Coronavirus

I notice that The Epoch Times now has option to watch this and other videos for a one-time fee to watch -$3.99 without subscribing.
That would be interesting to me.

video trailer free.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/invest...ent=02-23-2022

February 20, 2022 Epoch CinemaViews 58.2K Live chat
[SIZE=4]Pentagon’s War on Religion: Whistleblowers Expose How the Military Discriminated Against Religion With Vaccine Mandates[/SIZE]

Whistleblowers have stepped forward to reveal what they say is religious discrimination, and what are also possible violations of both military law and Constitutional law. They offer evidence of widespread discrimination in the U.S. armed forces despite claims that the military has been making a push to eliminate discrimination from its ranks.

In this exclusive investigative report, we look into possible reasons on why the military has largely denied religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, and we uncover a longer history of discriminatory practices targeting the expression of belief.

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https://live.childrenshealthdefense....0-a5f265073262

or

either will get to vide0 but second url includes text article

42:18 video runtime

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/d...a-6e22549bfb1f

Bill Gates ‘Playing God’, Genetically Engineered Animals, Rising Rates of Myocarditis Deaths in Kids + More on CHD.TV


07/13/22
•

COVID › Views
‘Shocking’ How People Can Close Their Eyes to This: ‘This Week’ With Mary + Polly

In “This Week” with Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” Mary and Polly discussed the latest news on COVID vaccines and other issues.

________


This week, Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense president, and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” covered the latest headlines on COVID-19, Big Pharma and other issues, including news that the latest data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, reports more than 1.3 million adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines.

Polly and Mary also discussed the news of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine for ages 12 to 15 years, even though the Comirnaty-labeled vaccine is not available in the U.S. for any age group.

Plus, in Mary’s “favorite story of the week”: A judge in Uruguay suspended COVID-19 vaccines for children under 13 and demanded the government turn over its contracts with Pfizer.

Also on tap this week: Allysia Finley, a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, wrote an opinion piece, “Why the rush for COVID vaccines for toddlers?” She called into question the motives behind the FDA’s decision to extend emergency use of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines to infants and toddlers.

More of this week’s highlights:

Hundreds of children ages 6 months to 5 years old have received a COVID-19 vaccine in Philadelphia, but the health agency said that number should be in the thousands. “People are using their brains and know their kids aren’t guinea pigs,” said Mary.
In a letter to the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and other U.K. government officials, 76 doctors explain why the FDA decision authorizing COVID-19 vaccinations in infants and young children must not happen in the U.K.
Israel recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for children 6 months to 5 years old and is pushing to reinstate the indoor mask mandate. “Are they mad?” said Polly.
Canadians are required to get COVID-19 booster vaccines every nine months for the foreseeable future.
The FDA said COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers will need to update fall boosters to target BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants — a day after the White House announced a $3.2 billion vaccine deal with Pfizer to include new boosters for subvariants. “Start to expect some serious advertising and fearmongering,” said Polly.
The EU backed a second COVID-19 booster for those over 60 and “medically vulnerable” people.
Shanghai identified a new COVID-19 variant.
The number of Americans 16 and older with a disability remained stable from 2016 to 2020, but jumped sharply in early 2021, coinciding with the rollout of COVID-19 injections. “How people can close their eyes to this is shocking,” said Mary. “These shots are incredibly dangerous.”
The parents of a West Virginia boy who received an improper dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at a local Kroger are suing Kroger. “This boy is lucky to be alive,” said Mary.
Novak Djokovic reaffirmed his COVID-19 vaccine stance after winning Wimbledon. “He is a shining example of what we should all be doing,” said Polly.
1 in every 30 children now has autism. “This is a catastrophe,” said Mary.
Ghana reports first-ever suspected Marburg virus case.
U.K. dairy farmers warned of price increases and chronic staff shortages. “This really is a massive problem,” said Polly.
Cattle producers are struggling with the high cost of feed.
Three pharmaceutical companies distributed 81 million opioid painkillers in a West Virginia county over an eight-year period, but the federal judge ruled they were not liable for the damage done by the opioid epidemic.
There may be no safe level of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which interfere with development, reproduction, neurological functioning, metabolism, satiety, immune system function — and much more.
Donate to support CHD’s efforts here.

“This Week” with Mary + Polly is now on Spotify. Listen here.

Watch “This Week” with Mary + Polly:

Dachsie comment:

Mr. Pottinger and Dr. Birx are infiltrator One World Death and Slavery for All people. (don't know anything about Sarah Mathews.)
Totalitarian Marxist commies is the term I like.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/7B...4ee28dbd41e1fa

Matthew Pottinger, Sarah Matthews

Both are former Trump White House aides.

Pottinger is one of the many horrible choices Trump chose as his aides, and this snake in the grass is still an acting "Trump supporter."

