Omicron: Natural immunity idea ‘not really panning out'

Germany needs jabs, not omicron's 'dirty vaccination' — health minister
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has said it's "naive" to think the omicron variant will be the end of the pandemic. He warned that new COVID-19 mutations were still possible.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-needs...GK_RSS_SmartNews_Volltext_ENG-20051-xml-media

 

You are confusing flu and cold immunity with strain immunity. There is no such thing as immunity to colds in general, but once you recover from a cold, you will not catch that cold again. It's the same with Flu and Kung Flu.

 

Here is today's hint.... Colds are a coronavirus. Your "natural immunity" wanes after you catch a strain of a cold - -just like with Covid-19. Usually after 90 to 180 days you can catch the exact same strain of a cold again. Of course the time period where you can be re-infected by the exact same cold strain will vary -- it may be nearly zero days for some individuals (immunocompromised, etc.) to over 18 months in others. However with over 200 strains of the common cold floating around, you are much more likely to catch another strain than the same one you had previously in the short term.

 

Natural Herd Immunity was not reached in December 2020 for the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) Variant of Concern that had first emerged in the U.K. in the fall of 2020.

The few posting the December 2020 date of Natural Immunity for the Alpha variant are intentionally posting misinformation to cover their tracks when their prediction failed miserably that Covid was defeated...

Yet, they have no knowledge about the genomics that's shared between Alpha, Delta, and Omicron (discussed further below) that verifies Natural Immunity has not been reached considering these three particular variants are causing the same protein mutation.

• Today (2022), the Alpha variant is viewed as the world's first Variant of Concern.

More importantly, as of February 2021 in the U.K. alone, 1,146,534 people were still being infected by the Alpha variant. In fact, the Alpha variant genomic sequence is still found in most countries even though the Dominant variant was the Delta variant by spring of 2021 and now today it's the Omicron variant.

• Covid Alpha infections are still here today but fading although outstripped by the Delta and Omicron.

In addition, scientists, today use their studies on the Alpha (Orf9b viral protein) to better understand Omicron mutations "outside" of the spike protein that allowed Alpha and Omicron to suppress the immune system responses as the Orf9b viral protein increases dramatically in Covid infected patients because of its ability to inhibit innate immunity along with allowing it to spread more efficiently from person to person.

• Omicron and Alpha share the same mutation in the Orf9b protein... it's like a running back running in the open field and a would-be tackler then gets a strong stiff arm from Omicron/Alpha that allows the Variants of Concern to keep gaining more yards.

Further, anyone with common sense and that has a little knowledge of Immunology or Molecular Biology will know that if countries had Natural Immunity to the Alpha variant...there would not be "reinfections" today for those that had prior infections to Alpha or Delta nor "breakthrough" infections today for those fully vaccinated.

Think of it this way, we have another type of immune response called Adaptive Immunity involving T cells and B cells.

• Simply, our healthcare system would not be approaching capacity level with severe Covid infections with primarily not vaccinated patients nor would we have the exponential Pediatric hospitalization that we see today.

More important, Omicron would have never gained the status as a Variant of Concern because Natural Immunity and Vaccines would have better protected us from mutated viral proteins outside of the spike protein.

By the way, the Delta Variant of Concern shares the same mutated Orf9b protein...another reason about how Omicron gained the status of Variant of Concern.

This (viral Orf9b protein) is the reason why the next generation of vaccines will be targeting viral mutations outside of the spike protein.

Can we ever reach Natural Immunity for Covid-19 ?

Most likely never because there will still be births of Variants of Concern and people will still have the strong desire to travel and spread new Variants of Concern. Just as important, there will still be Zoonosis that's an avenue to birth more Variants of Concern because the human population is very unhealthy as a whole.

Smart people will stay as healthy as possible, regularly exercise, and get vaccinated whenever a deadly pathogenic Variant of Concern shows up... it's an excellent way to prevent severe Covid illness that increases the risk of Hospitalization.

• Remember this...we have Covid mutations every single day now. It's only a matter of time when something much more pathogenic will show up that causes more hospitalization and more deaths than what we've seen so far. Those not vaccinated will be impacted the most when such a mutation appears.

Talk to ET owner Baron, he's had Covid 3x (Original, Delta and recently stated he recovered from Omicron infection) and he's not vaccinated. That's three different variants in which two of them share the same key mutated viral protein that such an infection would not have occurred had there been Natural Immunity.

