11 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

Hi Brian. I must say that you have made a tremendous effort and wrote a very interesting article. I must admit that I have not analyzed every chart of it but you definitely have a point about NOT measuring antibodies at the right time, etc.

That said, I disagree with you on the main conclusion that there is no OAS. OAS for covid vaccinated exists, in my opinion.

The best proof of it is in real world observable events, and in statistics of thousands, not in measuring antibodies in a few convalescent guys. The observable events are

- Existing reinfections with a short recovery interval among the vaccinated

- UKHSA pretty much said that there is OAS when they admitted that the vaxed develop strong S antibodies after breakthrough infections, but do NOT develop N antibodies. This is the textbook definition of OAS.

I wrote a bunch of articles about it but the most recent one is:

https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/ukhsa-explains-endless-reinfections

I am open to changing my mind and I am not married to the concept of OAS.

But what else other than OAS can explain reinfections of the vaccinated that occur relatively often? My article has a few such testimonies pulled off reddit.

Expand full comment

Right, and I'm in favor of considering anecdotal evidence in general. But at the moment, since the anecdotal evidence doesn't have any support in my own personal experience and since the Goldberg et al. study shows low rates of post-breakthrough reinfection, my vibe is that the anecdotes are rare outliers. And Omicron is driving reinfections for the unvaccinated just as much, if not more, than the Covid-vaccinated - https://unglossed.substack.com/p/reinfections-in-israel - likely due to the altered tropism in favor of the upper respiratory tract, circumventing resident T Cells leftover from "Wuhan-strain" infections. Realistically, it will be months before there are any studies providing data on post-Omicron reinfection rates, for either the naive / recovered / vaccinated.

Expand full comment

Thanks. Both in the UK, whose data I used, and in Israel, they rely on PCR tests only (no record of symptoms). As many of my readers pointed out this is going to significantly muddle the picture for analysis. The first test could be a false positie, or the second. I am myself not sure how to deal with it. It is important.

Expand full comment

Right - before Omicron, the low rate of reinfection was itself an effective "control" against false positives. It essentially didn't matter if the positive PCR was "false," since having a positive PCR conferred a ~.1 likelihood of later positive PCR. So you could say reinfections were rare, because it would be true even if all reinfections were false.

Now that Omicron "second positives" (reinfections) happen at the same rate as first positives, there's no way to decipher if they are false positives or true reinfections. For the moment I'm inclined to bet on the latter.

Expand full comment

My own definition of a "real Covid case" is a positive test, accompanies with a fever. I understand why this is inconvenient for health authorities to measure.

Expand full comment

not trying to refute anything in this article (because I can't) but here is another:

https://palexander.substack.com/p/original-antigenic-sin-mortal-antigenic

The question I ask as a non-technical layperson in this field is not is OAS real but is there a need to get jabbed versus following something like FLCCC protocols? When I read an article like the below or see a summary of CDC/NIH flip flops and lies, you know something is not right.

OAS/AAS/BAS/CAS who cares! Is it safe and effective?

https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/media-resources/the-pfizer-inoculations-for-covid-19-more-harm-than-good-2/

Expand full comment

As I mention in footnote 2, there are plausible "non-OAS" concerns for whether vaccination sabotages the immune response that follows infection. But then you also have to ask if this tradeoff is still a net benefit for vulnerable groups - if the vaccine protects them against viremia. I think NO, because the vaccine essentially causes the same harms as viremia, by dispersing the script for spike throughout the body.

More complicated are the treatment protocols - they don't cause the harms that the vaccines do, but do they, by reducing symptoms, temper the immune response a bit, and is this possibly a net negative for some (i.e., if lifetime reinfections are higher after FLCCC treatment, are younger people better off roughing out the virus now? - this is my instinct, and partly why I didn't use any treatment during my likely-Omicron infection two weeks ago).

There's lots and lots of complexities to the issue - everything about immunity involves a built-in equilibrium, in which there's no free lunch, but deficiencies tend to self-correct over time. The OAS trope totally denies the latter reality which is why it gets my blood boiling.

Expand full comment

If following a treatment protocol is the same as mild or asymptomatic infection, they may be ok?:

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31008-4?rss=yes

Robust T Cell Immunity in Convalescent Individuals with Asymptomatic or Mild COVID-19

Expand full comment

Right, though it's still "asymptomatic as suppressed by the innate immune system" instead of asymptomatic as suppressed by drugs that made the virus attack less aggressively. Memory immunity is a learning algorithm - so just because some people learn without as much "struggle," doesn't mean you can go ahead and hide the harder part of the math book from them without messing up their test scores, to veer off into total cartoon-biology-mode.

Expand full comment

It would depend on whether the innate system is enhanced by the treatment protocol yeah? If it gets past that then whether the body works quickly or slowly shouldn't be a problem in terms of generating memory immunity - I would have thought?

I don't understand biology or the protocols well enough to see where the assistance is delivered - at the mucosal / innate level or below.

Expand full comment

Well, if we're talking ivermectin then we're in theoretical "binds against literally everything from polyprotein to RdRp to spike" land, with in vitro "5000-fold reduction" of production of viral RNA, as summarized in the retracted Zaidi / Dehgani-Mobaraki review, though whether that happens in vivo is unknown.

If we're just talking about boosting innate immunity, I still have my qualms but they're in my super-luddite "no pain no gain" mental territory.

Expand full comment