.”
“COVID-19 patients showed strong T cell responses, with up to 25% of all CD8+ lymphocytes specific to SARS-CoV-2-derived immunodominant epitopes, derived from ORF1 (open reading frame 1), ORF3, and Nucleocapsid (N) protein. A strong signature of T cell activation was observed in COVID-19 patients, while no T cell activation was seen in the ‘non-exposed’ and ‘high exposure risk’ healthy donors.”
“Systematic review and pooled analysis of clinical studies to date, that (1) specifically compare the protection of natural immunity in the COVID-recovered versus the efficacy of full vaccination in the COVID-naive, and (2) the added benefit of vaccination in the COVID-recovered, for prevention of subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection…review demonstrates that natural immunity in COVID-recovered individuals is, at least, equivalent to the protection afforded by full vaccination of COVID-naïve populations. There is a modest and incremental relative benefit to vaccination in COVID-recovered individuals; however, the net benefit is marginal on an absolute basis.”
“The third key finding is that previous infections with SARS-CoV-2 were significantly protective against all studied outcomes, with an effectiveness of 93% (87 to 96%) seen against symptomatic infections, 89% (57 to 97%) against moderate to severe disease and 85% (-9 to 98%) against supplemental oxygen therapy. All deaths occurred in previously uninfected individuals. This was higher protection than that offered by single or double dose vaccine.”
ChAdOx1nCoV-19 effectiveness during an unprecedented surge in SARS CoV-2 infections, Satwik, 2021
“Explore the impact of T cells and to quantify the protective levels of the immune responses…5,340 Moscow residents were evaluated for the antibody and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and monitored for COVID-19 up to 300 days. The antibody and cellular responses were tightly interconnected, their magnitude inversely correlated with infection probability. Similar maximal level of protection was reached by individuals positive for both types of responses and by individuals with antibodies alone…T cells in the absence of antibodies provided an intermediate level of protection.”
“SARS-CoV-2 infection produces B-cell responses that continue to evolve for at least one year. During that time, memory B cells express increasingly broad and potent antibodies that are resistant to mutations found in variants of concern.”
Anti- SARS-CoV-2 Receptor Binding Domain Antibody Evolution after mRNA Vaccination, Cho, 2021
“Impact of pre-existing antibodies to human coronaviruses causing common cold (HCoVs), is essential to understand protective immunity to COVID-19 and devise effective surveillance strategies…after the peak response, anti-spike antibody levels increase from ~150 days post-symptom onset in all individuals (73% for IgG), in the absence of any evidence of re-exposure. IgG and IgA to HCoV are significantly higher in asymptomatic than symptomatic seropositive individuals. Thus, pre-existing cross-reactive HCoVs antibodies could have a protective effect against SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease.”
“Findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 reactive T-cells are likely to be present in many individuals because of prior exposure to flu and CMV viruses.”
“117 blood samples were collected from 70 COVID-19 inpatients and convalescent patients…the neutralizing antibodies were detected even at the early stage of disease, and a significant response was shown in convalescent patients.”
“Reports that antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 are not maintained in the serum following recovery from the virus have caused alarm…the absence of specific antibodies in the serum does not necessarily mean an absence of immune memory.”
Not just antibodies: B cells and T cells mediate immunity to COVID-19, Cox, 2020
“Although T cell durability to SARS-CoV-2 remains to be determined, current data and past experience from human infection with other CoVs demonstrate the potential for persistence and the capacity to control viral replication and host disease, and importance in vaccine-induced protection.”
T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection and vaccination, DiPiazza, 2020
“Multiple studies have shown loss of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2-specific (SARS-CoV-2-specific) antibodies over time after infection, raising concern that humoral immunity against the virus is not durable. If immunity wanes quickly, millions of people may be at risk for reinfection after recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, memory B cells (MBCs) could provide durable humoral immunity even if serum neutralizing antibody titers decline… data indicate that most SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals develop S-RBD-specific, class-switched rMBCs that resemble germinal center-derived B cells induced by effective vaccination against other pathogens, providing evidence for durable B cell-mediated immunity against SARS-CoV-2 after mild or severe disease.”
Durable SARS-CoV-2 B cell immunity after mild or severe disease, Ogega, 2021
“All memory T cell responses detected target the SARS-Co-V structural proteins… these responses were found to persist up to 11 years post-infection… knowledge of the persistence of SARS-specific cellular immunity targeting the viral structural proteins in SARS-recovered individuals is important.”
“The adaptive immune system is important for control of most viral infections. The three fundamental components of the adaptive immune system are B cells (the source of antibodies), CD4+ T cells, and CD8+ T cells…a picture has begun to emerge that reveals that CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, and neutralizing antibodies all contribute to control of SARS-CoV-2 in both non-hospitalized and hospitalized cases of COVID-19.”
“These findings provide support for the prognostic value of early functional SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells with important implications in vaccine design and immune monitoring.”
“A multiplexed peptide-MHC tetramer approach was used to screen 408 SARS-CoV-2 candidate epitopes for CD8+ T cell recognition in a cross-sectional sample of 30 coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent individuals…Modelling demonstrated a coordinated and dynamic immune response characterized by a decrease in inflammation, increase in neutralizing antibody titer, and differentiation of a specific CD8+ T cell response. Overall, T cells exhibited distinct differentiation into stem cell and transitional memory states (subsets), which may be key to developing durable protection.”
SARS-CoV-2–specific CD8+ T cell responses in convalescent COVID-19 individuals, Kared, 2021
“Most importantly, we demonstrate that infection generates both IgG and IgG MBCs against the novel receptor binding domain and the conserved S2 subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Thus, even if antibody levels wane, long-lived MBCs remain to mediate rapid antibody production. Our study results also suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection strengthens pre-existing broad coronavirus protection through S2-reactive antibody and MBC formation.”
“A cross-sectional study to assess the virus-specific antibody and memory T and B cell responses in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients up to 343 days after infection…found that approximately 90% of patients still have detectable immunoglobulin (Ig)G antibodies against spike and nucleocapsid proteins and neutralizing antibodies against pseudovirus, whereas ~60% of patients had detectable IgG antibodies against receptor-binding domain and surrogate virus-neutralizing antibodies…SARS-CoV-2-specific IgG+ memory B cell and interferon-γ-secreting T cell responses were detectable in more than 70% of patients…coronavirus 2-specific immune memory response persists in most patients approximately 1 year after infection, which provides a promising sign for prevention from reinfection and vaccination strategy.”
“A prospective, longitudinal analysis of COVID-19 convalescent plasma donors at multiple time points over an 11-month period to determine how circulating antibody levels change over time following natural infection… data suggest that immunological memory is acquired in most individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 and is sustained in a majority of patients.”
“A long-term high rate of seropositivity persists after natural measles infection. By contrast, it decreases over time after vaccination. Similarly, the concentrations of antibodies in persons with measles history persist for a longer time at a higher level than in vaccinated persons.”
“The expansion of these rare types of memory B cells may explain why most people did not become severely ill, even in the absence of pre-existing protective antibody titers”…found “extraordinarily” powerful antibodies in the blood of nine people who caught the swine flu naturally and recovered from it.”…unlike antibodies elicited by annual influenza vaccinations, most neutralizing antibodies induced by pandemic H1N1 infection were broadly cross-reactive against epitopes in the hemagglutinin (HA) stalk and head domain of multiple influenza strains. The antibodies were from cells that had undergone extensive affinity maturation.”
“Reinfection was identified in 0.7% (n = 63, 95% confidence interval [CI]: .5%–.9%) during follow-up of 9119 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
“Interrogated antibody and antigen-specific memory B cells over time in 33 SARS-CoV-2 naïve and 11 SARS-CoV-2 recovered subjects… In SARS-CoV-2 recovered individuals, antibody and memory B cell responses were significantly boosted after the first vaccine dose; however, there was no increase in circulating antibodies, neutralizing titers, or antigen-specific memory B cells after the second dose. This robust boosting after the first vaccine dose strongly correlated with levels of pre-existing memory B cells in recovered individuals, identifying a key role for memory B cells in mounting recall responses to SARS-CoV-2 antigens.”
“Six studies have reported T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus… in a study of donor blood specimens obtained in the US between 2015 and 2018, 50% displayed various forms of T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2… Researchers are also confident that they have made solid inroads into ascertaining the origins of the immune responses. “Our hypothesis, of course, was that it’s so called ‘common cold’ coronaviruses, because they’re closely related…we have really shown that this is a true immune memory and it is derived in part from common cold viruses.”
Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? Doshi, 2020
“We demonstrate the presence of pre-existing humoral immunity in uninfected and unexposed humans to the new coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2 S-reactive antibodies were readily detectable by a sensitive flow cytometry-based method in SARS-CoV-2-uninfected individuals and were particularly prevalent in children and adolescents.”
Pre-existing and de novo humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in humans, Ng, 2020
“We detected SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in 100% and 80% of COVID-19 patients, respectively. We also detected low levels of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T-cells in 20% of the healthy controls, not previously exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and indicative of cross-reactivity due to infection with ‘common cold’ coronaviruses.”
“T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 was observed in unexposed people…it is speculated that this reflects T cell memory to circulating ‘common cold’ coronaviruses.”
Pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2: the knowns and unknowns, Sette, 2020
“Memory T-cell immunity against S-OIV is present in the adult population and that such memory is of similar magnitude as the pre-existing memory against seasonal H1N1 influenza…the conservation of a large fraction of T-cell epitopes suggests that the severity of an S-OIV infection, as far as it is determined by susceptibility of the virus to immune attack, would not differ much from that of seasonal flu.”
“The 2009 H1N1 pandemic (pH1N1) provided a unique natural experiment to determine whether cross-reactive cellular immunity limits symptomatic illness in antibody-naive individuals… Higher frequencies of pre-existing T cells to conserved CD8 epitopes were found in individuals who developed less severe illness, with total symptom score having the strongest inverse correlation with the frequency of interferon-γ (IFN-γ)(+) interleukin-2 (IL-2)(-) CD8(+) T cells (r = -0.6, P = 0.004)… CD8(+) T cells specific to conserved viral epitopes correlated with cross-protection against symptomatic influenza.”
Cellular immune correlates of protection against symptomatic pandemic influenza, Sridhar, 2013
“Precise role of T cells in human influenza immunity is uncertain. We conducted influenza infection studies in healthy volunteers with no detectable antibodies to the challenge viruses H3N2 or H1N1…mapped T cell responses to influenza before and during infection…found a large increase in influenza-specific T cell responses by day 7, when virus was completely cleared from nasal samples and serum antibodies were still undetectable. Pre-existing CD4+, but not CD8+, T cells responding to influenza internal proteins were associated with lower virus shedding and less severe illness. These CD4+ cells also responded to pandemic H1N1 (A/CA/07/2009) peptides and showed evidence of cytotoxic activity.”
“No increase in cross-reactive antibody response to the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus was observed among adults aged >60 years. These data suggest that receipt of recent (2005–2009) seasonal influenza vaccines is unlikely to elicit a protective antibody response to the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus.”
“Memory T cells that are specific for one virus can become activated during infection with an unrelated heterologous virus, and might have roles in protective immunity and immunopathology. The course of each infection is influenced by the T-cell memory pool that has been laid down by a host’s history of previous infections, and with each successive infection, T-cell memory to previously encountered agents is modified.”
No one is naive: the significance of heterologous T-cell immunity, Welsh, 2002
“Individuals belonging to households with an index COVID-19 patient, reported symptoms of COVID-19 but discrepant serology results… All index patients recovered from a mild COVID-19. They all developed anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and a significant T cell response detectable up to 69 days after symptom onset. Six of the eight contacts reported COVID-19 symptoms within 1 to 7 days after the index patients but all were SARS-CoV-2 seronegative… exposure to SARS-CoV-2 can induce virus-specific T cell responses without seroconversion. T cell responses may be more sensitive indicators of SARS-Co-V-2 exposure than antibodies…results indicate that epidemiological data relying only on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies may lead to a substantial underestimation of prior exposure to the virus.”
“It important to note that antibodies are incomplete predictors of protection. After vaccination or infection, many mechanisms of immunity exist within an individual not only at the antibody level, but also at the level of cellular immunity. It is known that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces specific and durable T-cell immunity, which has multiple SARS-CoV-2 spike protein targets (or epitopes) as well as other SARS-CoV-2 protein targets. The broad diversity of T-cell viral recognition serves to enhance protection to SARS-CoV-2 variants, with recognition of at least the alpha (B.1.1.7), beta (B.1.351), and gamma (P.1) variants of SARS-CoV-2. Researchers have also found that people who recovered from SARS-CoV infection in 2002–03 continue to have memory T cells that are reactive to SARS-CoV proteins 17 years after that outbreak. Additionally, a memory B-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 evolves between 1·3 and 6·2 months after infection, which is consistent with longer-term protection.”
Protective immunity after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection, Kojima, 2021
“This ‘super antibody’ for COVID fights off multiple coronaviruses…12 antibodies…that was involved in the study, isolated from people who had been infected with either SARS-CoV-2 or its close relative SARS-CoV.”
This ‘super antibody’ for COVID fights off multiple coronaviruses, Kwon, 2021
“Taken together, our data indicate sustained humoral immunity in recovered patients who suffer from symptomatic COVID-19, suggesting prolonged immunity.”
“Whereas anti-CoV-2 IgA antibodies rapidly decayed, IgG antibodies remained relatively stable up to 115 days PSO in both biofluids. Importantly, IgG responses in saliva and serum were correlated, suggesting that antibodies in the saliva may serve as a surrogate measure of systemic immunity.”
“Early appearance, multi-specificity and functionality of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells are associated with accelerated viral clearance and with protection from severe COVID-19.”
“Found a significantly faster decay in naïve vaccinees compared to recovered patients suggesting that the serological memory following natural infection is more robust compared to vaccination. Our data highlights the differences between serological memory induced by natural infection vs. vaccination.”
The longitudinal kinetics of antibodies in COVID-19 recovered patients over 14 months, Eyran, 2020
“Followed a population of urban Massachusetts HCWs…we found no re-infection among those with prior COVID-19, contributing to 74,557 re-infection-free person-days, adding to the evidence base for the robustness of naturally acquired immunity.”
“Compared the vaccination induced immune response profile with that of natural infection, evaluating thereby if individuals infected during the first wave retained virus specific immunity…the overall immune response resulting from natural infection in and around Kolkata is not only to a certain degree better than that generated by vaccination, especially in the case of the Delta variant, but cell mediated immunity to SARS-CoV-2 also lasts for at least ten months after the viral infection.”
Immunity to COVID-19 in India through vaccination and natural infection, Sarraf, 2021
“Evaluated humoral immune responses in 69 children and adolescents with asymptomatic or mild symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. We detected robust IgM, IgG, and IgA antibody responses to a broad array of SARS-CoV-2 antigens at the time of acute infection and 2 and 4 months after acute infection in all participants. Notably, these antibody responses were associated with virus-neutralizing activity that was still detectable 4 months after acute infection in 94% of children. Moreover, antibody responses and neutralizing activity in sera from children and adolescents were comparable or superior to those observed in sera from 24 adults with mild symptomatic infection. Taken together, these findings indicate that children and adolescents with mild or asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection generate robust and durable humoral immune responses that can likely contribute to protection from reinfection.”
“Symptomatic adult COVID-19 cases consistently show peripheral T cell lymphopenia, which positively correlates with increased disease severity, duration of RNA positivity, and non-survival; while asymptomatic and paediatric cases display preserved counts. People with severe or critical disease generally develop more robust, virus-specific T cell responses. T cell memory and effector function has been demonstrated against multiple viral epitopes, and, cross-reactive T cell responses have been demonstrated in unexposed and uninfected adults, but the significance for protection and susceptibility, respectively, remains unclear.”
T cell response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans: A systematic review, Shrotri, 2021
“Reinfections had 90% lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections. Four reinfections were severe enough to lead to acute care hospitalization. None led to hospitalization in an ICU, and none ended in death. Reinfections were rare and were generally mild, perhaps because of the primed immune system after primary infection.”
Severity of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections as Compared with Primary Infections, Abu-Raddad, 2021
“SARS-CoV-2 reinfection can occur but is a rare phenomenon suggestive of protective immunity against reinfection that lasts for at least a few months post primary infection.”
“Analyzed 28,578 sequenced SARS-CoV-2 samples from individuals with known immune status obtained through national community testing in the Netherlands from March to August 2021. They found evidence for an “increased risk of infection by the Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1), or Delta (B.1.617.2) variants compared to the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant after vaccination. No clear differences were found between vaccines. However, the effect was larger in the first 14-59 days after complete vaccination compared to 60 days and longer. In contrast to vaccine-induced immunity, no increased risk for reinfection with Beta, Gamma or Delta variants relative to Alpha variant was found in individuals with infection-induced immunity.”
“Studies did not address whether prior infection is protective in the absence of a detectable humoral immune response. Patients with primary or secondary antibody deficiency syndrome and reduced or absent B cells can recover from COVID-19…Although there have been few mechanistic studies, preliminary data show that such individuals generate striking T-cell immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools…SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell immune responses but not neutralising antibodies are associated with reduced disease severity suggesting the immune system may have considerable redundancy or compensation following COVID-19…our results add to the emerging evidence that detectable serum antibody may be an incomplete marker of protection against reinfection. This could have implications for public health and policy-making, for example if using seroprevalence data to assess population immunity, or if serum antibody levels were to be taken as official evidence of immunity – a minority of truly immune patients have no detectable antibody and could be disadvantaged as a result. Our findings highlight the need for further studies of immune correlates of protection from infection with SARS-CoV-2, which may in turn enhance development of effective vaccines and treatments.”
“With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID…By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.”
Natural infection vs vaccination: Which gives more protection?, Rosenberg, 2021
“Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”
“The neutralizing activity of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more targeted to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein compared to antibodies elicited by natural infection. However, within the RBD, binding of vaccine-elicited antibodies was more broadly distributed across epitopes compared to infection-elicited antibodies. This greater binding breadth means that single RBD mutations have less impact on neutralization by vaccine sera compared to convalescent sera. Therefore, antibody immunity acquired by natural infection or different modes of vaccination may have a differing susceptibility to erosion by SARS-CoV-2 evolution.”
“Limited knowledge is available on the relationship between antigen-specific immune responses and COVID-19 disease severity. We completed a combined examination of all three branches of adaptive immunity at the level of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell and neutralizing antibody responses in acute and convalescent subjects. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were each associated with milder disease. Coordinated SARS-CoV-2-specific adaptive immune responses were associated with milder disease, suggesting roles for both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in protective immunity in COVID-19. Notably, coordination of SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific responses was disrupted in individuals ≥ 65 years old. Scarcity of naive T cells was also associated with aging and poor disease outcomes. A parsimonious explanation is that coordinated CD4+ T cell, CD8+ T cell, and antibody responses are protective, but uncoordinated responses frequently fail to control disease, with a connection between aging and impaired adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2.”
“Protection from reinfection decreases with time since previous infection, but is, nevertheless, higher than that conferred by vaccination with two doses at a similar time since the last immunity-conferring event.”
Protection and waning of natural and hybrid COVID-19 immunity, Goldberg, 2021
“The protective effect of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on re-infection is high and similar to the protective effect of vaccination.”
“Compare SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain (S1-RBD)-specific primary MBCs that form in response to infection or a single mRNA vaccination. Both primary MBC populations have similar frequencies in the blood and respond to a second S1-RBD exposure by rapidly producing plasmablasts with an abundant immunoglobulin (Ig)A+ subset and secondary MBCs that are mostly IgG+ and cross-react with the B.1.351 variant. However, infection-induced primary MBCs have better antigen-binding capacity and generate more plasmablasts and secondary MBCs of the classical and atypical subsets than do vaccine-induced primary MBCs. Our results suggest that infection-induced primary MBCs have undergone more affinity maturation than vaccine-induced primary MBCs and produce more robust secondary responses.”
“Optimal immune responses furnish long-lasting (durable) antibodies protective across dynamically mutating viral variants (broad). To assess robustness of mRNA vaccine-induced immunity…compared antibody durability and breadth after SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination…While vaccination delivered robust initial virus-specific antibodies with some cross-variant coverage, pre-variant SARS-CoV-2 infection-induced antibodies, while modest in magnitude, showed highly stable long-term antibody dynamics…Differential antibody durability trajectories favored COVID-19-recovered subjects with dual memory B cell features of greater early antibody somatic mutation and cross-coronavirus reactivity…illuminating an infection-mediated antibody breadth advantage and an anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody durability-enhancing function conferred by recalled immunity.”
Differential antibody dynamics to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination, Chen, 2021
Non-technical articles
“vaccinating people who have had covid-19 would seem to offer nothing or very little to benefit, logically leaving only harms—both the harms we already know about as well as those still unknown… The real risk in vaccinating people who have had covid-19 is of doing more harm than good.’ says Christine Stabell Benn, vaccinologist and professor in global health at the University of Southern Denmark.”
Vaccinating people who have had covid-19: why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US? The bmj | BMJ 2021;374:n2101 | Sept. 2021
“Individuals with a known history of SARS-CoV-2 infection or previous diagnosis of Covid-19 were excluded from Moderna’s and Pfizer’s trials… why were there five times more participants excluded in the vaccine group [compared to the placebo group]? ... A rough estimate of vaccine efficacy against developing covid-19 symptoms, with or without a positive PCR test result, would be a relative risk reduction of 19%... far below the 50% effectiveness threshold for authorization set by regulators… Addressing the many open questions about these trials requires access to the raw trial data. But no company seems to have shared data with any third party at this point.” [the FDA has now suggested they will withhold the raw data for 55 years(!)]