Baron is not alone because there are growing numbers of people getting reinfected with Covid-19...multiple times in less than two years of this Pandemic.

Yet, most of these cases will result in a mild illness (e.g. running nose, sore throat, fever, and a little fatigue...no more than a few days).

• The only Natural Immunity to Covid right now is a person that's dead...a person that will not get infected again with any future Covid Variant of Concern.

Further, some academia view "reinfections" as a form of Natural Immunity because the memory B and T cells responded appropriately in fighting the disease when they saw it again...preventing a severe Covid infection that could have resulted in Hospitalization or Death. This is another debate...another day because scientists are still trying to identify a “correlate of protection,” a metric of how strong someone’s immunity is, but the evidence is mounting that such a correlate might lie in the number of antibodies in a person’s blood.

• By the way, not talked about often enough...the United States has an Obesity Prevalence of 42.4% of its population. That's a lot of potential victims of Covid that will keep Covid alive and well for many years to come.

Omicron is causing most of the mild infections as the Predominant Variant (strain) while the Delta variant and some of the Alpha variant (it is still here but quickly fading away) is causing most of the Hospitalizations and Deaths.

Vaccines have protected most from a severe Covid infection of the Delta and Alpha variants. Unfortunately, as one Variant of Concern fades away... it is fading away because of the emergence of a new Variant of Concern.

Last of all, now that countries like South Africa have peaked and now declining in the number of Omicron infections... let's now cross our fingers that a new Variant of Concern (that's more pathogenic) does not emerge to take its place because the birth of a Variant of Concern has been a pattern so far in this Pandemic...

Covid is being given too many opportunities to find a way around prior infections and vaccinations because we are in fact an unhealthy society.

wrbtrader

 

First let’s look at the reality… multiple recent studies have shown previously having Delta provides nearly no immunity against Omicron. Likewise there is no expectation that Omicron will automatically provide immunity against the next variant of concern.

Coupled with this is that nearly 40% of those infected with Covid demonstrate no antibody immunity after 6 months with nearly 12% not even having sufficient level of antibodies to ward off reinfection with the same variant four weeks after recovery from the initial infection. All of this has been outlined in multiple studies. Currently those who did not get vaccinated should expect to be re-infected with Covid every 16 months on average.

 

I responded to your initial response before the update.

I will note that Omicron is significantly more vaccine evasive than earlier variants of Covid. The Covid vaccinated breakthrough rate is expected to sky rocket. It was below 0.5% of the vaccinated but will probably be above 3% in December's evaluations. The effectiveness of vaccines to stop infection has dropped to 30% or 40% for most vaccines with Omicron (which is very poor). Fortunately the vaccines are still 80% to 90% effective with Omicron at stopping severe illness.

It still needs to be recognized that even if Omicron is 70% less severe (in terms of the percentage of cases hospitalized). If the number number of cases are greatly more because it is more infectious -- then we still can expect significant issues with overloaded medical care (which we are already seeing). I will note that over 90% of those in ICU in the U.S. with Omicron Covid are unvaccinated.

 

I think the vaccine issue is really about your own immune support.

But a lot of people are deciding that COVID of any variant is not important enough or serious enough and actually openly rebelling against preventitive measures to stop it from spread versus the "lets just all get it so we can get over it" then we have a problem. That seems quite convenient when Omicron is scientifically labelled a less powerful variant but when delta was spreading and people were dying, the same thumbing your nose at preventitive measures seems quite moronic.

It is too convenient to simply say Omicron is harmless and after 1.5 years of deaths finally think you are right about COVID.

Any health reaction being light whether vaxxed or not proves that Omicron itself seems to be a less virulent variant even if people are knocked out for a few days. But the earlier strains were no joke and where most of the deaths came from. Now we just have lots of cases but with more and more cases the small percentage of those needing hospitalization still increases. 1% of 1000 people in a community it not much but 1% of 400,000 in a community can overrun a hospital quite easily even if the people are not at death's door but need hospitalization. We should not simply say lets spread it as fast as possible and those that need hospitalizations are still not a concern. Well it is for a hospital that can handle 30 cases and is getting 75.

The best possible protection against a virus is to stop its spread regardless of vax status. How many people died last year simply because they ignored the seriousness of the situation. We all have seen the posts about covid deniers getting sick and dying. If Omicron is the sign that the worst has past and COVID will only exist as a mild strain then we certainly paid a dear price for it since March 2020 to get here.