From: Pfizer and Moderna’s “95% effective” vaccines—we need more details and the raw data. The bmj - Opinion. Jan. 2021.
“The realization that natural immunity – which pertains now to perhaps half of the US population and billions around the world – is effective in providing protection should have a dramatic effect on vaccine mandates.”
From: Natural Immunity and Covid-19: Twenty-Nine Scientific Studies to Share with Employers, Health Officials, and Politicians. Brownstone Institute, Oct 2021
“existing immunity should be assessed before any vaccination, via an accurate, dependable, and reliable antibody test (or T cell immunity test) or be based on documentation of prior infection (a previous positive PCR or antigen test). Such would be evidence of immunity that is equal to that of vaccination and the immunity should be provided the same societal status as any vaccine-induced immunity.”
From: 81 Research Studies Affirm Naturally Acquired Immunity to Covid-19: Documented, Linked, and Quoted. Brownstone Institute, Oct 2021
“it is overwhelmingly clear that vaccinated people without natural immunity are far more likely to contract and spread covid than are unvaccinated people with natural immunity. There is not a shred of evidence from real world populations to the contrary.”
From: Updated Letter to Institutions Re: Natural Immunity. Charles Brewer’s newsletter, substack.com, Aug 2021.
“Not allowing a mere anti-nucleocapsid antibody test [indicating prior infection and recovery] or any record of any positive PCR test to serve as equal proof of immunity to a vaccination card is scientifically unjustifiable.” [from perhaps the best detailed comparison of studies - including the vaccine trials conducted by the vaccine manufacturers - comparing natural immunity vs. vaccine-induced immunity].
From: Natural Immunity Vs. Vaccination. Chris Masterjohn’s blog. October 2021.
“Requiring the vaccine in people who are already immune with natural immunity has no scientific support.”
From: Why COVID-19 Vaccines Should Not Be Required for All Americans. US News & World Report. Aug. 2021.
“The incorrect hypothesis that natural immunity is unreliable has resulted in the loss of thousands of American lives, avoidable vaccine complications, and damaged the credibility of public health officials. Given the recent mandate announcement by the White House, it would be good for our public health leaders to show humility by acknowledging that the hypothesis they repeatedly trumpeted was not only wrong, but it may be harmful.” From: Natural immunity to covid is powerful. Policymakers seem afraid to say so. The Washington Post. September 15, 2021.
From: https://twitter.com/MonicaGandhi9/status/1373510909868470272
This is a good video which discusses natural immunity vs. vaccine-induced immunity: Suspended Medical Ethics Professor Aaron Kheriaty on Vaccine Coercion, Risks, and Natural Immunity
Another interesting video presentation is:
Winning the War Against Therapeutic Nihilism & Trusted Treatments vs Untested Novel Therapies by Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH. Presented at the 78th Annual Meeting of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons on October 2, 2021. Dr. McCullough has over 500 peer-reviewed publications with over 100,000 (!) citations according to google scholar. Nevertheless his lecture was removed from youtube for “violating community standards''. It is available at the link above. The discussion about vaccinating those with natural immunity starts at 48m58s.
Dr. McCullough also did an updated podcast on covid-related topics including natural immunity on the Joe Rogan Experience, available on Spotify (video) or vimeo (audio).
"Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime."
Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime. Nature, May 2021.
Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine. Science, Aug 2021.
[Lasting immunity found after recovery from COVID-19.] (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lasting-immunity-found-after-recovery-covid-19) NIH, January 2021.
Natural immunity vs Covid-19 vaccine-induced immunity – Marc Girardot of PANDA. Biznews.com, June 2021.
Pre-existing immunity to Covid-19 – Marc Girardot of PANDA unpacks its evolution. Biznews.com, August 2021.
The Risk of Vaccinated COVID Transmission Is Not Low. Scientific American, December 16, 2021.
“...what they [COVID vaccines] can't do anymore is prevent transmission." -- CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky (quoted by CNN)
We were told two weeks to flatten the curve, so our hospitals would not get overwhelmed. Looking back, how did we do?
- Notice the period before Covid hit. We can use that as a baseline.
- Notice the uptick and then fall just before the hospitals were emptied. The surge had already peaked and was falling back just as the measures were being put in place (March 12 was when the lockdowns started)
- Notice the steps taken to prepare for the supposed coming covid wave. THe hospitals were briefly emptied down to 60% capacity levels.
- Notice the absence of a surge in covid hospitalizations after they were emptied. The wave never came.
- How were they able to empty the hospitals down to 60% so rapidly, seemingly almost overnight Partly removing the incoming waves by cancelling surgeries but they also moved sick people back to their LTC/nursing homes and caused a huge wave of sudden deaths there.
- Notice that ever since that period, they are no longer running at 100% capacity but rather hover around 80% yet the mainstream media was constantly moaning about overwhelmed hospitals and tired front line workers.
- Notice the lack of surges yet we were constantly told another wave coming, our hospitals are overrun, our staff are exhausted...
[TODO: Compare Covid mandate timeline in ontario as a reference] 2021-03-12 - Complete lockdown throught Ontario
OST fraud on hospital data
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1480199107633459203
today's disinformation from Ontario Science Table. Local to me, but prob representative of science advice elsewhere. Left- ACTUAL hospitalization data by vax status. Right - hospitalization infographic from Science Table. Look at difference, pic.twitter.com/ULXNORcfkP
— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) January 9, 2022
(in case the link eventually breaks)
vaccinated are leading ICU occupancy
(although I don't believe this is population adjusted)
Fh-tOkXWQAEpH4L.jpeg
When I started following this story back in January, I was quite alarmed at what the Communist Party of China was doing to their people. From the numbers that were coming out of the National Health Commission of the PRC, it really looked like this was far more serious than the annual flu season. The death rate seemed to be 20-25x higher which is in itself scary. Since then, it has become very obvious that we can not trust their numbers.
I think it is fair to compare Covid-19 to the season flu because that is something we are familiar with and it gives us something to relate to. Not saying it is the same as the seasonal flu, just saying it is worth comparing. So how does it compare?
Since Oct 2019 USA CDC reports the following numbers for Pneumonia and Influenza:
38M-54M flu illnesses
18M-26M flu medical visits
400k-730k flu hospitalizations (compared to 900k in 2018)
24k-62k flu deaths (compared to 80k deaths in 2018)
We have to be cautious in referencing number as there can be a large variation from one year to the next and periodically there is a very large swelling. We also have to be careful with average numbers because in a normalized distribution, that is more like the mid-point in a range of variation, and half the time it is more than average and half the time it is less than average. I don't think it is meaningful to use average. And now I am seeing even a more vague term such as "expected". What does that even mean? It never seems to be defined whenever it is used.
Italy is currently showing 19/100k deaths for C19 with 88% having 1 or more comorbidities. In previous flu seasons, Italy showed 11.6 – 41.2 deaths/100k for all age groups. Since we know that the majority of the C19 deaths are those > 65 years old, it is useful to know that during recent flu seasons, mortality rate of those in age >65 for Europe was 147.1/100k and for Italy was 292.8/100k.
So, my own opinion is that Covid-19 is not nearly as bad as I thought it was back in January. I think it compares very well to seasonal flu and will likely be with us for years.(UPDATE) Scott Gottlieb just tweeted that he thinks the final deaths in USA for this season will be 80k-160k. Which puts it at as bad as the last few years to as bad as 1965 making it a 50 year flu. Its numbers seem to be comparable as well but probably slightly higher but certainly not an order of magnitude higher. The flu season has many viruses and we have added another one to it. The good that will come out of this is that we may have the will to finally do something about the common cold. We are all learning about community spread that will help us in future seasons. Personally, I am not hopeful for a vaccine but there are some promising cures and this has certainly helped propel the science forward.
Association between the 2008–09 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine and Pandemic H1N1 Illness during Spring–Summer 2009: Four Observational Studies from Canada "Prior receipt of 2008–09 TIV was associated with increased risk of medically attended pH1N1 illness during the spring–summer 2009 in Canada... However, estimates from all four studies (which included about 1,200 laboratory-confirmed pH1N1 cases and 1,500 controls) showed that prior recipients of the 2008–09 TIV had approximately 1.4–2.5 times increased chances of developing pH1N1 illness that needed medical attention during the spring–summer of 2009 compared to people who had not received the TIV."" https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000258
respitory virus
New Canadian studies suggest seasonal flu shot increased H1N1 risk
Reassessing the Global Mortality Burden of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic:
World population estimates
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World:
Experiments Upon Volunteers to Determine the Cause and Mode of Spread of Influenza, Boston, November and December, 1918:
Influenza virus-related critical illness: pathophysiology and epidemiology
Probable limited person-to-person transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in China
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)60493-6/fulltext
Detection and Isolation of Airborne Influenza A H3N2 Virus Using a Sioutas Personal Cascade Impactor Sampler
Viable influenza A virus in airborne particles expelled during coughs versus exhalations
Transmission routes of respiratory viruses among humans
Exposure to Influenza Virus Aerosols During Routine Patient Care
R. Edgar Hope-simpson: The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4899-2385-1#aboutBook
Why have three long-running Cochrane Reviews on influenza vaccines been stabilised?
Vaccines for preventing influenza in the elderly
Older adults receiving the influenza vaccine may have a lower risk of influenza (from 6% to 2.4%), and probably have a lower risk of ILI compared with those who do not receive a vaccination over the course of a single influenza season (from 6% to 3.5%). We are uncertain how big a difference these vaccines will make across different seasons. Very few deaths occurred, and no data on hospitalisation were reported. No cases of pneumonia occurred in one study that reported this outcome. We do not have enough information to assess harms relating to fever and nausea in this population.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004876.pub4/full
The seasonal wave seems to be over in most places so it is time to revisit the numbers and see how our understanding has changed from our preliminary perspective on this pandemic. Remember, we were told that millions would die, and that we had to do our part to flatten the curve so that the health facilities would not be overrun. It was also just supposed to be for two weeks.
The average age of Canadians who died of COVID-19 in 2020 is 83.8 years, according to Statistics Canada, yet the Average life expectancy is only 76.5 years.
Excess deaths in Canada
Deaths in Canada for Covid-19 are reported to be 8,947 for the 18th month period ending Aug 5, 2020. 90% of those deaths were people 70 and older. 82% of deaths occurred in Long Term Health Care facilities. In the province of Quebec it was 93%. Annual deaths in Canada are approximately 300,000 so Covid-19 deaths are just under 3% of that.
Leading causes of Death, Canada 2018 (for 12 month period)
| Rank | Cause of death | Total deaths |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cancer | 79,536 |
| 2 | Heart disease | 53,134 |
| 3 | Cerebrovascular diseases | 13,480 |
| 4 | Accidents | 13,290 |
| 5 | Chronic lower respiratory diseases | 12,998 |
| 6 | Flu and pneumonia | 8,511 |
| 7 | Diabetes | 6,794 |
| 8 | Alzheimer’s disease | 6,429 |
| 9 | Suicide | 3,811 |
| 10 | Kidney diseases | 3,615 |
Lets look at all-cause mortality, as provided by StatsCan.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200724/dq200724a-eng.htm
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2020017-eng.htm
The following graphs, taken from their website, show the number of deaths in each week for the past five years. For comparison, each year is superimposed over top of each other, and each year is represented by a different colour. The current year is represented by a dashed line.
Even though these graphs were just released, I have no explanation for why the covid period ends in May. I am going to assume it is just due to a processing delay of the raw information. This is my biggest problem with StatsCan - they are not transparent about what they are doing.
Looking first at children and young adults, we are unable to see anything unusual in this year compared to prior years. It is actually difficult to see the Covid period because it is right in the middle of previous years. There does not appear to be any excess deaths caused by COVID19 for this age group. Why are we involving children in this pandemic scare when they are no more affected by it than they would be by the seasonal flu.
Children and young adults
Adults
Deaths for adults is also lower than normal, which is actually quite surprising.
Senior Citizens
Only with the senior citizens do we see a noticeable but temporary increase in the number of deaths, followed by a decrease below normal level. So how will this average out over the year?
Elderly
Finally, looking at the elderly, we clearly see a bump in the number of deaths for a few weeks. Even then, April deaths are below January deaths, and as we have already seen, the rise above normal is followed by a fall below normal which means the year will average out as, well, average.
Just a reminder. The typical government response to the alarming rise in covid deaths at the beginning of the first wave was to draw down the number of patients in the hospitals by sending them back to the LTC's. A number of people have noted that this caused problems for the other residents of the LTC and resulted in a wave of additional deaths.
2024 UPDATE
Stats Canada now have an update to the graphics that were released back in 2020 that worth looking at.
Excess mortality in Ontario (2020)
Statscan has also provided graphs for all-cause mortality for a number of the provinces. Here is what Ontario looks like.
Ontario deaths in 2020-compared to previous 5 years
You can find it here. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200724/g-a004-eng.htm
Sure there was a bump that began two weeks after the lockdowns (Mar 12) but it was short lived and compares similarly with the previous 5 years. It has all ages combined so once again, it is mostly those over 70. Also, from May onward, deaths are below normal compared to the previous 5 years.
US deaths as reported by the CDC
Majority of deaths occurred in Long Term Care Facilities
This is such an important point because the media and politicians try to portray the risk being equal across the population. But this is simply not the case. In Quebec, deaths in Long Term Care facilities accounted for 93% of deaths which is pretty much all of them. The remaining 7% were not in LTC but also had comorbidities, which means they were already dying of something else. Remember, 100% had at least one comorbidity. 99% had two or more. What most people do not realize, or may have forgotten is that people that go into Long Term Care Facilities are already sick and frail. The average lifespan of a resident in an LTC is 18 months. Which means the attrition rate is 30% of the population of the LTC, each year. In addition, deaths are very seasonal with half of them occuring during the flu season, which amounts to 15% of the population of the LTC. This is exactly the same death rate that occurred during the initial Covid outbreak. Most LTC's experienced about 15% of deaths. And remember, this is an average across all LTC's. Some had higher percentages and some had lower. 15% is the average. This is why we are saying Covid mortality is pretty much in keeping with influenza mortality and why StatsCan are not reporting any excess deaths.
How Canada compares to other countries
In terms of deaths per million, Canada ranks around 184 as shown by worldometers.info with 237 deaths per million. That means 183 countries did better than us. This puts us in the middle of it's peer of first world countries. (100-1000 deaths/million) which I have covered in another blog post. In comparison, USA ranks 205 with 479 deaths per million, more than twice Canada’s rate. Sweden, which I will get back to shortly, came in at 202, pretty close to Canada. A question that really needs to get answered is why are we in a cluster that is 10x - 100x more severe than countries that are in the single-digit cluster:
Clustering
| cluster (deaths/million) | cohorts (sample) |
|---|---|
| 100-1000 | Belgium, Peru, Spain, Italy |
| 10-100 | Canada, US, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands |
| 1-10 | China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan |
We still have no explanation offered why the proportion of deaths varies so widely from one country to the next. Is it due to their methods of counting? Are they healthier? Do they have less old people?
The death rate for the Seasonal flu around .1% of those infected, which is called the IFR. With Covid19, we are seeing a 3.6% case fatality rate, which is referred to as CFR. However, cases refer only to those that have been tested, not to the overall population, which is something that is used in the seasonal flu calculations, so you can not compare those two numbers without making an adjustment to determine how many people were actually infected. You have to compare Covid IFR to Seasonal flue IFR if you want to do a comparison.
Canada has tested just over 10% of the population with 4.5 million tests out of a population of 37 million which resulted in 120 thousand cases. Could this be extrapolated to the whole population to derive an estimated 1 million cases? That would put the case death rate at .36 if it is true. Difficult to estimate the total number of those infected, but we do know most are asymptomatic so it is probably a high number.
The Covid19 pandemic can also be compared to the last three flu pandemics during the last century. But remember, the population has doubled a few times during this period so past events would have to be scaled up to as much as 3x to compare to today’s population, and these numbers have not been population adjusted. For example the 25-50 million deaths a hundred years ago would be equivalent to 75-150 million proportional deaths given hat the size of our current population has grown 3 times during that period.
- 1918 flu pandemic – 25-50 million deaths
- 1957 flu pandemic – 1-2 million deaths with death rate around .67
- 1968 flu pandemic – 1-4 million deaths. Immunity from 1957 carried forward
- 2020 Covid19 pandemic – 0.75 million deaths.
Note. When I first wrote this, Aug 2020 the first wave of deaths was over. Since then the mainstream media continues to report that as many as 50 million have died from covid. Is that actually true?
Children
Children are doing better in 2020 than previous years.
Here is an interesting graph from EUROMOMO for children all across Europe. 2020 is shown to be lower than the previous 5 years for this age group.
EUROMOMO: Deaths for children are lower than previous years in all of Europe
All Cause Mortality Canada Historic
All Cause Mortality (UPDATED Dec 2022)
USA experience (CDC)
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku
April, 2022 edition of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, entitled, “The Role of Children and Young People in the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2,” concluded: “there is NO convincing evidence to date, 2 years into the pandemic, that children are key drivers of the pandemic.
Childhood covid-19 disease burden, however, is not exclusively defined by mortality; it includes morbidity. To that end, I have begun analyzing hospitalization datasets I purchased from RIDOH for all hospitalizations in our state, organized by what are called ICD diagnostic codes, for calendar years 2019, 2020, and 2021, comparing influenza and covid-19 hospitalizations among children, up to age 18. My initial analyses are summarized in the tables provided, below.
What is the evidence that masking of children in schools can reduce their risk for contracting and transmitting covid-19 regardless of their very low risk for clinically significant disease?
Notes and References
These are new items of interest for this topic that I have recently discovered but not yet explored.
death < 14 days
contrary argument on vaers
C19 “vaccine” - the cause of causes
https://coquindechien.substack.com/p/c19-vaccine-the-cause-of-causes?s=r
New-onset autoimmune phenomena post-COVID-19 vaccination
US covid test positivity rates by vaccination status
yet another set of evidence that vaccines are not working to stop covid spread and that boosters wind up making you more likely to contract covid in the long run
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/us-covid-test-positivity-rates-by?s=r
Myocarditis, Pulmonary Hemorrhage, and Extensive Myositis with Rhabdomyolysis 12 Days After First Dose of Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine: A Case Report
Case Report: Anti-NF186+ CIDP After Receiving the Inactivated Vaccine for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP)
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2022.838222/full
A Case Series of Ketoacidosis After Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.840580/full
A Public Health Emergency in Canada: The Rate of Change in Excess Millennial Deaths Can’t Be Explained by a Sudden Rush of Suicides, Overdoses, Cancers
https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/a-public-health-emergency-in-canada?s=r
- Data shows that it has a 12% efficacy rate for the first 7 days and then falls to less than 1%
- No human clinical trials to determine if it is safe for pregnant or breastfeeding. Instead they concluded it was safe from testin on 44 rats
- Only 6% of the subjects are accounted for. Where are the 25,70 patients missing from their data?
- lipid nanoparticles were found to be distributed throughout the body, in the liver, ovaries and other vital organs 48 hours after injection.
Pfizer’s Documents
On What Basis Did Pfizer Claim 95%?
The 95% VE (vaccine efficacy) arises from the 8 confirmed Covid cases from the vaccinated group (from at least 7 days after Dose 2) compared to 162 from the placebo group.
A key section buried within this document, which alludes to possibly the real VE at that time, is the following damning data below (found on page 42).
Among 3410 total cases of suspected but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population,
1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs.
1816 in the placebo group.
Suspected COVID-19 cases that occurred within 7 days after any vaccination were
409 in the vaccine group vs.
287 in the placebo group.
These were people showing actual symptoms. If you calculate the VE from these numbers, it’s a staggeringly low 12%. VE is calculated by dividing the difference between the case numbers in the placebo and vaccine groups, by the case number in the placebo group x 100 = VE of 12 %
This is a vast climb down from the 95% VE generated by easily manipulated PCR tests, conducted in a central lab chosen by Pfizer. What’s even more alarming, is that this data was known almost a year and a half ago, by the FDA themselves.
On What Basis Did Pfizer Claim 95%?
By Sonia ElijahSonia Elijah May 3, 2022
https://brownstone.org/articles/on-what-basis-did-pfizer-claim-95/
Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting
December 10, 2020 FDA Briefing Document Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine
genotoxicity and carcinogenicity
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/genotoxicity-and-carcinogenicity?utm_medium=email&s=r
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/125742_S1_M2_24_nonclinical-overview.pdf
Genotoxicity is descriptive of chemically-induced damage to genetic information that causes mutations1 (a change in DNA sequence) and may lead to cancer.
Carcinogenicity is descriptive of the ability to induce cancer and remember, a carcinogen does not necessarily have to be a toxin!
Cancer is any disease in which normal cells are damaged and the balance of growth versus death/removal is skewed toward growth.
Secondary pharmacodynamics involve studies on the mode of action and/or effects of a substance not related to its desired therapeutic target and safety pharmacology involves studies that investigate the potential undesirable pharmacodynamic effects of a substance on physiological functions in relation to exposure in the therapeutic range and above.
Genetic mutations can result from DNA copying mistakes that occur during cell division, from exposure to ionizing radiation (like from medical X-rays - physical mutagen), exposure to chemicals (chemical mutagens) or even by infection by viruses like Human Papillomavirus (HPV)2 (biological mutagen).
Mechanistically, we found that the spike protein localizes in the nucleus and inhibits DNA damage repair by impeding key DNA repair protein BRCA1 and 53BP1 recruitment to the damage site.
There were NO genotoxicity or carcinogencinity studies done in the context of the COVID-19 modified RNA LNP-based products during pre-market testing. - Because the genetic material and the fats were not expected to have genotoxic, carcinogenic or tumorigenic potential.
“Carcinogenicity testing is generally not considered necessary to support the development and licensure of vaccine products for infectious diseases (WHO, 2005).”
These products are called ‘vaccines’ but they are based on a completely different model - a completely different platform and delivery system, so they cannot be deemed non-mutagenic until proven otherwise with studies.
2.4.4.4. Genotoxicity
No genotoxicity studies are planned for BNT162b2 as the components
of the vaccine construct are lipids and RNA and are not expected
to have genotoxic potential (WHO, 2005).
2.4.4.5. Carcinogenicity
Carcinogenicity studies with BNT162b2 have not been conducted as the
components of the vaccine construct are lipids and RNA and are not expected to
have carcinogenic or tumorigenic potential. Carcinogenicity testing is
generally not considered necessary to support the development and licensure
of vaccine products for infectious diseases
(WHO, 2005).
No phototoxicity, dependence, metabolite, impurity and ‘other’ studies were also not conducted in the context the BNT162b2 product. No Safety Pharmacology, no Secondary Pharmacodynamic and no Pharmacodynamic Drug Interaction studies were done.
Source reference for more than 170 citations on mask ineffectiveness and mask harms. Studies include non-surgical as well as hospital settings. It actually surprised me that they had carried out clinical trials on masks in a hospital setting, then determined that they were ineffective in controlling the spread of influenza but yet continue to use masks anyway. Obviously placing more importance on appearance than effectiveness. One can not help but wonder where else have they done this.
It would be difficult to construct a filter that traps all viruses yet still allow the passage of air. From an engineering standpoint these face masks do not make sense.
The other aspect that is getting little attention is there may be less understood about transmission that we think we know. Some people get infected, some don't. So obviously other factors may be at play that are more important to determining infection. There is ample evidence of people already having it but there immune system gets compromised which results in the breakout of symptoms. The so called opportunistic infection. Infections from bacteria can be isolated and proven to be viable but we lack this with viruses. No one seems to have isolated the Sars-Cov2 virus or proven its viability.
EFFECTIVENESS
[1] “Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results…the recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use.”
[2] “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine. Multiple, independent virus strain transmission clusters were identified…all recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors.”
[SARS-CoV-2 Transmission among Marine Recruits during Quarantine, Letizia, 2020] (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2029717)
[3] “There is low certainty evidence from nine trials (3507 participants) that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask (risk ratio (RR) 0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82 to 1.18. There is moderate certainty evidence that wearing a mask probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza compared to not wearing a mask (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.26; 6 trials; 3005 participants)…the pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza.”
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses, Jefferson, 2020 https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub5/full
[4] A cluster-randomized trial of community-level mask promotion in rural Bangladesh from November 2020 to April 2021 (N=600 villages, N=342,126 adults. Heneghan writes: “In a Bangladesh study, surgical masks reduced symptomatic COVID infections by between 0 and 22 percent, while the efficacy of cloth masks led to somewhere between an 11 percent increase to a 21 percent decrease. Hence, based on these randomized studies, adult masks appear to have either no or limited efficacy.”
The Impact of Community Masking on COVID-19: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Bangladesh, Abaluck, 2021 Heneghan et al. https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mask_RCT____Symptomatic_Seropositivity_083121.pdf
[5] “The available clinical evidence of facemask efficacy is of low quality and the best available clinical evidence has mostly failed to show efficacy, with fourteen of sixteen identified randomized controlled trials comparing face masks to no mask controls failing to find statistically significant benefit in the intent-to-treat populations. Of sixteen quantitative meta-analyses, eight were equivocal or critical as to whether evidence supports a public recommendation of masks, and the remaining eight supported a public mask intervention on limited evidence primarily on the basis of the precautionary principle.”
Evidence for Community Cloth Face Masking to Limit the Spread of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review, Liu/CATO, 2021
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2021-11/working-paper-64.pdf
[6] “Evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza…none of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group…the overall reduction in ILI or laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in the face mask group was not significant in either studies.”
Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures, CDC/Xiao, 2020 https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
[7] “We agree that the data supporting the effectiveness of a cloth mask or face covering are very limited. We do, however, have data from laboratory studies that indicate cloth masks or face coverings offer very low filter collection efficiency for the smaller inhalable particles we believe are largely responsible for transmission, particularly from pre- or asymptomatic individuals who are not coughing or sneezing…though we support mask wearing by the general public, we continue to conclude that cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles, offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation, and should not be recommended as a replacement for physical distancing or reducing time in enclosed spaces with many potentially infectious people.”
CIDRAP: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data, Brosseau, 2020 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
[8] “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic…The calculus may be different, however, in health care settings. First and foremost, a mask is a core component of the personal protective equipment (PPE) clinicians need when caring for symptomatic patients with respiratory viral infections, in conjunction with gown, gloves, and eye protection…universal masking alone is not a panacea. A mask will not protect providers caring for a patient with active Covid-19 if it’s not accompanied by meticulous hand hygiene, eye protection, gloves, and a gown. A mask alone will not prevent health care workers with early Covid-19 from contaminating their hands and spreading the virus to patients and colleagues. Focusing on universal masking alone may, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures.”
Universal Masking in Hospitals in the Covid-19 Era, Klompas/NEJM, 2020 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
[9] “This systematic review found limited evidence that the use of masks might reduce the risk of viral respiratory infections. In the community setting, a possible reduced risk of influenza-like illness was found among mask users. In health care workers, the results show no difference between N95 masks and surgical masks on the risk of confirmed influenza or other confirmed viral respiratory infections, although possible benefits from N95 masks were found for preventing influenza-like illness or other clinical respiratory infections. Surgical masks might be superior to cloth masks but data are limited to 1 trial.”
Masks for prevention of viral respiratory infections among health care workers and the public: PEER umbrella systematic review, Dugré, 2020 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32675098/#affiliation-1
[10] “Facemask use provided a non-significant protective effect (OR = 0.53; 95% CI 0.16–1.71; I2 = 48%) against 2009 pandemic influenza infection.”
Effectiveness of personal protective measures in reducing pandemic influenza transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Saunders-Hastings, 2017 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755436516300858?via=ihub
[11] “Nevertheless, high-efficiency masks, such as the KN95, still offer substantially higher apparent filtration efficiencies (60% and 46% for R95 and KN95 masks, respectively) than the more commonly used cloth (10%) and surgical masks (12%), and therefore are still the recommended choice in mitigating airborne disease transmission indoors.”
Experimental investigation of indoor aerosol dispersion and accumulation in the context of COVID-19: Effects of masks and ventilation, Shah, 2021 https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100
“Exercising with facemasks may reduce available Oxygen and increase air trapping preventing substantial carbon dioxide exchange. The hypercapnic hypoxia may potentially increase acidic environment, cardiac overload, anaerobic metabolism and renal overload, which may substantially aggravate the underlying pathology of established chronic diseases. Further contrary to the earlier thought, no evidence exists to claim the facemasks during exercise offer additional protection from the droplet transfer of the virus.”
Exercise with facemask; Are we handling a devil’s sword?- A physiological hypothesis, Chandrasekaran, 2020 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32590322/
“Following the commissioning of a new suite of operating rooms air movement studies showed a flow of air away from the operating table towards the periphery of the room. Oral microbial flora dispersed by unmasked male and female volunteers standing one metre from the table failed to contaminate exposed settle plates placed on the table. The wearing of face masks by non-scrubbed staff working in an operating room with forced ventilation seems to be unnecessary.”
Surgical face masks in modern operating rooms–a costly and unnecessary ritual?, Mitchell, 1991 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1680906/
“By intention-to-treat analysis, facemask use did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections (odds ratio [OR], 1.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.9 to 2.1, p = 0.18) nor against clinical respiratory infection (OR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.9 to 1.4, p = 0.40).”
Facemask against viral respiratory infections among Hajj pilgrims: A challenging cluster-randomized trial, Alfelali, 2020 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240287
- Simple respiratory protection–evaluation of the filtration performance of cloth masks and common fabric materials against 20-1000 nm size particles, Rengasamy, 2010
“Results obtained in the study show that common fabric materials may provide marginal protection against nanoparticles including those in the size ranges of virus-containing particles in exhaled breath.”
- Respiratory performance offered by N95 respirators and surgical masks: human subject evaluation with NaCl aerosol representing bacterial and viral particle size range, Lee, 2008 “The study indicates that N95 filtering facepiece respirators may not achieve the expected protection level against bacteria and viruses. An exhalation valve on the N95 respirator does not affect the respiratory protection; it appears to be an appropriate alternative to reduce the breathing resistance.”
- Aerosol penetration and leakage characteristics of masks used in the health care industry, Weber, 1993 “We conclude that the protection provided by surgical masks may be insufficient in environments containing potentially hazardous sub-micrometer-sized aerosols.”
- Disposable surgical face masks for preventing surgical wound infection in clean surgery, Vincent, 2016 “We included three trials, involving a total of 2106 participants. There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials…from the limited results it is unclear whether the wearing of surgical face masks by members of the surgical team has any impact on surgical wound infection rates for patients undergoing clean surgery.”
- Disposable surgical face masks: a systematic review, Lipp, 2005 “From the limited results it is unclear whether wearing surgical face masks results in any harm or benefit to the patient undergoing clean surgery.”
- Comparison of the Filter Efficiency of Medical Nonwoven Fabrics against Three Different Microbe Aerosols, Shimasaki , 2018 “We conclude that the filter efficiency test using the phi-X174 phage aerosol may overestimate the protective performance of nonwoven fabrics with filter structure compared to that against real pathogens such as the influenza virus.”
- The use of masks and respirators to preventtransmission of influenza: a systematic review of thescientific evidence21) The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence, Bin-Reza, 2012 The use of masks and respirators to preventtransmission of influenza: a systematic review of thescientific evidence“None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection. Some evidence suggests that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package of personal protection especially hand hygiene.”
- Facial protection for healthcare workers during pandemics: a scoping review, Godoy, 2020 “Compared with surgical masks, N95 respirators perform better in laboratory testing, may provide superior protection in inpatient settings and perform equivalently in outpatient settings. Surgical mask and N95 respirator conservation strategies include extended use, reuse or decontamination, but these strategies may result in inferior protection. Limited evidence suggests that reused and improvised masks should be used when medical-grade protection is unavailable.”
- Assessment of Proficiency of N95 Mask Donning Among the General Public in Singapore, Yeung, 2020 “These findings support ongoing recommendations against the use of N95 masks by the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic.5 N95 mask use by the general public may not translate into effective protection but instead provide false reassurance. Beyond N95 masks, proficiency among the general public in donning surgical masks needs to be assessed.”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2766070
- Evaluating the efficacy of cloth facemasks in reducing particulate matter exposure, Shakya, 2017 “Standard N95 mask performance was used as a control to compare the results with cloth masks, and our results suggest that cloth masks are only marginally beneficial in protecting individuals from particles<2.5 μm.”
- Use of surgical face masks to reduce the incidence of the common cold among health care workers in Japan: a randomized controlled trial, Jacobs, 2009 “Face mask use in health care workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.”
- N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel, Radonovich, 2019 “Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks as worn by participants in this trial resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
- Does Universal Mask Wearing Decrease or Increase the Spread of COVID-19?, Watts up with that? 2020 “A survey of peer-reviewed studies shows that universal mask wearing (as opposed to wearing masks in specific settings) does not decrease the transmission of respiratory viruses from people wearing masks to people who are not wearing masks.”
- Masking: A Careful Review of the Evidence, Alexander, 2021 “In fact, it is not unreasonable at this time to conclude that surgical and cloth masks, used as they currently are, have absolutely no impact on controlling the transmission of Covid-19 virus, and current evidence implies that face masks can be actually harmful.”
https://www.aier.org/article/masking-a-careful-review-of-the-evidence/
- Community and Close Contact Exposures Associated with COVID-19 Among Symptomatic Adults ≥18 Years in 11 Outpatient Health Care Facilities — United States, July 2020, Fisher, 2020 Reported characteristics of symptomatic adults ≥18 years who were outpatients in 11 US academic health care facilities and who received positive and negative SARS-CoV-2 test results (N = 314)* — United States, July 1–29, 2020, revealed that 80% of infected persons wore face masks almost all or most of the time.
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Europe: a quasi-experimental study, Hunter, 2020
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf
Face masks in public was not associated with reduced incidence.
- Masking lack of evidence with politics, CEBM, Heneghan, 2020 “It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks. For instance, high rates of infection with cloth masks could be due to harms caused by cloth masks, or benefits of medical masks. The numerous systematic reviews that have been recently published all include the same evidence base so unsurprisingly broadly reach the same conclusions.”
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/
- Transmission of COVID-19 in 282 clusters in Catalonia, Spain: a cohort study, Marks, 2021 “We observed no association of risk of transmission with reported mask usage by contacts, with the age or sex of the index case, or with the presence of respiratory symptoms in the index case at the initial study visit.”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30985-3/fulltext
- Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza, WHO, 2020
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf?ua=1
“Ten RCTs were included in the meta-analysis, and there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
- The Strangely Unscientific Masking of America, Younes, 2020 “One report reached its conclusion based on observations of a “dummy head attached to a breathing simulator.” Another analyzed use of surgical masks on people experiencing at least two symptoms of acute respiratory illness. Incidentally, not one of these studies involved cloth masks or accounted for real-world mask usage (or misusage) among lay people, and none established efficacy of widespread mask-wearing by people not exhibiting symptoms. There was simply no evidence whatsoever that healthy people ought to wear masks when going about their lives, especially outdoors.”
https://www.aier.org/article/the-strangely-unscientific-masking-of-america/
- Facemasks and similar barriers to prevent respiratory illness such as COVID-19: A rapid systematic review, Brainard, 2020 “31 eligible studies (including 12 RCTs). Narrative synthesis and random-effects meta-analysis of attack rates for primary and secondary prevention in 28 studies were performed. Based on the RCTs we would conclude that wearing facemasks can be very slightly protective against primary infection from casual community contact, and modestly protective against household infections when both infected and uninfected members wear facemasks. However, the RCTs often suffered from poor compliance and controls using facemasks.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.01.20049528v1
- The Year of Disguises, Koops, 2020 “The healthy people in our society should not be punished for being healthy, which is exactly what lockdowns, distancing, mask mandates, etc. do…Children should not be wearing face coverings. We all need constant interaction with our environments and that is especially true for children. This is how their immune system develops. They are the lowest of the low-risk groups. Let them be kids and let them develop their immune systems… The “Mask Mandate” idea is a truly ridiculous, knee-jerk reaction and needs to be withdrawn and thrown in the waste bin of disastrous policy, along with lockdowns and school closures. You can vote for a person without blindly supporting all of their proposals!”
- Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden, Ludvigsson, 2020 “1,951,905 children in Sweden (as of December 31, 2019) who were 1 to 16 years of age, were examined…social distancing was encouraged in Sweden, but wearing face masks was not…No child with Covid-19 died.”
- Double-Masking Benefits Are Limited, Japan Supercomputer Finds, Reidy, 2021 “Wearing two masks offers limited benefits in preventing the spread of droplets that could carry the coronavirus compared to one well-fitted disposable mask, according to a Japanese study that modeled the dispersal of droplets on a supercomputer.”
- Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Part 1 – Face masks, eye protection and person distancing: systematic review and meta-analysis, Jefferson, 2020 “There was insufficient evidence to provide a recommendation on the use of facial barriers without other measures. We found insufficient evidence for a difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators and limited evidence to support effectiveness of quarantine.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2
- Should individuals in the community without respiratory symptoms wear facemasks to reduce the spread of COVID-19?, NIPH, 2020 “Non-medical facemasks include a variety of products. There is no reliable evidence of the effectiveness of non-medical facemasks in community settings. There is likely to be substantial variation in effectiveness between products. However, there is only limited evidence from laboratory studies of potential differences in effectiveness when different products are used in the community.”
- Is a mask necessary in the operating theatre?, Orr, 1981 “It would appear that minimum contamination can best be achieved by not wearing a mask at all but operating in silence. Whatever its relation to contamination, bacterial counts, or the dissemination of squames, there is no direct evidence that the wearing of masks reduces wound infection.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493952/pdf/annrcse01509-0009.pdf
- The surgical mask is a bad fit for risk reduction, Neilson, 2016 “As recently as 2010, the US National Academy of Sciences declared that, in the community setting, “face masks are not designed or certified to protect the wearer from exposure to respiratory hazards.” A number of studies have shown the inefficacy of the surgical mask in household settings to prevent transmission of the influenza virus.”
- Facemask versus No Facemask in Preventing Viral Respiratory Infections During Hajj: A Cluster Randomised Open Label Trial, Alfelali, 2019 “Facemask use does not prevent clinical or laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections among Hajj pilgrims.”
- Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis, Vainshelboim, 2021 “The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19. The data suggest that both medical and non-medical facemasks are ineffective to block human-to-human transmission of viral and infectious disease such SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, supporting against the usage of facemasks. Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression.”
- The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence, Bin-Reza, 2011 “None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection. Some evidence suggests that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package of personal protection especially hand hygiene.”
- Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence., Swiss Policy Research, 2021 “Most studies found little to no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks in the general population, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control.”
- Postoperative wound infections and surgical face masks: A controlled study, Tunevall, 1991 “These results indicate that the use of face masks might be reconsidered. Masks may be used to protect the operating team from drops of infected blood and from airborne infections, but have not been proven to protect the patient operated by a healthy operating team.”
- Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level COVID-19 containment, Guerra, 2021 “Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v1
- Twenty Reasons Mandatory Face Masks are Unsafe, Ineffective and Immoral, Manley, 2021 “A CDC-funded review on masking in May 2020 came to the conclusion: “Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza… None of the household studies reported a significant reduction in secondary laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the face mask group.” If masks can’t stop the regular flu, how can they stop SAR-CoV-2?”
- A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers, MacIntyre, 2015 “First RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection…the rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.”
- Horowitz: Data from India continues to blow up the ‘Delta’ fear narrative, Blazemedia, 2021 “Rather than proving the need to sow more panic, fear, and control over people, the story from India — the source of the “Delta” variant — continues to refute every current premise of COVID fascism…Masks failed to stop the spread there.”
- An outbreak caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) in a secondary care hospital in Finland, May 2021, Hetemäki, 2021 Reporting on a nosocomial hospital outbreak in Finland, Hetemäli et al. observed that “both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections were found among vaccinated health care workers, and secondary transmission occurred from those with symptomatic infections despite use of personal protective equipment.”
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.30.2100636
- Nosocomial outbreak caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in a highly vaccinated population, Israel, July 2021, Shitrit, 2021 In a hospital outbreak investigation in Israel, Shitrit et al. observed “high transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant among twice vaccinated and masked individuals.” They added that “this suggests some waning of immunity, albeit still providing protection for individuals without comorbidities.” Again, despite use of personal protective equipment.
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.39.2100822#html_fulltext
- 47 studies confirm ineffectiveness of masks for COVID and 32 more confirm their negative health effects, Lifesite news staff, 2021 “No studies were needed to justify this practice since most understood viruses were far too small to be stopped by the wearing of most masks, other than sophisticated ones designed for that task and which were too costly and complicated for the general public to properly wear and keep changing or cleaning. It was also understood that long mask wearing was unhealthy for wearers for common sense and basic science reasons.”
- Are EUA Face Masks Effective in Slowing the Spread of a Viral Infection?, Dopp, 2021 The vast evidence shows that masks are ineffective.
- CDC Study finds overwhelming majority of people getting coronavirus wore masks, Boyd/Federalist, 2021 “A Centers for Disease Control report released in September shows that masks and face coverings are not effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19, even for those people who consistently wear them.”
- Most Mask Studies Are Garbage, Eugyppius, 2021 “The other kind of study, the proper kind, would be a randomised controlled trial. You compare the rates of infection in a masked cohort against rates of infection in an unmasked cohort. Here things have gone much, much worse for mask brigade. They spent months trying to prevent the publication of the Danish randomised controlled trial, which found that masks do zero. When that paper finally squeaked into print, they spent more months trying desperately to poke holes in it. You could feel their boundless relief when the Bangladesh study finally appeared to save them in early September. Every last Twitter blue-check could now proclaim that Science Shows Masks Work. Such was their hunger for any scrap of evidence to prop up their prior convictions, that none of them noticed the sad nature of the Science in question. The study found a mere 10% reduction in seroprevalence among the masked cohort, an effect so small that it fell within the confidence interval. Even the study authors couldn’t exclude the possibility that masks in fact do zero.”
https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/most-mask-studies-are-garbage
- Using face masks in the community: first update, ECDC, 2021 “No high-quality evidence in favor of face masks and recommended their use only based on the ‘precautionary principle.”
- Do physical measures such as hand-washing or wearing masks stop or slow down the spread of respiratory viruses?, Cochrane, 2020 “Seven studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers. Compared with wearing no mask, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness (9 studies; 3507 people); and probably makes no difference in how many people have flu confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 3005 people). Unwanted effects were rarely reported, but included discomfort.”
- Mouth-nose protection in public: No evidence of effectiveness, Thieme/ Kappstein, 2020 “The use of masks in public spaces is questionable simply because of the lack of scientific data. If one also considers the necessary precautions, masks must even be considered a risk of infection in public spaces according to the rules known from hospitals… If masks are worn by the population, the risk of infection is potentially increased, regardless of whether they are medical masks or whether they are so-called community masks designed in any way. If one considers the precautionary measures that the RKI as well as the international health authorities have pronounced, all authorities would even have to inform the population that masks should not be worn in public spaces at all. Because no matter whether it is a duty for all citizens or voluntarily borne by the citizens who want it for whatever reason, it remains a fact that masks can do more harm than good in public.”
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/html/10.1055/a-1174-6591
- US mask guidance for kids is the strictest across the world, Skelding, 2021 “Kids need to see faces,” Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, told The Post. Youngsters watch people’s mouths to learn to speak, read and understand emotions, he said.“We have this idea that this disease is so bad that we must adopt any means necessary to stop it from spreading,” he said. “It’s not that masks in schools have no costs. They actually do have substantial costs.”
https://nypost.com/2021/10/02/us-mask-guidance-for-kids-is-the-strictest-across-the-world/
- Masking young children in school harms language acquisition, Walsh, 2021 “This is important because children and/or students do not have the speech or language ability that adults have — they are not equally able and the ability to see the face and especially the mouth is critical to language acquisition which children and/or students are engaged in at all times. Furthermore, the ability to see the mouth is not only essential to communication but also essential to brain development.”
- The Case Against Masks for Children, Makary, 2021 “It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with them to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults… Do masks reduce Covid transmission in children? Believe it or not, we could find only a single retrospective study on the question, and its results were inconclusive. Yet two weeks ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sternly decreed that 56 million U.S. children and adolescents, vaccinated or not, should cover their faces regardless of the prevalence of infection in their community. Authorities in many places took the cue to impose mandates in schools and elsewhere, on the theory that masks can’t do any harm. That isn’t true. Some children are fine wearing a mask, but others struggle. Those who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the mask fogs their glasses. (This has long been a problem for medical students in the operating room.) Masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems. The discomfort of a mask distracts some children from learning. By increasing airway resistance during exhalation, masks can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. And masks can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long.”
https://thehighwire.com/videos/do-masks-protect-kids-from-covid/
- Face Covering Mandates, Peavey, 2021 “Face Covering Mandates And Why They AREN’T Effective.”
https://rumble.com/vkyutx-face-covering-mandates-and-why-they-arent-effective.html
- Do masks work? A Review of the evidence, Anderson, 2021 “In truth, the CDC’s, U.K.’s, and WHO’s earlier guidance was much more consistent with the best medical research on masks’ effectiveness in preventing the spread of viruses. That research suggests that Americans’ many months of mask-wearing has likely provided little to no health benefit and might even have been counterproductive in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.”
https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence
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Most face masks won’t stop COVID-19 indoors, study warns, Anderer, 2021 “New research reveals that cloth masks filter just 10% of exhaled aerosols, with many people not wearing coverings that fit their face properly.” https://www.studyfinds.org/face-masks-wont-stop-covid-indoors/
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How face masks and lockdowns failed/the face mask folly in retrospect, Swiss Policy Research, 2021 “Mask mandates and lockdowns have had no discernible impact.”
- CDC Releases School COVID Transmission Study But Buries One of the Most Damning Parts, Davis, 2021 “The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional… With tens of millions of American kids headed back to school in the fall, their parents and political leaders owe it to them to have a clear-sighted, scientifically rigorous discussion about which anti-COVID measures actually work and which might put an extra burden on vulnerable young people without meaningfully or demonstrably slowing the spread of the virus…that a masking requirement of students failed to show independent benefit is a finding of consequence and great interest.”
- World Health Organization internal meeting, COVID-19 – virtual press conference – 30 March 2020, 2020 “This is a question on Austria. The Austrian Government has a desire to make everyone wear a mask who’s going into the shops. I understood from our previous briefings with you that the general public should not wear masks because they are in short supply. What do you say about the new Austrian measures?… I’m not specifically aware of that measure in Austria. I would assume that it’s aimed at people who potentially have the disease not passing it to others. In general WHO recommends that the wearing of a mask by a member of the public is to prevent that individual giving the disease to somebody else. We don’t generally recommend the wearing to masks in public by otherwise well individuals because it has not been up to now associated with any particular benefit.”
- Face masks to prevent transmission of influenza virus: a systematic review, Cowling, 2010 “Review highlights the limited evidence base supporting the efficacy or effectiveness of face masks to reduce influenza virus transmission.”“None of the studies reviewed showed a benefit from wearing a mask, in either HCW or community members in households (H).”
- Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Smith, 2016 “Although N95 respirators appeared to have a protective advantage over surgical masks in laboratory settings, our meta-analysis showed that there were insufficient data to determine definitively whether N95 respirators are superior to surgical masks in protecting health care workers against transmissible acute respiratory infections in clinical settings.”
- Effectiveness of Masks and Respirators Against Respiratory Infections in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, Offeddu, 2017 “We found evidence to support universal medical mask use in hospital settings as part of infection control measures to reduce the risk of CRI and ILI among HCWs. Overall, N95 respirators may convey greater protection, but universal use throughout a work shift is likely to be less acceptable due to greater discomfort…Our analysis confirms the effectiveness of medical masks and respirators against SARS. Disposable, cotton, or paper masks are not recommended. The confirmed effectiveness of medical masks is crucially important for lower-resource and emergency settings lacking access to N95 respirators. In such cases, single-use medical masks are preferable to cloth masks, for which there is no evidence of protection and which might facilitate transmission of pathogens when used repeatedly without adequate sterilization…We found no clear benefit of either medical masks or N95 respirators against pH1N1…Overall, the evidence to inform policies on mask use in HCWs is poor, with a small number of studies that is prone to reporting biases and lack of statistical power.”
- N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel, Radonovich, 2019 “Use of N95 respirators, compared with medical masks, in the outpatient setting resulted in no significant difference in the rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks againstinfluenza: A systematic review and meta-analysis74) Masks Don’t Work: A Review of Science Relevant to COVID-19 Social Policy, Rancourt, 2020 The use of N95 respirators compared with surgical masks is not associated with alower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza. It suggests that N95 respirators should not be rec-ommended for general public and nonhigh-risk medical staff those are not in close contact withinfluenza patients or suspected patients. “No RCT study with verified outcome shows a benefit for HCW or community members in households to wearing a mask or respirator. There is no such study. There are no exceptions. Likewise, no study exists that shows a benefit from a broad policy to wear masks in public (more on this below). Furthermore, if there were any benefit to wearing a mask, because of the blocking power against droplets and aerosol particles, then there should be more benefit from wearing a respirator (N95) compared to a surgical mask, yet several large meta-analyses, and all the RCT, prove that there is no such relative benefit.”
- More Than a Dozen Credible Medical Studies Prove Face Masks Do Not Work Even In Hospitals!, Firstenberg, 2020 “Mandating masks has not kept death rates down anywhere. The 20 U.S. states that have never ordered people to wear face masks indoors and out have dramatically lower COVID-19 death rates than the 30 states that have mandated masks. Most of the no-mask states have COVID-19 death rates below 20 per 100,000 population, and none have a death rate higher than 55. All 13 states that have death rates higher 55 are states that have required the wearing of masks in all public places. It has not protected them.”
- Does evidence based medicine support the effectiveness of surgical facemasks in preventing postoperative wound infections in elective surgery?, Bahli, 2009 “From the limited randomized trials it is still not clear that whether wearing surgical face masks harms or benefit the patients undergoing elective surgery.”
- Peritonitis prevention in CAPD: to mask or not?, Figueiredo, 2000 “The current study suggests that routine use of face masks during CAPD bag exchanges may be unnecessary and could be discontinued.”
- The operating room environment as affected by people and the surgical face mask, Ritter, 1975 “The wearing of a surgical face mask had no effect upon the overall operating room environmental contamination and probably work only to redirect the projectile effect of talking and breathing. People are the major source of environmental contamination in the operating room.”
- The efficacy of standard surgical face masks: an investigation using “tracer particles, Ha’eri, 1980 “Particle contamination of the wound was demonstrated in all experiments. Since the microspheres were not identified on the exterior of these face masks, they must have escaped around the mask edges and found their way into the wound.”
- Wearing of caps and masks not necessary during cardiac catheterization, Laslett, 1989 “Prospectively evaluated the experience of 504 patients undergoing percutaneous left heart catheterization, seeking evidence of a relationship between whether caps and/or masks were worn by the operators and the incidence of infection. No infections were found in any patient, regardless of whether a cap or mask was used. Thus, we found no evidence that caps or masks need to be worn during percutaneous cardiac catheterization.”
- Do anaesthetists need to wear surgical masks in the operating theatre? A literature review with evidence-based recommendations, Skinner, 2001 “A questionnaire-based survey, undertaken by Leyland’ in 1993 to assess attitudes to the use of masks, showed that 20% of surgeons discarded surgical masks for endoscopic work. Less than 50% did not wear the mask as recommended by the Medical Research Council. Equal numbers of surgeons wore the mask in the belief they were protecting themselves and the patient, with 20% of these admitting that tradition was the only reason for wearing them.”
- Mask mandates for children are not backed by data, Faria, 2021 “Even if you want to use the 2018-19 flu season to avoid overlap with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC paints a similar picture: It estimated 480 flu deaths among children during that period, with 46,000 hospitalizations. COVID-19, mercifully, is simply not as deadly for children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, preliminary data from 45 states show that between 0.00%-0.03% of child COVID-19 cases resulted in death. When you combine these numbers with the CDC study that found mask mandates for students — along with hybrid models, social distancing, and classroom barriers — did not have a statistically significant benefit in preventing the spread of COVID-19 in schools, the insistence that we force students to jump through these hoops for their own protection makes no sense.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/mask-mandates-for-children-are-not-backed-by-data
- The Downsides of Masking Young Students Are Real, Prasad, 2021 “The benefits of mask requirements in schools might seem self-evident—they have to help contain the coronavirus, right?—but that may not be so. In Spain, masks are used in kids ages 6 and older. The authors of one study there examined the risk of viral spread at all ages. If masks provided a large benefit, then the transmission rate among 5-year-olds would be far higher than the rate among 6-year-olds. The results don’t show that. Instead, they show that transmission rates, which were low among the youngest kids, steadily increased with age—rather than dropping sharply for older children subject to the face-covering requirement. This suggests that masking kids in school does not provide a major benefit and might provide none at all. And yet many officials prefer to double down on masking mandates, as if the fundamental policy were sound and only the people have failed.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/school-mask-mandates-downside/619952/
- Masks In Schools: Scientific American Fumbles Report On Childhood COVID Transmission, English/ACSH, 2021 “Masking is a low-risk, inexpensive intervention. If we want to recommend it as a precautionary measure, especially in situations where vaccination isn’t an option, great. But that’s not what the public has been told. “Florida governor Ron DeSantis and politicians in Texas say research does not support mask mandates,” SciAm’s sub-headline bellowed. “Many studies show they are wrong.”If that’s the case, demonstrate that the intervention works before you mandate its use in schools. If you can’t, acknowledged what UC San Francisco hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor of Epidemiology Vinay Prasad wrote over at the Atlantic:”No scientific consensus exists about the wisdom of mandatory-masking rules for schoolchildren … In mid-March 2020, few could argue against erring on the side of caution. But nearly 18 months later, we owe it to children and their parents to answer the question properly: Do the benefits of masking kids in school outweigh the downsides? The honest answer in 2021 remains that we don’t know for sure.”
- Masks ‘don’t work,’ are damaging health and are being used to control population: Doctors panel, Haynes, 2021 “The only randomized control studies that have ever been done on masks show that they don’t work,” began Dr. Nepute. He referred to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s “noble lie,” in which Fauci “changed his tune,” from his March 2020 comments, where he downplayed the need and efficacy of mask wearing, before urging Americans to use masks later in the year. “Well, he lied to us. So if he lied about that, what else has he lied to you about?” questioned Nepute.Masks have become commonplace in almost every setting, whether indoors or outdoors, but Dr. Popper mentioned how there have been “no studies” which actually examine the “effect of wearing a mask during all your waking hours.”“There’s no science to back any of this and particularly no science to back the fact that wearing a mask twenty four-seven or every waking minute, is health promoting,” added Popper.”
- Aerosol penetration through surgical masks, Chen, 1992 “The mask that has the highest collection efficiency is not necessarily the best mask from the perspective of the filter-quality factor, which considers not only the capture efficiency but also the air resistance. Although surgical mask media may be adequate to remove bacteria exhaled or expelled by health care workers, they may not be sufficient to remove the sub-micrometer-sized aerosols containing pathogens to which these health care workers are potentially exposed.”
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(05)80143-9/pdf
- CDC: Schools With Mask Mandates Didn’t See Statistically Significant Different Rates of COVID Transmission From Schools With Optional Policies, Miltimore, 2021 “The CDC did not include its finding that “required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional” in the summary of its report.”
- Horowitz: Data from India continues to blow up the ‘Delta’ fear narrative, Howorwitz, 2021 “Rather than proving the need to sow more panic, fear, and control over people, the story from India — the source of the “Delta” variant — continues to refute every current premise of COVID fascism…Unless we do that, we must return to the very effective lockdowns and masks. In reality, India’s experience proves the opposite true; namely:1) Delta is largely an attenuated version, with a much lower fatality rate, that for most people is akin to a cold.2) Masks failed to stop the spread there.3) The country has come close to the herd immunity threshold with just 3% vaccinated.
- Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Among Vaccinated Healthcare Workers, Vietnam, Chau, 2021 While not definitive in the LANCET publication, it can be inferred that the nurses were all masked up and had PPE etc. as was the case in Finland and Israel nosocomial outbreaks, indicating the failure of PPE and masks to constrain Delta spread.
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Aerosol penetration through surgical masks, Willeke, 1992 “The mask that has the highest collection efficiency is not necessarily the best mask from the perspective of the filter-quality factor, which considers not only the capture efficiency but also the air resistance. Although surgical mask media may be adequate to remove bacteria exhaled or expelled by health care workers, they may not be sufficient to remove the submicrometer-size aerosols containing pathogens to which these health care workers are potentially exposed.”
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The efficacy of standard surgical face masks: an investigation using “tracer particles”, Wiley, 1980 “Particle contamination of the wound was demonstrated in all aexperiments. Since the microspheres were not identified on the exterior of these face masks, they must have escped around the mask edges and found their way into the wound. The wearing of the mask beneath the headgear curtails this route of contamination.”
- An Evidence Based Scientific Analysis of Why Masks are Ineffective, Unnecessary, and Harmful, Meehan, 2020 “Decades of the highest-level scientific evidence (meta-analyses of multiple randomized controlled trials) overwhelmingly conclude that medical masks are ineffective at preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, including SAR-CoV-2…those arguing for masks are relying on low-level evidence (observational retrospective trials and mechanistic theories), none of which are powered to counter the evidence, arguments, and risks of mask mandates.”
- Open Letter from Medical Doctors and Health Professionals to All Belgian Authorities and All Belgian Media, AIER, 2020 “Oral masks in healthy individuals are ineffective against the spread of viral infections.”
- Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks against influenza: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Long, 2020 “The use of N95 respirators compared with surgical masks is not associated with a lower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza. It suggests that N95 respirators should not be recommended for general public and nonhigh-risk medical staff those are not in close contact with influenza patients or suspected patients.”
- Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19, WHO, 2020 “However, the use of a mask alone is insufficient to provide an adequate level of protection or source control, and other personal and community level measures should also be adopted to suppress transmission of respiratory viruses.”
- Farce mask: it’s safe for only 20 minutes, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2003 “Health authorities have warned that surgical masks may not be an effective protection against the virus.”Those masks are only effective so long as they are dry,” said Professor Yvonne Cossart of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney.”As soon as they become saturated with the moisture in your breath they stop doing their job and pass on the droplets.”Professor Cossart said that could take as little as 15 or 20 minutes, after which the mask would need to be changed. But those warnings haven’t stopped people snapping up the masks, with retailers reporting they are having trouble keeping up with demand.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/farce-mask-its-safe-for-only-20-minutes-20030427-gdgnyo.html
- Study: Wearing A Used Mask Is Potentially Riskier Than No Mask At All, Boyd, 2020
Effects of mask-wearing on the inhalability and deposition of airborne SARS-CoV-2 aerosols in human upper airway “According to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and California Baptist University, a three-layer surgical mask is 65 percent efficient in filtering particles in the air. That effectiveness, however, falls to 25 percent once it is used.“It is natural to think that wearing a mask, no matter new or old, should always be better than nothing,” said author Jinxiang Xi.“Our results show that this belief is only true for particles larger than 5 micrometers, but not for fine particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers,” he continued.”
- Unravelling the Role of the Mandatory Use of Face Covering Masks for the Control of SARS-CoV-2 in Schools: A Quasi-Experimental Study Nested in a Population-Based Cohort in Catalonia (Spain), Coma, 2022 “A recent study (Catalonia, Spain) done on face masks and their effectiveness was a retrospective population-based study among near 600,000 children aged 3 to 11 years attending preschool (3-5 years, without facial covering mandate) and primary education (6-11 years, with facial covering mandate); to assess the incidence of SARS-CoV-2, secondary attack rates (SAR) and the effective reproductive number (R*) for each grade during the first trimester of the 2021-2022 academic year, including an analysis of the differences between 5-year-old, without facial covering mandate, and 6 year-old children, with mandate.
Researchers found that “the SARS-CoV-2 incidence was significantly lower in preschool than in primary education, and an age-dependent trend was observed. Children aged 3 and 4 showed lower outcomes for all the analyzed epidemiological variables, while children aged 11 had the higher values. Six-year-old children showed higher incidence than 5 year-olds (3·54% vs 3·1%; OR: 1·15 [95%CI: 1·08-1·22]) and slightly lower but not statistically significant SAR and R*: SAR were 4·36% in 6 year-old children, and 4·59% in 5 year-old (IRR: 0·96 [95%CI: 0·82-1·11]); and R* was 0·9 and 0·93 (OR: 0·96 [95%CI: 0·87-1·09]), respectively.” Overall, facial covering mandates (face masks) in examined schools were not linked to lower SARS-CoV-2 incidence or spread, implying that these masks were not effective.”
- Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe, Spira, 2022
“The aim of this short study was to analyse the correlation between mask usage against morbidity and mortality rates in the 2020-2021 winter in Europe. Data from 35 European countries on morbidity, mortality, and mask usage during a six-month period were analysed and crossed. Mask usage was more homogeneous in Eastern Europe than in Western European countries. Spearman’s correlation coefficients between mask usage and COVID-19 outcomes were either null or positive, depending on the subgroup of countries and type of outcome (cases or deaths). Positive correlations were stronger in Western than in Eastern European countries. These findings indicate that countries with high levels of mask compliance did not perform better than those with low mask usage.”
MASK MANDATES
- Mask mandate and use efficacy for COVID-19 containment in US States, Guerra, 2021 “Calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the continental United States with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. We estimated post-mask mandate case growth in non-mandate states using median issuance dates of neighboring states with mandates…did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.18.21257385v2
- These 12 Graphs Show Mask Mandates Do Nothing To Stop COVID, Weiss, 2020 “Masks can work well when they’re fully sealed, properly fitted, changed often, and have a filter designed for virus-sized particles. This represents none of the common masks available on the consumer market, making universal masking much more of a confidence trick than a medical solution…Our universal use of unscientific face coverings is therefore closer to medieval superstition than it is to science, but many powerful institutions have too much political capital invested in the mask narrative at this point, so the dogma is perpetuated. The narrative says that if cases go down it’s because masks succeeded. It says that if cases go up it’s because masks succeeded in preventing more cases. The narrative simply assumes rather than proves that masks work, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.”
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/29/these-12-graphs-show-mask-mandates-do-nothing-to-stop-covid/
- Mask Mandates Seem to Make CCP Virus Infection Rates Climb, Study Says, Vadum, 2020 “Protective-mask mandates aimed at combating the spread of the CCP virus that causes the disease COVID-19 appear to promote its spread, according to a report from RationalGround.com, a clearinghouse of COVID-19 data trends that’s run by a grassroots group of data analysts, computer scientists, and actuaries.”
- Horowitz: Comprehensive analysis of 50 states shows greater spread with mask mandates, Howorwitz, 2020
Justin Hart “How long do our politicians get to ignore the results?… The results: When comparing states with mandates vs. those without, or periods of times within a state with a mandate vs. without, there is absolutely no evidence the mask mandate worked to slow the spread one iota. In total, in the states that had a mandate in effect, there were 9,605,256 confirmed COVID cases over 5,907 total days, an average of 27 cases per 100,000 per day. When states did not have a statewide order (which includes the states that never had them and the period of time masking states did not have the mandate in place) there were 5,781,716 cases over 5,772 total days, averaging 17 cases per 100,000 people per day.”
- The CDC’s Mask Mandate Study: Debunked, Alexander, 2021 “Thus, it is not surprising that the CDC’s own recent conclusion on the use of nonpharmaceutical measures such as face masks in pandemic influenza, warned that scientific “evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission…” Moreover, in the WHO’s 2019 guidance document on nonpharmaceutical public health measures in a pandemic, they reported as to face masks that “there is no evidence that this is effective in reducing transmission…” Similarly, in the fine print to a recent double-blind, double-masking simulation the CDC stated that “The findings of these simulations [supporting mask usage] should neither be generalized to the effectiveness …nor interpreted as being representative of the effectiveness of these masks when worn in real-world settings.”
https://www.aier.org/article/the-cdcs-mask-mandate-study-debunked/
- Phil Kerpin, tweet, 2021
The Spectator “The first ecological study of state mask mandates and use to include winter data: “Case growth was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves.”
- How face masks and lockdowns failed, SPR, 2021 “Infections have been driven primarily by seasonal and endemic factors, whereas mask mandates and lockdowns have had no discernible impact”
- Analysis of the Effects of COVID-19 Mask Mandates on Hospital Resource Consumption and Mortality at the County Level, Schauer, 2021 “There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.”
- Do we need mask mandates, Harris, 2021 “But masks proved far less useful in the subsequent 1918 Spanish flu, a viral disease spread by pathogens smaller than bacteria. California’s Department of Health, for instance, reported that the cities of Stockton, which required masks, and Boston, which did not, had scarcely different death rates, and so advised against mask mandates except for a few high-risk professions such as barbers….Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on mask use, generally more reliable than observational studies, though not infallible, typically show that cloth and surgical masks offer little protection. A few RCTs suggest that perfect adherence to an exacting mask protocol may guard against influenza, but meta-analyses find little on the whole to suggest that masks offer meaningful protection. WHO guidelines from 2019 on influenza say that despite “mechanistic plausibility for the potential effectiveness” of masks, studies showed a benefit too small to be established with any certainty. Another literature review by researchers from the University of Hong Kong agrees. Its best estimate for the protective effect of surgical masks against influenza, based on ten RCTs published through 2018, was just 22 percent, and it could not rule out zero effect.”
MASK HARMS
- Corona children studies: Co-Ki: First results of a German-wide registry on mouth and nose covering (mask) in children, Schwarz, 2021 “The average wearing time of the mask was 270 minutes per day. Impairments caused by wearing the mask were reported by 68% of the parents. These included irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), less happiness (49%), reluctance to go to school/kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%) impaired learning (38%) and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).”
- Dangerous pathogens found on children’s face masks, Cabrera, 2021 “Masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria.”
https://rationalground.com/dangerous-pathogens-found-on-childrens-face-masks/
- Masks, false safety and real dangers, Part 2: Microbial challenges from masks, Borovoy, 2020/2021 “Laboratory testing of used masks from 20 train commuters revealed that 11 of the 20 masks tested contained over 100,000 bacterial colonies. Molds and yeasts were also found. Three of the masks contained more than one million bacterial colonies… The outside surfaces of surgical masks were found to have high levels of the following microbes, even in hospitals, more concentrated on the outside of masks than in the environment. Staphylococcus species (57%) and Pseudomonas spp (38%) were predominant among bacteria, and Penicillium spp (39%) and Aspergillus spp. (31%) were the predominant fungi.”
- Preliminary report on surgical mask induced deoxygenation during major surgery, Beder, 2008 “Considering our findings, pulse rates of the surgeon’s increase and SpO2 decrease after the first hour. This early change in SpO2 may be either due to the facial mask or the operational stress. Since a very small decrease in saturation at this level, reflects a large decrease in PaO2, our findings may have a clinical value for the health workers and the surgeons.”
- Mask mandates may affect a child’s emotional, intellectual development, Gillis, 2020 “The thing is we really don’t know for sure what the effect may or may not be. But what we do know is that children, especially in early childhood, they use the mouth as part of the entire face to get a sense of what’s going on around them in terms of adults and other people in their environment as far as their emotions. It also has a role in language development as well… If you think about an infant, when you interact with them you use part of your mouth. They are interested in your facial expressions. And if you think about that part of the face being covered up, there is that possibility that it could have an effect. But we don’t know because this is really an unprecedented time. What we wonder about is if this could play a role and how can we stop it if it would affect child development.”
https://www.wishtv.com/news/mask-mandates-may-affect-a-childs-emotional-intellectual-development/
- Headaches and the N95 face-mask amongst healthcare providers, Lim, 2006 “Healthcare providers may develop headaches following the use of the N95 face-mask.”
- Maximizing Fit for Cloth and Medical Procedure Masks to Improve Performance and Reduce SARS-CoV-2 Transmission and Exposure, 2021, Brooks, 2021 “Although use of double masking or knotting and tucking are two of many options that can optimize fit and enhance mask performance for source control and for wearer protection, double masking might impede breathing or obstruct peripheral vision for some wearers, and knotting and tucking can change the shape of the mask such that it no longer covers fully both the nose and the mouth of persons with larger faces.”
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm?s_cid=mm7007e1_w
- Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis, Vainshelboim, 2021 “Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression.”
- Wearing a mask can expose children to dangerous levels of carbon dioxide in just THREE MINUTES, study finds, Shaheen/Daily Mail, 2021 “European study found that children wearing masks for only minutes could be exposed to dangerous carbon dioxide levels…Forty-five children were exposed to carbon dioxide levels between three to twelve times healthy levels.”
- How many children must die? Shilhavy, 2020 “How long are parents going to continue masking their children causing great harm to them, even to the point of risking their lives? Dr. Eric Nepute in St. Louis took time to record a video rant that he wants everyone to share, after the 4-year-old child of one of his patients almost died from a bacterial lung infection caused by prolonged mask use.”
- Medical Doctor Warns that “Bacterial Pneumonias Are on the Rise” from Mask Wearing, Meehan, 2021 “I’m seeing patients that have facial rashes, fungal infections, bacterial infections. Reports coming from my colleagues, all over the world, are suggesting that the bacterial pneumonias are on the rise…Why might that be? Because untrained members of the public are wearing medical masks, repeatedly… in a non-sterile fashion… They’re becoming contaminated. They’re pulling them off of their car seat, off the rear-view mirror, out of their pocket, from their countertop, and they’re reapplying a mask that should be worn fresh and sterile every single time.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/medical-doctor-warns-bacterial-pneumonias-rise-mask-wearing
- Open Letter from Medical Doctors and Health Professionals to All Belgian Authorities and All Belgian Media, AIER, 2020 “Wearing a mask is not without side effects. Oxygen deficiency (headache, nausea, fatigue, loss of concentration) occurs fairly quickly, an effect similar to altitude sickness. Every day we now see patients complaining of headaches, sinus problems, respiratory problems and hyperventilation due to wearing masks. In addition, the accumulated CO2 leads to a toxic acidification of the organism which affects our immunity. Some experts even warn of an increased transmission of the virus in case of inappropriate use of the mask.”
- Face coverings for covid-19: from medical intervention to social practice, Peters, 2020 “At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on Covid19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid19. Contamination of the upper respiratory tract by viruses and bacteria on the outside of medical face masks has been detected in several hospitals. Another research shows that a moist mask is a breeding ground for (antibiotic resistant) bacteria and fungi, which can undermine mucosal viral immunity. This research advocates the use of medical / surgical masks (instead of homemade cotton masks) that are used once and replaced after a few hours.”
- Face masks for the public during the covid-19 crisis, Lazzarino, 2020 “The two potential side effects that have already been acknowledged are: (1) Wearing a face mask may give a false sense of security and make people adopt a reduction in compliance with other infection control measures, including social distancing and hands washing. (2) Inappropriate use of face mask: people must not touch their masks, must change their single-use masks frequently or wash them regularly, dispose them correctly and adopt other management measures, otherwise their risks and those of others may increase. Other potential side effects that we must consider are: (3) The quality and the volume of speech between two people wearing masks is considerably compromised and they may unconsciously come closer. While one may be trained to counteract side effect n.1, this side effect may be more difficult to tackle. (4) Wearing a face mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes. This generates an uncomfortable feeling and an impulse to touch your eyes. If your hands are contaminated, you are infecting yourself.”
- Contamination by respiratory viruses on outer surface of medical masks used by hospital healthcare workers, Chughtai, 2019 “Respiratory pathogens on the outer surface of the used medical masks may result in self-contamination. The risk is higher with longer duration of mask use (> 6 h) and with higher rates of clinical contact. Protocols on duration of mask use should specify a maximum time of continuous use, and should consider guidance in high contact settings.”
https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-4109-x
- Reusability of Facemasks During an Influenza Pandemic, Bailar, 2006 “After considering all the testimony and other information we received, the committee concluded that there is currently no simple, reliable way to decontaminate these devices and enable people to use them safely more than once. There is relatively little data available about how effective these devices are against flu even the first time they are used. To the extent they can help at all, they must be used correctly, and the best respirator or mask will do little to protect a person who uses it incorrectly. Substantial research must be done to increase our understanding of how flu spreads, to develop better masks and respirators, and to make it easier to decontaminate them. Finally, the use of face coverings is only one of many strategies that will be needed to slow or halt a pandemic, and people should not engage in activities that would increase their risk of exposure to flu just because they have a mask or respirator.”
https://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s04272006
- Exhalation of respiratory viruses by breathing, coughing, and talking, Stelzer-Braid, 2009 “The exhaled aerosols generated by coughing, talking, and breathing were sampled in 50 subjects using a novel mask, and analyzed using PCR for nine respiratory viruses. The exhaled samples from a subset of 10 subjects who were PCR positive for rhinovirus were also examined by cell culture for this virus. Of the 50 subjects, among the 33 with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections, 21 had at least one virus detected by PCR, while amongst the 17 asymptomatic subjects, 4 had a virus detected by PCR. Overall, rhinovirus was detected in 19 subjects, influenza in 4 subjects, parainfluenza in 2 subjects, and human metapneumovirus in 1 subject. Two subjects were co-infected. Of the 25 subjects who had virus-positive nasal mucus, the same virus type was detected in 12 breathing samples, 8 talking samples, and in 2 coughing samples. In the subset of exhaled samples from 10 subjects examined by culture, infective rhinovirus was detected in 2.”
- [Effect of a surgical mask on six minute walking distance], Person, 2018 “Wearing a surgical mask modifies significantly and clinically dyspnea without influencing walked distance.”
- Protective masks reduce resilience, Science ORF, 2020 “The German researchers used two types of face masks for their study – surgical masks and so-called FFP2 masks, which are mainly used by medical personnel. The measurements were carried out with the help of spiroergometry, in which patients or in this case the test persons exert themselves physically on a stationary bicycle – a so-called ergometer – or a treadmill. The subjects were examined without a mask, with surgical masks and with FFP2 masks. The masks therefore impair breathing, especially the volume and the highest possible speed of the air when exhaling. The maximum possible force on the ergometer was significantly reduced.”
- Wearing masks even more unhealthy than expected, Coronoa transition, 2020 “They contain microplastics – and they exacerbate the waste problem…”Many of them are made of polyester and so you have a microplastic problem.” Many of the face masks would contain polyester with chlorine compounds: “If I have the mask in front of my face, then of course I breathe in the microplastic directly and these substances are much more toxic than if you swallow them, as they get directly into the nervous system,” Braungart continues.”
https://corona-transition.org/maskentragen-noch-ungesunder-als-gedacht
- Masking Children: Tragic, Unscientific, and Damaging, Alexander, 2021 “Children do not readily acquire SARS-CoV-2 (very low risk), spread it to other children or teachers, or endanger parents or others at home. This is the settled science. In the rare cases where a child contracts Covid virus it is very unusual for the child to get severely ill or die. Masking can do positive harm to children – as it can to some adults. But the cost benefit analysis is entirely different for adults and children – particularly younger children. Whatever arguments there may be for consenting adults – children should not be required to wear masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Of course, zero risk is not attainable – with or without masks, vaccines, therapeutics, distancing or anything else medicine may develop or government agencies may impose.”
https://www.aier.org/article/masking-children-tragic-unscientific-and-damaging/
- The Dangers of Masks, Alexander, 2021 “With that clarion call, we pivot and refer here to another looming concern and this is the potential danger of the chlorine, polyester, and microplastic components of the face masks (surgical principally but any of the mass-produced masks) that have become part of our daily lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope those with persuasive power in the government will listen to this plea. We hope that the necessary decisions will be made to reduce the risk to our populations.”
- 13-year-old mask wearer dies for inexplicable reasons, Corona Transition, 2020 “The case is not only causing speculation in Germany about possible poisoning with carbon dioxide. Because the student “was wearing a corona protective mask when she suddenly collapsed and died a little later in the hospital,” writes Wochenblick.Editor’s Review: The fact that no cause of death was communicated nearly three weeks after the girl’s death is indeed unusual. The carbon dioxide content of the air is usually about 0.04 percent. From a proportion of four percent, the first symptoms of hypercapnia, i.e. carbon dioxide poisoning, appear. If the proportion of the gas rises to more than 20 percent, there is a risk of deadly carbon dioxide poisoning. However, this does not come without alarm signals from the body. According to the medical portal netdoktor, these include “sweating, accelerated breathing, accelerated heartbeat, headaches, confusion, loss of consciousness”. The unconsciousness of the girl could therefore be an indication of such poisoning.”
https://corona-transition.org/13-jahrige-maskentragerin-stirbt
- Student Deaths Lead Chinese Schools to Change Mask Rules, that’s, 2020 “During the month of April, three cases of students suffering sudden cardiac death (SCD) while running during gym class have been reported in Zhejiang, Henan and Hunan provinces. Beijing Evening News noted that all three students were wearing masks at the time of their deaths, igniting a critical discussion over school rules on when students should wear masks.”
- Blaylock: Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy, 2020 “As for the scientific support for the use of face mask, a recent careful examination of the literature, in which 17 of the best studies were analyzed, concluded that, “ None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”1 Keep in mind, no studies have been done to demonstrate that either a cloth mask or the N95 mask has any effect on transmission of the COVID-19 virus. Any recommendations, therefore, have to be based on studies of influenza virus transmission. And, as you have seen, there is no conclusive evidence of their efficiency in controlling flu virus transmission.”
https://www.technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/
- The mask requirement is responsible for severe psychological damage and the weakening of the immune system, Coronoa Transition, 2020 “In fact, the mask has the potential to “trigger strong psychovegetative stress reactions via emerging aggression, which correlate significantly with the degree of stressful after-effects”.
Prousa is not alone in her opinion. Several psychologists dealt with the mask problem — and most came to devastating results. Ignoring them would be fatal, according to Prousa.”
- The physiological impact of wearing an N95 mask during hemodialysis as a precaution against SARS in patients with end-stage renal disease, Kao, 2004 “Wearing an N95 mask for 4 hours during HD significantly reduced PaO2 and increased respiratory adverse effects in ESRD patients.”
- Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?, Kisielinski, 2021 “We objectified evaluation evidenced changes in respiratory physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the masks. Extended mask-wearing by the general population could lead to relevant effects and consequences in many medical fields.”“Here are the pathophysiological changes and subjective complaints: 1) Increase in blood carbon dioxide 2) Increase in breathing resistance 3) Decrease in blood oxygen saturation 4) Increase in heart rate 5) Decrease in cardiopulmonary capacity 6) Feeling of exhaustion 7) Increase in respiratory rate 8) Difficulty breathing and shortness of breath 9) Headache 10) Dizziness 11) Feeling of dampness and heat 12) Drowsiness (qualitative neurological deficits) 13) Decrease in empathy perception 14) Impaired skin barrier function with acne, itching and skin lesions”
- Is N95 face mask linked to dizziness and headache?, Ipek, 2021 “Respiratory alkalosis and hypocarbia were detected after the use of N95. Acute respiratory alkalosis can cause headache, anxiety, tremor, muscle cramps. In this study, it was quantitatively shown that the participants’ symptoms were due to respiratory alkalosis and hypocarbia.”
- COVID-19 prompts a team of engineers to rethink the humble face mask, Myers, 2020 “But in filtering those particles, the mask also makes it harder to breathe. N95 masks are estimated to reduce oxygen intake by anywhere from 5 to 20 percent. That’s significant, even for a healthy person. It can cause dizziness and lightheadedness. If you wear a mask long enough, it can damage the lungs. For a patient in respiratory distress, it can even be life threatening.”
- 70 doctors in open letter to Ben Weyts: ‘Abolish mandatory mouth mask at school’ – Belgium, World Today News, 2020 “In an open letter to the Flemish Minister of Education Ben Weyts (N-VA), 70 doctors ask to abolish the mandatory mouth mask at school, both for the teachers and for the students. Weyts does not intend to change course. The doctors ask that Minister Ben Weyts immediately reverses his working method: no mouth mask obligation at school, only protect the risk group and only the advice that people with a possible risk profile should consult their doctor.”
- Face masks pose dangers for babies, toddlers during COVID-19 pandemic, UC Davis Health, 2020 “Masks may present a choking hazard for young children. Also, depending on the mask and the fit, the child may have trouble breathing. If this happens, they need to be able to take it off,” said UC Davis pediatrician Lena van der List. “Children less than 2 years of age will not reliably be able to remove a face mask and could suffocate. Therefore, masks should not routinely be used for young children…“The younger the child, the more likely they will be to not wear the mask properly, reach under the mask and touch potentially contaminated masks,” said Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital. “Of course, this depends on the developmental level of the individual child. But I think masks are not likely to provide much potential benefit over risk until the teen years.”
https://health.ucdavis.edu/health-news/newsroom/masks-pose-dangers-for-babies-toddlers-/2020/04
- Covid-19: Important potential side effects of wearing face masks that we should bear in mind, Lazzarino, 2020 “Other potential side effects that we must consider, however, are 1) The quality and volume of speech between people wearing masks is considerably compromised and they may unconsciously come closer2) Wearing a mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes. This generates an impulse to touch the eyes. 3) If your hands are contaminated, you are infecting yourself, 4) Face masks make breathing more difficult. Moreover, a fraction of carbon dioxide previously exhaled is inhaled at each respiratory cycle. Those phenomena increase breathing frequency and deepness, and they may worsen the burden of covid-19 if infected people wearing masks spread more contaminated air. This may also worsen the clinical condition of infected people if the enhanced breathing pushes the viral load down into their lungs, 5) The innate immunity’s efficacy is highly dependent on the viral load. If masks determine a humid habitat where SARS-CoV-2 can remain active because of the water vapour continuously provided by breathing and captured by the mask fabric, they determine an increase in viral load (by re-inhaling exhaled viruses) and therefore they can cause a defeat of the innate immunity and an increase in infections.”
- Risks of N95 Face Mask Use in Subjects With COPD, Kyung, 2020 “Of the 97 subjects, 7 with COPD did not wear the N95 for the entire test duration. This mask-failure group showed higher British modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scale scores and lower FEV1 percent of predicted values than did the successful mask use group. A modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scale score ≥ 3 (odds ratio 167, 95% CI 8.4 to >999.9; P = .008) or a FEV1 < 30% predicted (odds ratio 163, 95% CI 7.4 to >999.9; P = .001) was associated with a risk of failure to wear the N95. Breathing frequency, blood oxygen saturation, and exhaled carbon dioxide levels also showed significant differences before and after N95 use.”
- Masks too dangerous for children under 2, medical group warns, The Japan Times, 2020 “Children under the age of 2 shouldn’t wear masks because they can make breathing difficult and increase the risk of choking, a medical group has said, launching an urgent appeal to parents as the nation reopens from the coronavirus crisis…Masks can make breathing difficult because infants have narrow air passages,” which increases the burden on their hearts, the association said, adding that masks also raise the risk of heat stroke for them.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/27/national/masks-children-coronavirus/
- Face masks can be problematic, dangerous to health of some Canadians: advocates, Spenser, 2020 “Face masks are dangerous to the health of some Canadians and problematic for some others…Asthma Canada president and CEO Vanessa Foran said simply wearing a mask could create risk of an asthma attack.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/6967625/coronavirus-canada-face-masks-disabilities/
- COVID-19 Masks Are a Crime Against Humanity and Child Abuse, Griesz-Brisson, 2020 “The rebreathing of our exhaled air will without a doubt create oxygen deficiency and a flooding of carbon dioxide. We know that the human brain is very sensitive to oxygen depravation. There are nerve cells for example in the hippocampus, that can’t be longer than 3 minutes without oxygen – they cannot survive. The acute warning symptoms are headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, issues in concentration, slowing down of the reaction time – reactions of the cognitive system. However, when you have chronic oxygen depravation, all of those symptoms disappear, because you get used to it. But your efficiency will remain impaired and the undersupply of oxygen in your brain continues to progress. We know that neurodegenerative diseases take years to decades to develop. If today you forget your phone number, the breakdown in your brain would have already started 20 or 30 years ago…The child needs the brain to learn, and the brain needs oxygen to function. We don’t need a clinical study for that. This is simple, indisputable physiology. Conscious and purposely induced oxygen deficiency is an absolutely deliberate health hazard, and an absolute medical contraindication.”
- Study shows how masks are harming children, Mercola, 2021 “Data from the first registry to record children’s experiences with masks show physical, psychological and behavioral issues including irritability, difficulty concentrating and impaired learning.Since school shutdowns in spring 2020, an increasing number of parents are seeking drug treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for their children.Evidence from the U.K. shows schools are not the super spreaders health officials said they were; measured rates of infection in schools were the same as the community, not higher.A large randomized controlled trial showed wearing masks does not reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2.”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/study-shows-how-masks-are-harming-children/
- New Study Finds Masks Hurt Schoolchildren Physically, Psychologically, and Behaviorally, Hall, 2021
“A new study, involving over 25,000 school-aged children, shows that masks are harming schoolchildren physically, psychologically, and behaviorally, revealing 24 distinct health issues associated with wearing masks…Though these results are concerning, the study also found that 29.7% of children experienced shortness of breath, 26.4% experienced dizziness, and hundreds of the participants experiencing accelerated respiration, tightness in chest, weakness, and short-term impairment of consciousness.”
- Protective Face Masks: Effect on the Oxygenation and Heart Rate Status of Oral Surgeons during Surgery, Scarano, 2021 “In all 20 surgeons wearing FFP2 covered by surgical masks, a reduction in arterial O2 saturation from around 97.5% before surgery to 94% after surgery was recorded with increase of heart rates. A shortness of breath and light-headedness/headaches were also noted.”
- Effects of surgical and FFP2/N95 face masks on cardiopulmonary exercise capacity, Fikenzer, 2020 “Ventilation, cardiopulmonary exercise capacity and comfort are reduced by surgical masks and highly impaired by FFP2/N95 face masks in healthy individuals. These data are important for recommendations on wearing face masks at work or during physical exercise.”
- Headaches Associated With Personal Protective Equipment – A Cross-Sectional Study Among Frontline Healthcare Workers During COVID-19, Ong, 2020 “Most healthcare workers develop de novo PPE-associated headaches or exacerbation of their pre-existing headache disorders.”
https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/head.13811
- Open letter from medical doctors and health professionals to all Belgian authorities and all Belgian media, The American Institute of Stress, 2020 “Wearing a mask is not without side effects. Oxygen deficiency (headache, nausea, fatigue, loss of concentration) occurs fairly quickly, an effect similar to altitude sickness. Every day we now see patients complaining of headaches, sinus problems, respiratory problems, and hyperventilation due to wearing masks. In addition, the accumulated CO2 leads to a toxic acidification of the organism which affects our immunity. Some experts even warn of increased transmission of the virus in case of inappropriate use of the mask.”
- Reusing masks may increase your risk of coronavirus infection, expert says, Laguipo, 2020 “For the public, they should not wear facemasks unless they are sick, and if a healthcare worker advised them.”For the average member of the public walking down a street, it is not a good idea,” Dr. Harries said.”What tends to happen is people will have one mask. They won’t wear it all the time, they will take it off when they get home, they will put it down on a surface they haven’t cleaned,” she added.Further, she added that behavioral issues could adversely put themselves at more risk of getting the infection. For instance, people go out and don’t wash their hands, they touch parts of the mask or their face, and they get infected.”
- What’s Going On Under the Masks?, Wright, 2021 “Americans today have pretty good chompers on average, at least relative to most other people, past and present. Nevertheless, we do not think enough about oral health as evidenced by the almost complete lack of discussion regarding the effect of lockdowns and mandatory masking on our mouths.”
https://www.aier.org/article/whats-going-on-under-the-masks/
- Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy ChildrenA Randomized Clinical Trial, Walach, 2021 “A large-scale survey in Germany of adverse effects in parents and children using data of 25 930 children has shown that 68% of the participating children had problems when wearing nose and mouth coverings.”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2781743#pld210019f1
- NM Kids forced to wear masks while running in 100-degree heat; Parents are striking back, Smith, 2021 “Nationally, children have a 99.997% survival rate from COVID-19. In New Mexico, only 0.7% of child COVID-19 cases have resulted in hospitalization. It is clear that children have an extremely low risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19, and mask mandates are placing a burden upon kids which is detrimental to their own health and well-being.”
- Health Canada issues advisory for disposable masks with graphene, CBC, 2021 “Health Canada is advising Canadians not to use disposable face masks that contain graphene. Health Canada issued the notice on Friday and said wearers could inhale graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms. Masks containing the toxic particles may have been distributed in some health-care facilities.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/health-canada-disposable-1.5974867
- COVID-19: Performance study of microplastic inhalation risk posed by wearing masks, Li, 2021
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389420329460?dgcid=rss_sd_all
Is graphene safe?
“Wearing masks considerably reduces the inhalation risk of particles (e.g., granular microplastics and unknown particles) even when they are worn continuously for 720 h. Surgical, cotton, fashion, and activated carbon masks wearing pose higher fiber-like microplastic inhalation risk, while all masks generally reduced exposure when used under their supposed time (<4 h). N95 poses less fiber-like microplastic inhalation risk. Reusing masks after they underwent different disinfection pre-treatment processes can increase the risk of particle (e.g., granular microplastics) and fiber-like microplastic inhalation. Ultraviolet disinfection exerts a relatively weak effect on fiber-like microplastic inhalation, and thus, it can be recommended as a treatment process for reusing masks if proven effective from microbiological standpoint. Wearing an N95 mask reduces the inhalation risk of spherical-type microplastics by 25.5 times compared with not wearing a mask.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702112701013
- Manufacturers have been using nanotechnology-derived graphene in face masks — now there are safety concerns, Maynard, 2021 “Early concerns around graphene were sparked by previous research on another form of carbon — carbon nanotubes. It turns out that some forms of these fiber-like materials can cause serious harm if inhaled. And following on from research here, a natural next-question to ask is whether carbon nanotubes’ close cousin graphene comes with similar concerns.Because graphene lacks many of the physical and chemical aspects of carbon nanotubes that make them harmful (such as being long, thin, and hard for the body to get rid of), the indications are that the material is safer than its nanotube cousins. But safer doesn’t mean safe. And current research indicates that this is not a material that should be used where it could potentially be inhaled, without a good amount of safety testing first…As a general rule of thumb, engineered nanomaterials should not be used in products where they might inadvertently be inhaled and reach the sensitive lower regions of the lungs.”
https://medium.com/edge-of-innovation/how-safe-are-graphene-based-face-masks-b88740547e8c
- Masking young children in school harms language acquisition, Walsh, 2021 “This is important because children and/or students do not have the speech or language ability that adults have — they are not equally able and the ability to see the face and especially the mouth is critical to language acquisition which children and/or students are engaged in at all times. Furthermore, the ability to see the mouth is not only essential to communication but also essential to brain development.“Studies show that by age four, kids from low-income households will hear 30 million less words than their more affluent counterparts, who get more quality face-time with caretakers.” (https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/november/language-toddlers-fernald-110514.html).”
- Dangerous pathogens found on children’s face masks, Rational Ground, 2021 “A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, sent 6 face masks to a lab at the University of Florida, requesting an analysis of contaminants found on the masks after they had been worn. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. Although the test is capable of detecting viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, only one virus was found on one mask (alcelaphine herpesvirus 1)…Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.”
https://rationalground.com/dangerous-pathogens-found-on-childrens-face-masks/
- Face mask dermatitis” due to compulsory facial masks during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: data from 550 health care and non-health care workers in Germany, Niesert, 2021 “The duration of wearing masks showed a significant impact on the prevalence of symptoms (p < 0.001). Type IV hypersensitivity was significantly more likely in participants with symptoms compared to those without symptoms (p = 0.001), whereas no increase in symptoms was observed in participants with atopic diathesis. HCWs used facial skin care products significantly more often than non-HCWs (p = 0.001).”
- Effect of Wearing Face Masks on the Carbon Dioxide Concentration in the Breathing Zone, AAQR/Geiss, 2020 “Detected carbon dioxide concentrations ranged from 2150 ± 192 to 2875 ± 323 ppm. The concentrations of carbon dioxide while not wearing a face mask varied from 500–900 ppm. Doing office work and standing still on the treadmill each resulted in carbon dioxide concentrations of around 2200 ppm. A small increase could be observed when walking at a speed of 3 km h–1 (leisurely walking pace)…concentrations in the detected range can cause undesirable symptoms, such as fatigue, headache, and loss of concentration.”
- Surgical masks as source of bacterial contamination during operative procedures, Zhiqing, 2018 “The source of bacterial contamination in SMs was the body surface of the surgeons rather than the OR environment. Moreover, we recommend that surgeons should change the mask after each operation, especially those beyond 2 hours.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214031X18300809
- The Damage of Masking Children Could be Irreparable, Hussey, 2021 “When we surround children with mask-wearers for a year at a time, are we impairing their face barcode recognition during a period of hot neural development, thus putting full development of the FFA at risk? Does the demand for separation from others, reducing social interaction, add to the potential consequences as it might in autism? When can we be sure that we won’t interfere with visual input to the face recognition visual neurology so we don’t interfere with brain development? How much time with stimulus interference can we allow without consequences? Those are all questions currently without answers; we don’t know. Unfortunately, the science implies that if we mess up brain development for faces, we may not currently have therapies to undo everything we’ve done.”
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-damage-of-masking-children-could-be-irreparable/
- Masks can be Murder, Grossman, 2021 “Wearing masks can create a sense of anonymity for an aggressor, while also dehumanizing the victim. This prevents empathy, empowering violence, and murder.” Masking helps remove empathy and compassion, allowing others to commit unspeakable acts on the masked person.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/masks_can_be_murder.html
- London high school teacher calls face masks an ‘egregious and unforgivable form of child abuse, Butler, 2020 “In his email, Farquharson called the campaign to legislate mask wearing a “shameful farce, a charade, an act of political theatre” that’s more about enforcing “obedience and compliance” than it is about public health. He also likened children wearing masks to “involuntary self-torture,” calling it “an egregious and unforgivable form of child abuse and physical assault.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/beal-teacher-masks-1.5739327
- UK Government Advisor Admits Masks Are Just “Comfort Blankets” That Do Virtually Nothing, ZeroHedge, 2021 “As the UK Government heralds “freedom day” today, which is anything but, a prominent government scientific advisor has admitted that face masks do very little to protect from coronavirus and are basically just “comfort blankets…the professor noted that “those aerosols escape masks and will render the mask ineffective,” adding “The public were demanding something must be done, they got masks, it is just a comfort blanket. But now it is entrenched, and we are entrenching bad behaviour…all around the world you can look at mask mandates and superimpose on infection rates, you cannot see that mask mandates made any effect whatsoever,” Axon further noted, adding that “The best thing you can say about any mask is that any positive effect they do have is too small to be measured.”
- Masks, false safety and real dangers, Part 1: Friable mask particulate and lung vulnerability, Borovoy, 2020 “Surgical personnel are trained to never touch any part of a mask, except the loops and the nose bridge. Otherwise, the mask is considered useless and is to be replaced. Surgical personnel are strictly trained not to touch their masks otherwise. However, the general public may be seen touching various parts of their masks. Even the masks just removed from manufacturer packaging have been shown in the above photos to contain particulate and fiber that would not be optimal to inhale… Further concerns of macrophage response and other immune and inflammatory and fibroblast response to such inhaled particles specifically from facemasks should be the subject of more research. If widespread masking continues, then the potential for inhaling mask fibers and environmental and biological debris continues on a daily basis for hundreds of millions of people. This should be alarming for physicians and epidemiologists knowledgeable in occupational hazards.”
- Medical Masks, Desai, 2020 “Face masks should be used only by individuals who have symptoms of respiratory infection such as coughing, sneezing, or, in some cases, fever. Face masks should also be worn by health care workers, by individuals who are taking care of or are in close contact with people who have respiratory infections, or otherwise as directed by a doctor. Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill.”
Mask usage in non-surgical settings
Provides a list of 12 clinical studies that show masks are ineffectual in preventing transmission of viruses and 7 clinical studies that show they are ineffectual in surgical settings as well.
"None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask ⁄ respirator use and protection against influenza infection."
"Our review identified a lack of compelling evidence for the effectiveness of hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and face masks against influenza transmission in the community... there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."
Excerpt from: “Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza. Annex: Report of systematic literature reviews” (2019). World Health Organization.
"We identified 10 RCTs [randomized controlled trials] that reported estimates of the effectiveness of face masks in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infections in the community from literature published during 1946–July 27, 2018. In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks"
Excerpt from: “Non-pharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Non-healthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures” (2020). Emerging Infectious Diseases. www.cdc.gov/eid Vol. 26, No. 5, May 2020
"Of the 6 RCTs examining the use of masks by health care workers, only 2 had a control group assigned to 'no mask.' In these trials, masks did not reduce influenza-like illness ..., any clinical respiratory infection..., confirmed influenza, or confirmed viral respiratory infection compared with no masks."
Excerpt from: “Masks for prevention of viral respiratory infections among health care workers and the public - PEER umbrella systematic review” (2020). Canadian Family Physician Vol 66: July, 2020.
"The pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza.. wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask... There is moderate certainty evidence that wearing a mask probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza compared to not wearing a mask"
Excerpt from: “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses” (2020). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2020, Issue 11. Art.No.CD006207.
“Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill... Because N95 respirators require special fit testing, they are not recommended for use by the general public.”
Excerpt from: “Medical Masks” (2020). Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 2020 Volume 323, Number 15 pp1517-8.
“There was no reduction of influenza-like illness (ILI)... or influenza ... for masks compared to no masks in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.” Do masks slow the spread of Covid-19?
Excerpt from: “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.Part 1 - Face masks, eye protection and person distancing: systematic review and meta-analysis” (2020). medRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed).
“Medical staff who do not work in clinical areas do not need to use a medical mask during routine activities… At present, there is no direct evidence... on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19… the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence”
“The evidence is not sufficiently strong to support widespread use of facemasks as a protective measure against COVID-19. However, there is enough evidence to support the use of facemasks for short periods of time by particularly vulnerable individuals when in transient higher risk situations”
Excerpt from: “Facemasks and similar barriers to prevent respiratory illness such as COVID-19: A rapid systematic review” (2020) medRxiv preprint.
"A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV- 2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%)... the difference observed was not statistically significant…”
Excerpt from: “Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers” (2020) [DANMASK]. Annals of Internal Medicine.
“Conclusions: Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges.”
Excerpt from: “Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level COVID-19 containment” (2021) medRxiv preprint.
“The proportion of individuals with COVID-like symptoms was 7.62% (N=13,273) in the intervention arm and 8.62% (N=13,893) in the control arm” [widely reported in the media as “proof that masks work” but it turns out that claim is unsupported by the raw data collected for the study].
Excerpt from: “The Impact of Community Masking on COVID-19: A Cluster-Randomized Trial in Bangladesh”. Yale University (2021)
"There is low certainty evidence from nine trials (3507 participants) that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask (risk ratio (RR) 0.99, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82 to 1.18. There is moderate certainty evidence that wearing a mask probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza compared to not wearing a mask (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.26; 6 trials; 3005 participants). Harms were rarely measured and poorly reported. Two studies during COVID‐19 plan to recruit a total of 72,000 people. One evaluates medical/surgical masks (N = 6000) (published Annals of Internal Medicine, 18 Nov 2020), and one evaluates cloth masks (N = 66,000). "
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
Do masks reduce operating room infections?
People ask: “if masks don’t work, then why do doctors and nurses wear them in operating rooms?”.
I have not found any clinical studies that support masking against covid, and I have not found any supporting clinical evidence for masks against influenza (above) or surgical site infections (below).
“No masks were worn in one operating theatre for 6 months. There was no increase in the incidence of wound infection… that there was an appreciable fall in the wound infection rate when masks were not worn certainly warrants further investigation… The conclusion is that the wearing of a mask has very little relevance to the wellbeing of patients undergoing routine general surgery and it is a standard practice that could be abandoned.”
Excerpt from: “Is a mask necessary in the operating theatre?” (1981). Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (I98I) vol. 63 pp. 390-392
"It has never been shown that wearing surgical face masks decreases postoperative wound infections. On the contrary, a 50% decrease has been reported after omitting face masks."
Excerpt from: “Postoperative Wound Infections and Surgical Face Masks: A Controlled Study”(1991). World Journal of Surgery 15, 383-388, 1991
"The routine wearing of masks by all staff working in a modern operating room with forced ventilation is a costly and unnecessary ritual."
Excerpt from: “Surgical face masks in modern operating rooms-a costly and unnecessary ritual?” (1991). Journal of Hospital Infection (1991) 18, 239-242.
"Conclusion: From the limited randomized trials it is still not clear that whether wearing surgical face masks harms or benefits the patients undergoing elective surgery.”
Excerpt from: “Does Evidence Based Medicine Support The Effectiveness Of Surgical Facemasks In Preventing Postoperative Wound Infections In Elective Surgery?” (2009). Journal of Ayub Medical College Abbottabad 2009;21(2)
"Masks have not been shown to reduce overall bacterial counts within the operatory. Several studies have failed to show reductions in SSIs [surgical site infections] with the use of masks.”
Excerpt from: “Surgeon’s garb and infection control: What’s the evidence?” (2011). Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, v 64, n 5
“In conclusion, current literature has been unable to support the use of surgical masks in reducing rates of surgical site infection in the operating room”
Excerpt from: “Current Concepts Review - Surgical Attire and the Operating Room: Role in Infection Prevention” (2014). The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. 2014;96:1485-92
"The use of face masks and surgical caps by inhabitants in the operating room (OR) has not been shown to impact SSI [surgical site infection] rates, but with the limited evidence available a recommendation for or against patient usage cannot be made.”
Excerpt from: “Surgical Attire: Proceedings of International Consensus on Orthopedic Infections” (2019). The Journal of Arthroplasty general assembly section, prevention, volume 34, issue 2, supplement , S97-S104, 2019
Non-technical discussions
Dr. Bailey does an excellent job of summarizing the steps that are followed to bring new drugs to market, which follow a very predictable route.
| Phase | Target | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-clinical Trial | animals | on average 31 months |
| Phase 1 | healthy | several months |
| Phase 2 | carefully chosen | 1-2 years |
| Phase 3 | 1-3,000 | 3-5 years |
| Phase 4 | small general public | 1.5 years |
| FDA Approval | all general public |
Pre-clinical trial on animals to determine toxic dose and safe dose for humans, and look at side affects that may affect humans.
Phase 1 Clinical trial on small group of humans (20-80). Healthy individuals, who are paid for their participation.
Phase 2 Clinical trial on target patients to identify side affects and efficacy or how well the drug works (100-300 people). Participants are carefully chosen.
Phase 3 Clinical trial to measure effectiveness and monitor side affects (1000-3000 people). Some side affects take time to reveal themselves. Randomized, double-blind, placebo.
Phase 4 Public Trial – regulatory approval to use the drug in the general population under varied conditions, drug interactions and discover untoward affects that might have been missed in earlier trials. Continue to monitor side affects. Many drugs have shown harmful effects only during phase 4 trials and have subsequently been banned from use.
Informed Consent
Following the horrendous government practices during world war two, most countries signed the Nuremberg agreement to make participation an individual choice and after providing information about the risks of the procedure. Technically you can not be involved in a clinic trial without signing first an Informed Consent agreement.
Fast tracking
It can take 10-15 years to get a new drug to market and many will fail along the way.
FDA has a provision for Accelerated Approval before effectiveness is understood and allows for the drug to be used for new drugs for serious and life threatening illnesses that lack satisfactory treatments. In as early as 2.5 years. The drugs are continuously monitored for effectiveness and removed if they do not appear effective and confirm the initial results. This was used for HIV drugs for example.
Emergency Use Authorization – EUA
Special circumstances exist for approval and this was obtained by Pfizer for use in only 8 months.
It is very important to understand that Clinical Trials are still running while the product has already been purchased by government and is being given to the general public. The study that is currently running since April 2020 but is not actively recruiting patients. It is a phase one, two, and three study. It is just under 44,000 patients and is looking to find the correct dose and efficacy of the product in healthy people. It’s estimated to finish in January 2023 so we may not see any long-term safety data until that date.
Legal Liability
One of the reasons that clinical trials are so expensive is the pharmaceutical company is legally liable for injury and compensation during the trial and even continues after the drug goes to market.
There are exceptions to this rule and the govt has invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act on Feb 4, 2020. The 2005 law empowers the HHS secretary to provide legal protection to companies making or distributing medical supplies, such as vaccines and treatments, unless there is “wilful misconduct” by the pharmaceutical company. This protection lasts until 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h7mLhjYvF8
technical notes
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
From FDA to MHRA: are drug regulators for hire? Patients and doctors expect drug regulators to provide an unbiased, rigorous assessment of investigational medicines before they hit the market. But do they have sufficient independence from the companies they are meant to regulate? Maryanne Demasi investigates https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1538.long
Something is not right
Like everyone else, I have had my series of childhood vaccinations and never thought much about it. At least until now. But, there is something about these new Covid vaccines that does not seem right. They appeared awfully fast, just months after a novel virus appears. They are not even vaccine's in the traditional sense: neutered virus particles that are meant to stimulate an immune reaction to the pathogen without the ability to replicate. Nor are they something that has ever been used on humans before. We should have proceeded with caution. We should have followed the safety protocols of clinical trials. The system failed us.
Clinical trials are underway and will not be reporting their results until 2024. I have already published a blog on this What is a Clinical Trial? The key thing to know about the clinical trials is that they are a protocol developed after decades of trial and error. It is the best way and safest way that we know in order to get new drugs to market. Tampering with this should never have occurred. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical companies were offered immunity from prosecution and civil litigation. The latest is that the pharmaceuticals have now been given permission to adjust the recipes for their vaccines without going back through clinical trials. All our protections have been removed. Why are people ok with this?
USA Adverse Reporting
The USA maintains a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) that can be found here. https://vaers.hhs.gov/
European Adverse Reporting
Europe maintains their own adverse reporting and can be found here. https://dap.ema.europa.eu/analytics/saw.dll?PortalPages
Canadian Adverse Reporting
There is an adverse reporting system in Canada, and can be found here. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety/
The following was taken from Canada’s reporting system on Feb 10, 2021.
Of the 480 individual AEFI reports (0.051% of all doses administered), 68 were considered serious (0.007% of all doses administered). The 480 individual adverse events reports represent 480 people who reported one or more adverse events. Among the 480 adverse events reports, the most frequently reported adverse events were:
- vaccination site reactions,
- paraesthesia (tingling or prickling),
- urticaria (hives),
- pruritis (itching), and
- nausea.
Among the 68 serious adverse events reports, the most frequently reported adverse event was anaphylaxis.
Three deaths were reported. These deaths occurred after the administration of a vaccine. Following medical case review, it has been determined that these deaths are not linked to a COVID-19 vaccine.
There may be delays in receiving reporting forms. These delays may be due to jurisdictions investigating and reviewing each AEFI prior to submitting the information to PHAC. There are also limitations to reporting practices such as under reporting, missing information, and differing AEFI reporting practices across jurisdictions in Canada. Information is collected on individuals for whom an AEFI report was submitted, not on the total number of individuals who experience an adverse event as not every adverse event is reported.
Does it work?
Again, very difficult to assess this because clinical trials are underway but not yet reporting. They claim the vaccines are effective, but they needed to make this claim to get regulatory fast track approval. They are relying on the outcome of the clinical trials that are underway to prove this claim. It is not yet proven. I have had this argument with a number of people. The pretrials did not prove effectiveness against death or hospitalizations. That is a false assumption that everyone seems to make. They define effectiveness as measured by counting the number of symptoms, which is highly subjective, vague and inconclusive.
Do I need it?
This one is easy to decide. In Canada, according to StatsCan, 80% of deaths are people in their 80’s. 82% are in long term health care facilities (93% in Quebec). 99% have comorbidities. None of these factors apply to me, so if anything, I am in the other group – the 10% of deaths who are under 70. On further consideration, the age is an issue for comorbiditie more than covid outcome. The table on CFR by age is a better measure. But remember, CFR is a measure of people seeking medical assistance not an actual measurement of people getting sick.
But again, 99% of those are with comorbidity, leaving me in the 1% of the 10%. That is pretty good odds in my favour, should I actually encounter the virus.
Dataset: Ontario #COVID19 age-stratified CFRs
Dataset: Ontario deaths by vaccination status
| age range | CFR | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 0-19: | 0.003% | (1 in 32,018 cases) |
| 20-29: | 0.008% | (1 in 12,075) |
| 30-39: | 0.03% | (1 in 3,542) |
| 40-49: | 0.076% | (1 in 1,316) |
| 50-59: | 0.30% | (1 in 329) |
| 60-69: | 1.43% | (1 in 70) |
| 70-79: | 3.64% | (1 in 27) |
| 80-89: | 10.96% | (1 in 9) |
| 90+: | 19.31% | (1 in 5) |
So because I do not have comorbidity, my odds are much greater than 1 in 70 and may even be closer to 1 in 7000 but certainly at least 1 in 700.
| age range | IFR |
|---|---|
| 0-19 | .0013% |
| 20-29 | .0088% |
| 30-39 | .021 % |
| 40-49 | .042% |
| 50-59 | .14% |
| 60-69 | .65% |
| 70+ nonLTC | 2.9% |
| 70+ all | 4.9% |
The odds are also pretty good that I won’t even encounter the virus this year. I just checked the Covid-19 case tracker for Canada and after a year, we seem to have about 804,000 cases. Out of 38 million Canadians, that is about 2.1% of the population, or 1 in 47, so my chance of getting Covid in the next year is probably the same as last year which is 1 in 47. Again, pretty low odds. So why take a risky procedure for something that I have very low odds of getting and very low odds of perishing if I get it. I can afford to wait a few years and watch what happens, and make a more informed decision at that time.
So, to summarize, 2.1% chance of getting Covid and a 1.43% chance of perishing if I get Covid leaves me with a 0.03% chance of perishing from Covid this year. Compare that with a 100% chance of perishing in the next 30 years or 3% chance per year (an actuarial table gives it at 2% because your chance of dying doubles every 8 years).
Pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson -they are lying about everything.
Dr. Patrick Philips - damages caused by lockdowns and suppression of treatments.
[“These vaccines don’t prevent transmission.. Infections can still happen whether ppl vaccinated or not.. This idea that vac mandates needed to create safe workplaces is a complete lie & is not backed by science.. Denial of natural immunity”](FL Surgeon General, Twitter account removed)
Discussion and Summary
The scientific methods states that any claim can be made but it has to be observable and repeatable to be proven. It also has the concept of a null hypothesis, in that one would have to show the efficacy of a
- Pharma took a toxic protein (Spike) known since the 1990s.
- Then, adjusted its code to make it more genetically invasive (furin cleavage).
- Then, packaged it into a vehicle designed to invade cellular life (lipid nanoparticles).
"We now know that spike protein, although people want to ignore & deny it, actually activates many genetic pathways, which lead to cancer, & it's a form of cancer called 'turbo cancers.'" @drpaulmarik1
Arguments for vaccines
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The vaccines are perfectly safe and effective
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Vaccination should be mandatory for the rest of humanity's sake.
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It is just like the polio vaccine and look how good that was
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Vaccines prevent dying
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Vaccines prevent hospitalization
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Vaccines reduce the severity
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Unvaccinated individuals should be isolated from others
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Vaccines prevent you from acquiring the disease from other vaccinated individuals. But you can still acquire the disease from an unvaccinated individual - both need to be vaccinated.
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Vaccines prevent the hospitals from being overrun and the taxing of the health care system.
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Vaccines help us develop herd immunity
Arguments against the vaccines
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Not everyone dies from the disease and consequently not everyone needs the vaccine.
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The vaccines do not prevent tranmission. Either receiving it or passing it to others if you are infected
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The pre-clinical trials did not look at effectiveness against mortality, hospitalization, severity nor transmission. They focussed solely on the count of symptoms and only demonstrated a reduction in count.
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The vaccines were not safe. Overwhelming number of adverse events - in the millions reported. Unknown number went unreported.
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Vaccines are exempt from double-blind placebo testing during clinical pre-trials.
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Natural immunity is far superior to vaccination and is proven in study after study.
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There are many successful treatments which were show to improve the outcome of the disease and are cheap and effective.
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There do not appear to be any excess mortality during the first year which was without vaccines. There are now significant mortality which correlates with increased vaccination and it is growing each year even though vaccine uptake has practically vanished.
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evidence of the incentivisation of vaccine use being given to health care providers
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The harmful outcomes of the vaccines were well known before emergency approval was granted and were absent from the discussions. Pamplets with a long list of side affects were included with the vaccine but were not shown or discussed with patients. Patients did not get informed consent.
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Governments considered individuals in the healthcare system as unvaccinated within the last 15 days with the result that all adverse events from the vaccinated were counted as unvaccinated.
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The treatments administered to those that caught the disease were causing deaths such as respirators, medazolam, and removal of antibiotics.
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Patents going back 20 years. Event 201, a preparedness exercise was held three months before the lockdowns so it was a planned and coordinated response. If it truly was an existential threat then that looks like prudence, however if it was a scam, then that looks like culpability. The theatre coming out of China at the time. Seniors dying in record numbers in Italy which coincided with a recent vaccination program
100% of the deaths had comorbidities, 99% had 2 or more comorbidities. Canada wide Average 85% were residents of LTC facilities (93% in Quebec) 80% of the deaths were individuals 80 or older. 10% in the 70-80 range, and 10% under 70. Highly targetted group and it was false to claim that the general public were at risk. This was known at the time. Also false to claim that vaccines saved lives because these extremely unhealthy individuals did not get the vaccine. So the very ones that died of Covid were unable to receive the vaccine.
This is the stated requirment made by the FDA for emergency approval and the submissions only looked at symptom counts. These are public records
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-are-the-risks-and-benefits-of
https://romanbystrianyk.substack.com/p/60-years-of-failing-flu-vaccines
Years later - no impact on mortality
"We could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group. Because fewer than 10% of all winter deaths were attributable to influenza in any season, we conclude that observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit." Impact of Influenza Vaccination on Seasonal Mortality in the US Elderly Population
"After the late 1980s, no decline in age-adjusted excess mortality was associated with increasing influenza vaccination distribution primarily targeted for the elderly." Influenza-related mortality in the Italian elderly: No decline associated with increasing vaccination coverage
Claims of Effectiveness Sources
"Results: Vaccine effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines to prevent COVID-19-associated hospitalizations included: 85% (95% CI: 82 to 88%) for 2 vaccine doses against Alpha; 85% (95% CI: 83 to 87%) for 2 doses against Delta; 94% (95% CI: 92 to 95%) for 3 doses against Delta; 65% (95% CI: 51 to 75%) for 2 doses against Omicron; and 86% (95% CI: 77 to 91%) for 3 doses against Omicron.
Among hospitalized unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, severity on the WHO Clinical Progression Scale was higher for Delta than Alpha (adjusted proportional odds ratio [aPOR] 1.28, 95% CI: 1.11 to 1.46), and lower for Omicron than Delta (aPOR 0.61, 95% CI: 0.49 to 0.77). Compared to unvaccinated cases, severity was lower for vaccinated cases for each variant, including Alpha (aPOR 0.33, 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.49), Delta (aPOR 0.44, 95% CI: 0.37 to 0.51), and Omicron (aPOR 0.61, 95% CI: 0.44 to 0.85). Conclusions: mRNA vaccines were highly effective in preventing COVID-19-associated hospitalizations from Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants, but three vaccine doses were required to achieve protection against Omicron similar to the protection that two doses provided against Delta and Alpha. Among adults hospitalized with COVID-19, Omicron caused less severe disease than Delta, but still resulted in substantial morbidity and mortality. Vaccinated patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had significantly lower disease severity than unvaccinated patients for all the variants."
disease mortality
Clinical Severity and mRNA Vaccine Effectiveness for Omicron, Delta, and Alpha SARS-CoV-2 Variants in the United States: A Prospective Observational Study
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.06.22270558v1
A test negative design study in Ontario
Effectiveness of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 covid-19 vaccines against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe covid-19 outcomes in Ontario, Canada.
This study was given to me to support the claim that these vaccines improve the severity of outcome. They claim that the unvaccinated are 16 times more likely to be hospitalized and die than the vaccinated. It also seems to be a technical reference used by the mainstream media, such as the Ottawa Citizen, who also are making similar claims. But is this true.
My own conclusions
Anyone can make a claim but to be scientific, it has to be supported by evidence - observable and repeatable by others. We have the claim for effectiveness here but we can not see how they arrived at their results so it can not be considered proof, just their word. They even say that their work can not be replicated by others because of the restricted access to the data citing confidentiality. However, the confidentialy reasons are bogus because you don't need to identify a person, you just need a bit of meta data on each patient such as age, vax status, comorbidity, symptoms etc to perform this analysis. You don't need anything that would identify them. You don't even need to know which hospital unless you are also examining this across economic sectors which they did here, but that is tangential to the core question and could easily have been removed.
So this is the fundamental flaw with this study. Without showing their calculations in their analysis we have no way of knowing if this is correct or errors were made, and the wrong conclusions drawn. Having read this several times I have zero confidence in their claim. It fails as supporting evidence, and so it is just another opinion piece, just dressed up to look sciency.
This is not evidence and can not be used to support the claim.
Furthermore, it appears on a somewhat prestigious science journal database which has a reputation for peer-reviewed science. This does not appear to have been peer reviewed, how could it have been. It looks more like science theatre - all the appearance of science but without the science.
Finally, the problem with these studies is who funded the study and did they get what they paid for. This study was commissioned from Ontario Health, but it was not conducted by their employees or by contractors. It was through an endowment grant. Which always feels like money laundering to me. A pharma company can not commission such a study directly, because it would obviously look bad. So they give the endowment to a university or in this case, a public organization to give the appearance of being arms length. But is it really?
How they marshalled their data
- Used individuals that were pcr tested positives, negatives were the control
- hospital admission, or death with recent positive test
- n=2,171,449 people tested. 40% removed as priors? (not sure why they were removed or what affect this has on results).
- 24% were asymptomatic and 15% symptomatic
- of the 324,033 people with symptoms who were tested, 53 270 (16.4%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, 42 567 (79.9%) had information available on tests for variants, 21 272 (6.6%) had received at least one dos of mRNA vaccine, and 4 894 (1.5%) had received two doses (table 1).
- Among test positive cases, 2 479 (4.7%) had a severe outcome, of whom 2 035 were admitted to hospital and 444 died.
What they concluded
"Estimates for both full and partial vaccination were about 10 percentage points higher against hospital admission or death than against symptomatic infection."
"We observed an effectiveness against symptomatic infection of 63%""
"In our study, we observed an increased risk of infection 7-13 days after vaccination. Thus, the generalisability of our findings to the broader population is uncertain and we could not estimate vaccine effectiveness against asymptomatic infection."
Questions it raised while I was reading
- how many died that were vaccinated. Ontario guidelines consider those vaccinated under 14 days as un-vaccinated,
- how many died that were not vaccinated, truly unvaccinated
- did they include deaths in the first two weeks from the date of vaccination
- role that comorbidities played which we know is crucial
- does the vax skew the pcr test results?
- was this really peer reviewed? feels like it wasn't. How could it be with the analysis missing. What were their comments about it? That would be so interesting to read.
- look at the rolling totals for vax uptake, starts almost zero
- Look at the ratio pos to neg,
- starts 7.8 vs 10.1 when no vax
- ends 24.9 vs 15.2 when 40.1 vax vs 15.1 unvax it flipped!!!!
- why is comorbid missing from Table 1! so relevent here
- why symptomatic focus for this study? question the focus of the study when we know that c19 targetted comorbids and age,and most specifically residents of Long Term Care facilities. also know that most people are asymptomatic
- what were the percentage of hospitialization and death overall
"Among adults aged ≥70 years, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection after one dose was observed to be 64%" What does "effectiveness" actually mean here? hospitalization? death? Don't think so. Suspicious that they are referring to a count of symptoms, which was required for FDA approval, rather than an actual measure of severity.
Retraction of scientific papers
The purpose of this study was to analyze, for the first time, the subjective views of researchers whose papers were retracted. Study participants are active researchers, most with international reputations in their respective fields. They perceived retraction as a means of censoring and silencing critical voices with the aim of preserving the pro-vaccination agenda of interested parties. Participants also reported additional measures aimed at harming them personally and professionally. These findings point to the need for a fair, open, and honest discourse about the safety of vaccines for the benefit of public health and the restoration of trust in science and medicine.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09581596.2021.1878109?journalCode=ccph20
Risk/Benefits of Vaccines
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/what-are-the-risks-and-benefits-of
Common Outcomes for Vaccines
A minimal common outcome measure set for COVID-19 clinical research
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30483-7/fulltext
"These vaccine types include viral vector-based vaccines, COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines, inactivated or attenuated virus vaccine, and protein-based vaccines. In viral vector-based vaccines, adenovirus is used to deliver a part of SARS-COV-2 genome to human cells. Human cells use this genetic material to produce SARS-COV-2 spike protein. Human body recognizes this protein to start a defensive response. The mRNA-based vaccines consist of SARS-COV-2 RNA. Once introduced, genetic material helps in making SARS-COV-2-specific protein. This protein is recognized by human body to start defensive immune reaction. In inactivated or attenuated vaccines, killed or attenuated SARS-COV-2 virus triggers immune response. Protein-based vaccines use the spike protein or its fragments for inciting immune response. The most devastating neurological post-vaccination complication is cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Cerebral venous sinus is frequently reported in females of childbearing age, generally following adenovector-based vaccination. Another major neurological complication of concern is Bell’s palsy that was reported dominantly following mRNA vaccine administration. Acute transverse myelitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, and acute demyelinating polyneuropathy are other unexpected neurological adverse events that occur as result of phenomenon of molecular mimicry. Reactivation of herpes zoster in many persons, following administration of mRNA vaccines, has been also recorded. "
Spectrum of neurological complications following COVID-19 vaccination
(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10072-021-05662-9)
Ethics
The Ethical Significance of Post‑Vaccination COVID‑19 Transmission Dynamics
(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11673-022-10223-6)
"The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at leastfour important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle."
Asymmetric Risk from Covid
The majority of deaths from C19 in the first wave were residents of Long Term Facilities. All had comorbidities, the most commone being obesity.Covid-19 does not strike indescrimanently.
A few blood-serum tests that occured before the roll out of vaccines showed that the vast majority of the population already had antibodies to the coronavirus. No effort was made to check whether a particular patient needed the vaccine before administering it. Furthermore, studies show natural immunty is superiour to vaccine immunity.
The creation of an "emergency" led to the rushing of the vaccine before clinical trials had been undertaken.
The safety data appeared in the FDA slide deck and VAERS
The bar for effectiness was set very low
The Fallacy of Universal Protection
The protected need to be protected from the unprotected by forcing the unprotected to use the protection that didn’t work for the protected.
Don't hate people for being unvaccinated - they were just born that way.
A vaccine is just a commercial product yet it seems to have been given special status - almost life-giving qualities.
If the Vax were 90% effective at saving lives we would expect deaths to be 10% of what they were before vaccines. And since the vast majority of deaths were residents of Long Term Care Facilities (93%) and which had comorbidities (99%), then this is actually saving old people from dying. We just may have found the fountain of eternal youth!
But the truth is, for 99.9% (now 99.97%) of Canadians, the vaccination will do nothing to save their life, simply because they were not in danger of dying.
Another way to look at it is the vax will not save the lives of 99.9% of people in Canada so it is wasted on them. Its actually worse than this because in any given year most people will not even come into contact with C19. Do we know how many actually will? If positive tests are an indication and it seems to be the only indication that we have, and that the number of cases last year were around 6%. But people are tested multiple times and each time is considered a new case so even that number should be reduced in half or thirds, say 2 or 3%
That is the fallacy of the vax as a therapeutic. It's value for most people is very questionable. Most drugs are given to people that need it. I.e. antibiotics, if and when you have an infection. We don’t give antibiotics to the entire population in case someone might have an infection later that year.
On top of that, they have turned the vax into a subscription service, multiple doses in a year. Really, this is collective insanity.
Lipid Nanoparticle Studies
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=lipid+nanoparticle&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=
- Not a sufficient emergency
- Not a question of deaths from a particular virus, it is a question of an extraordinary difference
- deaths mostly occurred in LTC and advanced ages and comorbidities
- deaths were within the range of deaths of prior years
For my part I see that mortality is essentially unchanged from pre covid so it means the cause of death is being attributed differently rather than it being additional deaths. This is more of an administrative change rather than a pandemic. I did an analysis of the mortality data from StatsCan, CDC and Euromomo a year ago. There are no excess deaths from Covid and this is so unlike historic pandemics which rapidly killed
We are essentially at zero deaths from Covid at this time but they are using “cases“ as a metric for disease spread, as a reason for more non-pharmaceutical interventions, but is it? What is a “case”? It is certainly not a sick person as most cases are asymptomatic. Is it a measure of how widespread the disease is from testing samples of the population? Then why use the total number of positives rather than dividing by the number of tests performed to get the rate of positivity?
People are being coerced into taking an experimental drug that skipped the normal safety and effectiveness trials because of the emergency and the early data is not looking so good. We have never seen a vaccine with this level of adverse affects. It is literally off the scale and the trials should have been discontinued under normal circumstances. It doesn’t even seem to be getting any attention which is strange given the hyperfocus on variants, cases and people dying that tested positive for covid.
Age stratification is being ignored as the risk to the under 65yo group is lower than the risk from seasonal influenza, yet they are being coerced into taking the experimental vaccine. The adverse affects on this age group is disheartening and these just may be additional deaths.
Asymptomatics are being blamed for the spread. Which is only somewhat true. Anyone that has come into contact with the virus is possibly a spreader but that includes whether you had the vaccine or not. Either one are spreaders. The super spreaders are the really sick ones but they are being hospitalized and not walking among the general population.
Covid zero seems to be the strategy as if it can be irradicated by vaccines just like we did with smallpox. Coronavirus is nothing like the smallpox virus or any of the other childhood diseases for that matter.
Vaccine passport and the social constructs for a two tiered society, those that comply and those that opt out. It is more of a social compliance mechanism rather than a health regime. And we can see where the idea came from. Childhood diseases such as Diptheria, Small pox etc seem to have been eradicated from mass vacinnations. The preoblem is that the Coronavirus is not the same beast as
The problem with the current public policy is it is based on germ theory and the notion that covid-zero is possible and will save us. This is simply not true.
The weak argument with germ theory is that it overlooks and ignores some pretty solid science and promotes germ avoidance as a solution. A competing theory called Terrain Theory attempts to solve those limitations. Like germ theory it recognizes that we are surrounded by micro-organisms and som
Arguments
Covid targets mainly the elderly 80% and frail 99% and the obese 80%. The elderly are disproportionately affected because they have a higher percentage of weak and frail than the young. This is so unlike past epidemics which affected everyone and usually had a average age in the 20-30year olds.
- A healthy immune system is designed to handle this virus and given the large percentage (>80%) of asymptomatics, it obviously is handing it for most people.
- Some of us may have immunity from prior corona viruses.
- Most of us have t-cell immunity as well as antibodies from recent exposure to coronavirus going back to 2005. Blood serum testing keeps showing high levels of immunity in the population.
- Vit D boosts the immune system and there may be a large population with deficient levels.
- Masks and social distancing do little to stop the spread, do not save lives
- Hospitals are running below capacity.
- Cases and fatalities peak each year around january.
- Most people do not realize the amount of deaths each day (850/day in Canada, 8k/day in US).
- in the UK, at this time, Covid is the 26th killer. Not even in the top ten.
“The largest population-based study comparing the unvaccinated/naturally immune to the vaccinated found that vaccinated people were 6 to 13 times more likely to get infected, 27 times more likely to get symptomatic infections, and 8 times more likely to be hospitalized. These findings are not surprising, since infection with the virus allows our body to form an immune response to many parts (epitopes) on the virus, whereas the vaccines expose us only to one part, the spike protein.”
The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies with high efficiency
SARS-CoV-2 antibody-positivity protects against reinfection for at least seven months with 95% efficacy
vaccine
The Potential Serious Danger of Antibody-Dependent Enhancement with Coronavirus Vaccines
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warns: Don’t take a COVID-19 vaccine under any circumstances
Dr. Carrie Madej – An Urgent Wake-Up Call About New COVID-19 Vaccine
https://visionlaunch.com/dr-carrie-madej-an-urgent-wake-up-call-about-new-covid-19-vaccine/
Location of FDA docs on C-19 vaccine
explanation of vax trials and requirements for EUA
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/emergency-use-authorization-vaccines-explained
FDA’s analysis of the efficacy data from 28,207 participants 18 years of age and older without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to dose 1 confirms the vaccine was 94.1% effective (95% confidence interval (CI) 89.3, 96.8) in preventing COVID-19 occurring at least 14 days after the second dose (with 11 COVID-19 cases in the vaccine group compared to 185 COVID-19 cases in the placebo group).
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Moderna
EUA order
Failure
- Vaccine value wanes after 3 months, and in some after 5-6 weeks
- Some vaccinated were counted as unvax to inflate unvax case-counts
- Vax'd within first 2 weeks were counted as unvax to attribute vax harm to the unvax'd
- Double vax testing positive 2x higher than unvax (per 100k)
- Boosted are testing positive 3x higher than unvax (per 100k)
- Most people have natural immunity by now
- More than 90% of uninfected adults show pre-existing antibody reactivity against SARSCoV2
- Natural immunity is superior to vax
- Vaccinated have 6x the infection rate compared to unvax (per 100k) Israel
- The vaccinated cannot develop “natural immunity”
- Unexplained doubling of deaths in the young 2021Q3
Evidence suggests that these vaccines can alter our innate immune response, actually producing tolerance to vaccines and infections. Study showed Pfizer vaccine produced vaccine interference and the potential for these vaccinated people to respond poorly to other vaccines, ie influenza. 76 given Pfizer LNP mRNA. Results, Lymphocyte (T-cell) counts actually decrease following vaccination. This was most pronounced during initial vaccination. T-cell responses after Moderna mRNA-1273: 24 revealed low or undetectable Th2 or CD8+ Cytotoxic T-cells following vaccination. Evidence is strong that people who have had other viral infections have a robust immunity to Sars-Cov-2 independant of the severity of infection
The EUA documents showed no statistical reduction in Covid or death when the vaccinated and non-vaccinated groups were statistically compared.
"We did not observe an increased incidence of neither pericarditis nor myocarditis in adult patients recovering from COVID-19 infection. "
The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients—A Large Population-Based Study
An interview with my pediatric cardiologist husband, Kirk Milhoan, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACC Kimberly Milhoan, MD
https://kimberlymilhoanmd.substack.com/p/myocarditis?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf&s=r
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur MD
Public Health Ontario's new report was used by politicians, media, academics to claim majority of hospitalized & ICU Covid "cases" & deaths "with Covid" are "unvaccinated"
BUT their definition for "unvaccinated" actually INCLUDES vaccinated ppl.
"Unvaccinated cases include cases that are not yet protected from immunization and are 0-13 days post-dose 1"
To make ethical evidence-based decisions, critical that all data is reported transparently: data from the control group (non-immune unvaccinated) must never be mixed with other test groups (immune unvaccinated, post-vaccination 0-13 days, post-vaccination ≥14 days)
Published Pfizer Phase 1/2 Covid vaccine clinical trial data showed dramatic transient lymphophenia (reduced white blood cells such as Tcells, NK cells, antibody producing Bcells) in ppl 1-3 days post-vaccination compared to unvaccinated control group.
Extended Data Fig. 1: Post vaccination changes in lymphocyte count over time
Phenomena of post-vaccination immunosuppression in Covid vac trials also studied with other vaccines, incl yellow fever: vaccinated ppl had increased risk of infection within 7d post-vac d/t sharp/transient lymphophenia (Tcell depletion). h/t @gerdosi
Early drop of circulating T cells negatively correlates with the protective immune response to Yellow Fever vaccination
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2020.1750249
New Peer-reviewed Canadian study in Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight: "Majority of uninfected adults show pre-existing antibody reactivity against SARSCoV2"
"Pre-existing cross-reactivity to SARSCoV2 occurs in absence of prior viral exposure"
But PHO & 🇨🇦govt’s “covid immunity taskforce” reports base “natural immunity” entirely only on humoural immunity (antibodies) and (by omission) completely deny existence of critical cellular immunity (Tcells) & secretary IgA
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/12/covid-19-epi-seroprevalence-in-ontario-oct-30.pdf?sc_lang=en > https://www.covid19immunitytaskforce.ca/final-results-of-initial-canadian-sars-cov-2-seroprevalence-study-announced/
Recent pre-print of Danish study found: nursing home residents at 40% increased risk of Covid infection 0-14 days post-vac and healthcare workers at 104% increased risk of Covid infection 0-14 days post-vac respectively compared to unvaccinated people
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.08.21252200v1.full.pdf
Vaccinated people were 6.72 times more likely to get infected than those with natural immunity from prior #COVID disease.
Ontario
Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Following Vaccination in Ontario: December 14, 2020 to March 13, 2022
During early days of the vaccine rollout (mar-july) anyone not > 14days since second dose was counted as unvaccinated which was most people. And data was showing most cases were from the unvax. Today we are seeing boosted are testing 3x higher and double 2x higher than unvax.
Most vax have natural immunity by now. Vaccine wanes after 3 months. Vaccine is doing something to reduce the immune system and govt can no longer blame it on the unvax.
To make ethical evidence-based decisions, critical that all data is reported transparently: data from the control group (non-immune unvaccinated) must never be mixed with other test groups (immune unvaccinated, post-vaccination 0-13 days, post-vaccination ≥14 days)
Published Pfizer Phase 1/2 Covid vaccine clinical trial data showed dramatic transient lymphophenia (reduced white blood cells such as Tcells, NK cells, antibody producing Bcells) in ppl 1-3 days post-vaccination compared to unvaccinated control group
(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2639-4/figures/5)
Phenomena of post-vaccination immunosuppression in Covid vac trials also studied with other vaccines, incl yellow fever: vaccinated ppl had increased risk of infection within 7d post-vac d/t sharp/transient lymphophenia (Tcell depletion). h/t
(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2020.1750249)
Tcells are critical for our innate & adaptive immune responses, including both cellular (CD4 and CD8 Tcells) & humoural (antibody) immune responses. Our "warrior" Tcells play a critical role in our natural immune response to viruses, including SARSCoV2
BC
A Canadian peer-reviewed study from BC also found:
-
">90% of uninfected adults show pre-existing antibody reactivity against SARSCoV2"
-
"Current study is consistent with detection of Tcell reactivity against SARSCoV2 in ~40% of uninfected individuals"
Final results of initial Canadian SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study announced
Recent pre-print of Danish study found: nursing home residents at 40% increased risk of Covid infection 0-14 days post-vac and healthcare workers at 104% increased risk of Covid infection 0-14 days post-vac respectively compared to unvaccinated people
(https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.08.21252200v1.full.pdf) medrxiv 2021 03
"A genuine increased risk of contracting infection post vaccination is important to understand, both for evaluating the vaccination programmes as well as planning the best time of year to carry such programmes out"
According to UK government's report by its SAGE advisors released in early July 2021: "The combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge."
Israel
Interesting thread from @prof_shahar on transparency of Covid data reporting from Israel
Interesting article posted by Harvard Professor @MartinKulldorff on Covid infections in Israel - Vaccinated people were 6.72 times more likely to get infected than those with natural immunity from prior #COVID disease.
New Zealand
Vaccinated Have Up To SIX Times the Infection Rate of Unvaccinated, New Zealand Government Data Show
- 10% of the triple vaccinated in New Zealand were infected.
- 14% of the single vaccinated were infected.
- An astounding 18% of the double vaccinated were infected.
- Yet only 3% of the unvaccinated appear to have been infected.
Israel study: the naturally immune had a:
10.5 per 100,000 infection rate 4-6 mos. following recovery, vs a
69.2 per 100,000 infection rate among vaccinated.
Original Antigenic Sin
Original Antigenic Sin is a Real and Very Serious Reason to Stop Vaccinating Everyone. Two papers discover that cross-reacting antibodies from common coronavirus infections can hinder effective antibody response to SARS-CoV-2.
(https://www.eugyppius.com/p/original-antigenic-sin-is-a-real?s=r)
This is not a crazy internet fantasy, but a well-observed limitation of human immunity. It is the primary reason that respiratory viruses like influenza return again and again. Despite multiple reinfections across the whole population, we are never quite immune to the flu, because its strategy is to exploit the way our immune systems learn.
(https://www.eugyppius.com/p/more-on-original-antigenic-sin-and?s=r)
COVID Vaccines Aren’t Working — And No Amount of Boosting Will Change That
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccines-arent-working-boosting-change/
The vaccinated cannot develop “natural immunity”, The boosted cannot clear the virus quickly upon infection, Covid virions invade and damage monocytes, the blood cells providing immunity, due to Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE), leading to gradual destruction of the immune system. Sars-Cov-2 also infects immune T-cells.
(https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/aids-like-chronic-covid-is-taking?s=r)
New-onset autoimmune phenomena post-COVID-19 vaccination
(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/imm.13443)
New Brunswick
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/what-is-going-on-in-new-brunswick?s=r
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/and-whats-going-on-in-ontario?s=r
Doubling of deaths in young
Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNP inhibits adaptive immune responses and alters innate immune fitness in an inheritable fashion https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.16.484616v2
The mRNA-LNP-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is highly inflammatory, and its synthetic ionizable lipid component responsible for the induction of inflammation has a long in vivo half-life.
Interestingly, mice pre-exposed to the mRNA-LNP platform can pass down the acquired immune traits to their offspring, providing better protection against influenza. In summary, the mRNA-LNP vaccine platform induces long-term unexpected immunological changes affecting both adaptive immune responses and heterologous protection against infections. Thus, our studies highlight the need for more research to determine this platform’s true impact on human health.
https://react19.org/1250-covid-vaccine-reports/
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/what-is-causing-the-died-suddenly
V-Safe Part 1: After 464 Days, CDC Finally Coughed up Covid-19 Vaccine Safety Data Showing 7.7% of People Reported Needing Medical Care https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/v-safe-part-1-after-464-days-cdc
Shedding
May Pfizer FOIA, Hepatitis in Kids, & Shedding
(from phizer dump) First, note the discussion about the RNA being translated into the cell. That is the point of mRNA, to deliver an RNA sequence into a cell so the cell produces whatever the RNA is describing. That said, here, it is admitted that the BNT161b2 version of the jab is training your body to create the SARS-CoV2 spike protein. The spike protein is part of what causes the damage when you have COVID-19 so why would you want to inject something that teaches your body to create this?
… the process of making an RNA copy of a gene’s DNA sequence. This copy, called messenger RNA (mRNA), carries the gene’s protein information encoded in DNA. In humans and other complex organisms, mRNA mo ves from the cell nucleus to the cell cytoplasm (watery interior), where it is used for synthesizing the encoded protein.” (retrieved on 5/6/2022 from https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Transcription). Reverse transcription is the opposite of this where DNA is “created” from an RNA sequence. There are substantial questions about whether the jabs may reverse transcribe their mRNA sequences into cellular DNA in a permanent way but it certainly does not appear impossible.
INTERIM CLINICAL STUDY REPORT - BNT162-01
https://tomrenz.substack.com/api/v1/file/f3bfe47e-6dc9-4ca8-b3e6-610a6b81d1ec.pdf
Health of Pure Bloods Threatened by Shedding of mRNA and Spike Protein
Why the Unvaccinated are Concerned about Close Contact with COVID-19 Vaccinated
The Impact of Pre-existing Comorbidities and Therapeutic Interventions on COVID-19
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01991/full
Physiological correlates of bereavement and the impact of bereavement interventions
Adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines and measures to prevent them
The role of gut microbiota in immune homeostasis and autoimmunity
VACCINE-INDUCED TURBO CANCER: T-cell lymphoma can progress rapidly due to mRNA booster shot
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-11-15-t-cell-lymphoma-progress-rapidly-mrna-booster-shot.html
Harm
"Vaccines based on mRNA-containing lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a promising new platform used by two leading vaccines against COVID-19. Clinical trials and ongoing vaccinations present with varying degrees of protection levels and side effects. However, the drivers of the reported side effects remain poorly defined. Here we present evidence that Acuitas' LNPs used in preclinical nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccine studies are highly inflammatory in mice. Intradermal and intramuscular injection of these LNPs led to rapid and robust inflammatory responses, characterized by massive neutrophil infiltration, activation of diverse inflammatory pathways, and production of various inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. The same dose of LNP delivered intranasally led to similar inflammatory responses in the lung and resulted in a high mortality rate, with mechanism unresolved. Thus, the mRNA-LNP platforms' potency in supporting the induction of adaptive immune responses and the observed side effects may stem from the LNPs' highly inflammatory nature. "
"Should individuals who already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection receive one or two shots of the currently authorized mRNA vaccines. In this short report, we show that the antibody response to the first vaccine dose in individuals with pre-existing immunity is equal to or even exceeds the titers found in naïve individuals after the second dose. We also show that the reactogenicity is significantly higher in individuals who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the past. Changing the policy to give these individuals only one dose of vaccine would not negatively impact on their antibody titers, spare them from unnecessary pain and free up many urgently needed vaccine doses."
"People with prior COVID-19 illness appear to experience significantly increased incidence and severity of side effects after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine."
"Prior COVID-19 infection but not ongoing Long-COVID symptoms were associated with an increase in the risk of self-reported adverse events following BNT162b2/Pfizer vaccination. ...The proportion reporting one moderate/severe symptom was higher in the previous COVID-19 group (56% v 47%, OR=1.5 [95%CI, 1.1–2.0], p=.009), with fever, fatigue, myalgia-arthralgia and lymphadenopathy significantly more common."
"3,078 HCW were included. Previous SARS-CoV-2 infection/COVID-19 occurred in 396 subjects (12·9%). 59·6% suffered from ≥1 local or systemic symptom after the first and 73·4% after the second dose. MSS occurred in 6·3% of cases (14·4% with previous vs 5·1% with no COVID-19 p<0·001) and in 28·3% (24·5% in COVID-19 vs 28·3% no COVID, p = 0·074) after the first and second dose, respectively. Subjects already experiencing COVID-19 had an independent 3-fold higher risk of MSS after the first and a 30% lower risk after the second dose. No severe adverse events were reported."
"The Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) and the Oxford-AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) COVID-19 vaccines have shown excellent safety and efficacy in phase 3 trials. We aimed to investigate the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines in a UK community setting."
"Since COVID-19 risk of reinfection is of great concern, the safety and efficacy of the mRNA-based vaccines in previously infected populations should be assessed. We studied 78 individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-19, who received a single dose of BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and 1:2 ratio matched infection-naïve cohort who received two injections."
Adverse
Examination of current literature that explores the adverse nature of these vaccines.
SPIKE PROTEIN INDUCES MYOCARDITIS
HOW THE SPIKE PROTEIN INDUCES MYOCARDITIS AND WHY I BELIEVE IT IS EXTRAORDINARILY COMMON
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Binds to Heart’s Vascular Cells Potentially Contributing to Severe Microvascular Damage. A study from February of this year proves this, and explains the observed Myocarditis.
There is now extensive research regarding the instances of Myocarditis caused by both COVID-19 and the Spike Protein therapies. However, most people view this as a “side effect” of the therapies and a pathology of the virus. The truth of the matter is, I believe they are both the EXACT same mechanism.
First of all, in addition to cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells of the cardiac (micro)vasculature are direct targets for infection. Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the heart that is characterized by a large diversity in symptoms varying from a SYMPTOMLESS course to shortness of breath and mild flu-like symptoms, chest pain, specific or a specific ECG changes, to acute heart failure and chronically to dilated cardiomyopathy.
In the heart, myocarditis can induce cell loss, interstitial and replacement fibrosis, wall motion abnormalities, decreased ejection fraction, and arrhythmias. Moreover, myocarditis is one of the leading causes of SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH IN YOUNG ADULTS.
The cause of myocarditis can among others be an allergic or toxic reaction to medicines and toxic drugs as well as autoimmune organ-specific myocarditis and systemic autoimmune diseases-associated myocarditis. However, most often, the cause of myocarditis is an infection, including viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and fungi.
In our case, the cause is an TRANSFECTION with the Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2. The infection of the cardiac endothelium can cause among others endothelial activation, damage, and permeability. For instance, infection of cardiac endothelial cells in patients with viral myocarditis has shown to induce endothelial microparticles reflecting endothelial damage.
We also observe the classic Spike/COVID-19 inflammation and thrombi as is seen in infectious myocarditis: The putative infection, pro-inflammatory activation, and death of cardiac endothelial cells each create a potential procoagulant environment. Indeed, occlusive thrombi, fibrin deposits, and aggregated platelets have been found in the small epicardial and intramyocardial vasculature of T. cruzi-infected mice and dogs and in mice with CVB3-induced myocarditis.
Clearly, the coronary (micro)vasculature plays a prominent role in the different stages of the disease; initially as a barrier against and as a target for infection, and subsequently as an important factor in the shaping of the immune response in the heart and as an important determinant of dysfunction of the heart. As such, these changes in the coronary (micro)vasculature may explain, in part, the wide variety of clinical symptoms in infectious myocarditis patients from COVID-19 and Spike Protein therapies.
https://twitter.com/Parsifaler/status/1500660491559051268
Infectious myocarditis: the role of the cardiac vasculature
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2
[Massive Nordic study finds risk of post-vaccination myo/pericarditis resulting in hospitalization in males 16-24 of 380/million (1/2600) post pfizer-moderna combination. This is 28x higher than the 13.7/million rate they found post-covid🧵https://t.co/oIhI5GcimH — Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) April 22, 2022
gene based injections
https://remnantmd.substack.com/
5.6 per million adverse events reported in 2019
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/data-and-analysis/infectious-disease/vaccine-safety#/trends
4 million doses in children needed to prevent 1 icu admission
https://www.statsjamie.co.uk/4-million-doses-in-children-needed-to-prevent-1-icu-admission/
vaers analysis
https://twitter.com/joshg99/status/1495048760807862275
https://jackanapes.substack.com/p/the-israeli-ministry-of-health-actually-db7?utm_source=url
Israeli Ministry of Health
Some top-line numbers of adverse events reported 3-4 weeks following booster vaccination. Per million doses:
| quantity | event |
|---|---|
| 5,000 | Hospitalizations |
| 1,464 | Herpes Zoster cases |
| 5,268 | Bell's Palsy cases |
| 1,952 | Seizures/Convulsions |
| 56,567 | Menstrual Disruptions |
Ontario Adverse Events 2022 Apr 4
What they define as Severe or Unusual
Excess deaths
HowBad.info
https://howbad.info/1000studies.pdf
"Our study indicates that BNT162b2 vaccine–induced myocarditis in adolescents appears to be a rare adverse event that occurs predominantly in males after the second vaccine dose. The clinical course appears to be mild and benign over a follow-up period of 6 months, and cardiac imaging findings suggest a favorable long-term prognosis."
An important thing to note in the Excess Cancer Mortality DFT Chart -> The agreement between inception and inflection.
This agreement is FAR stronger than mere correlation. It is NOT a correlation at all. It suggests a specific cause as being the lead hypothesis.
Inception - Week 51 2020 - is where the Law of Large Numbers forces the vaccine effect to show almost immediately because of the sheer size or specific vulnerability of the population (older citizens) which is impacted. This begins 7 days after the vaccine was introduced.
Inflection - Week 14 2021 - is where the fastest uptake in effect occurs - this point introduces a new inertia (trend) in the arrival of deaths, a trend which is now sticky. This is the week of fastest administration of the vaccine.
These represent the arrival of margin cases - they happen fast - and are not representative of the 'average' case. The average case may not arrive for a decade or more yet. So avoid thinking in terms of averages in this (Gaussian Blindness).
This curve will peak and start back down, sometime near when we hit the 'average' case. Pray that this happens soon.
- @EthicalSkeptic Apr 21 2024
Dr. Janci Chunn Lindsay is a molecular biologist and toxicologist. She holds a doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Lindsay is the Director of Toxicology and Molecular Biology for Toxicology Support Services, LLC, and has over 30 years of scientific experience, primarily in the areas of toxicology and immunology.
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"We never needed these ‘vaccines’ we had treatments that worked; Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin"
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“The SV40 DNA sequence should’ve never been added to the Covid Vaccine, because it causes CANCER”
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“There is a reason that gene therapy was never brought to the market for so many years, because of the risk of causing CANCER”
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“We looked to evaluate endotoxin levels, BUT they got them all REDACTED. Why would you redact them, if you were trying to be transparent?
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"Why would you hide the clinical data for 75 years, if you are trying to be transparent? Tell me WHY? There is something VERY UNUSUAL going on here”
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“We do NOT give experimental products to PREGNANT WOMEN. We do NOT give experimental products to BABIES. This has never been done before!! Please protect your citizens.
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"I am begging you to protect your citizens. Someone has to do the right thing, so others can follow”
The COVID mRNA shots containing N1-methyl-pseudouridine SUPPRESS the immune system and STIMULATE cancer growth! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0141813024022323
Prof. Angus Dalgleish says there is a “fundamental flaw” with COVID-19 shots, and the flaw is that “it carries on for an indeterminate period of time.”
What that means is the modified mRNA containing N1-methyl-pseudouridine (m1Ψ) allows the mRNA in the COVID shots to last in the body for an indefinite period of time, leading to an uncontrolled amount of spike protein production.
The bottom line: There is a great likelihood that the shots are causing cancer.
• Spike protein inhibits the activity of tumor suppressor genes.
• Spike protein interferes with BRCA, which keeps ovarian and breast cancer in check.
• The N1-methyl-pseudouridine (m1Ψ) in itself leads to immune suppression. Without the immune system working in full force, it creates conditions conducive to rapid cancer growth—or what some people refer to as “turbo cancer.”
In summary, the Treg responses produced after mRNA vaccination and the subsequent mRNA-encoded SARS-CoV-2 spike protein expression may lead to a harmful influence on the immune system of vaccinees, and subsequent accelerated development of cancer and autoimmune disease. These mechanisms are consistent with both epidemiological findings and case reports.