Mathew 10:16

Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.
Douay bible


Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
Berean Study Bible
_________________

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-...tm_source=push

The Talented Mr. Pottinger: The US Intelligence Agent Who Pushed Lockdowns

Excerpt:

As Birx recalls in her book:
"It is March 2, 2020. I’ve just flown in overnight from South Africa to take on the role of response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, a job I didn’t seek but felt compelled to accept. I’m physically tired but mentally alert. After weeks of urging from Matthew Pottinger— President Trump’s deputy national security advisor, a task force member himself, and the husband of a former colleague and friend of mine—I finally gave in to Matt’s request that I come on board to help with the response to the coronavirus outbreak…

Matt Pottinger, was one of the good ones in the Trump White House. A former journalist turned highly-decorated U.S. Marine who served as an intelligence officer for part of his time, Matt had deep experience in China (including during the 2002–2003 SARS outbreak there) and was fluent in Mandarin. Matt took a position in the National Security Council in the earliest stage of the Trump administration, while still serving in the Marine Reserves."

https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccin...ent=07-21-2022

30:13 video runtime

https://ecp.yusercontent.com/mail?ur..._tBKC0ZFqg--~D


Vaccines Are Destroying People’s Immunity Through ‘Immune Imprinting’:

Dr. Robert Malone [Part 1]
Crossroads
https://www.theepochtimes.com/vaccines-are-destroying-peoples-immunity-through-immune-imprinting-dr-robert-malone_4610641.html?&utm_medium=Crossroads&utm_sou rce=CRNewsletter&utm_campaign=ImmuneImprinting&utm _content=07-21-2022

JOSHUA PHILIPP

“The question is, why are these people that have had these repeated vaccinations, the ones that are getting the more severe infections, disease, and death? It’s a paradox.”

There’s a known phenomenon within the vaccine scientific community called “immune imprinting,” where it’s understood that frequent vaccinations can push out existing immunity within people. This has become a growing concern among experts with the COVID-19 vaccines, since people are being mass vaccinated for virus strains that are largely defunct; and as the virus continues to mutate, the vaccine is becoming less effective.

According to Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, the current situation where the efficacy of vaccines is fading should have been expected. He also warns that the next wave of vaccinations, planned for Omicron and new variants around August or September, should sound alarm bells over the phenomena of immune imprinting.

“The truth is now, that it’s the highly vaccinated that are putting us all at risk for further evolution of this virus.”

We speak with Dr. Malone about this phenomena, and what people should be aware of.

Subscribe to the new Crossroads newsletter and stay up-to-date!

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https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/c...m_source=email

Steve Kirsch's newsletter

CDC job posting reveals they lied, the vaccines are unsafe, and Pfizer lied too!

This CDC job opening I just received says it all.

Steve Kirsch

Excerpts from this posting:

Jessica Rose said a supporter forwarded to her an interesting job opening at the CDC that she might be overqualified for. Jessica mentioned it to me and then I pointed out the hidden gem in the job posting below, so this article is now mentioned on her substack article as well.
The job posting Jessica got

Opportunity Details

Government Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Contract Type: T&M
Est. POP in Months: 24
Past Performance Required: 3
Incumbency: General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc.
Location of Work: VA
Security: N/A

Scope: The contractor shall provide support and technical assistance to CDC and FDA by supporting work in the following areas. The tasks below are not in order of priority. These tasks include:
1. Administrative
2. Report Receipt/Processing
3. VAERS Follow Up Activities and Enhanced Surveillance
4. Quality Control for VAERS Data
5. Information Management

Current VAERS plans, protocols, procedures, manuals, standard operating procedures (SOPs), software, some hardware, etc. may be provided by the Government for adoption/modification (i.e., the contractor would not have to develop all entirely new products, but would have the option of rolling over/adopting/modifying existing ones). Additionally, scanning reports for the image database, certain manual data entry tasks, and other processes clearly related to paper reports shall only apply to paper reports (i.e., electronic reports do not require scanning and manual data entry, but may require redaction).

The contractor shall implement a staffing and operations plan focusing only on vaccine adverse event (VAE) reports after COVID-19 vaccines to help process an estimated 770,000 digital reports per year. Periods of heavier and lighter reporting volume are anticipated throughout the year. Contractor is responsible for maintaining active monitoring and adjusting of the number of reports processed on an annual basis.

Why it matters

There are 3 important tacit admissions in this CDC job posting: SNIP
7 hr ago July 21, 2022

Summary

The CDC knows full well that:

they lied to the public,

the vaccines are unsafe, and

Pfizer committed clinical trial fraud.

The CDC lies, people die.

There is simply no other way to explain that job posting.

You will find links to all of the stories below at the following url.

https://childrenshealthdefense.salsalabs.org/7-21-22defender?wvpId=a64cbeac-eb3d-41f6-974e-52f8708741e3



Fauci, Top Biden Officials Subpoenaed in Lawsuit Alleging They Colluded With Social Media to Suppress Free Speech

‘Stunning’: 1 in 5,000 COVID Shots Caused ‘Serious Side Effects,’ German Health Officials Admit


WHO Issues ‘Urgent’ Call to Develop Vaccines, as CDC Blames Deaths From Antibiotic Resistance on COVID

Biden — Fully Vaccinated and Twice-Boosted — Tests Positive for COVID + More

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-...tm_source=push

The US President Finally Gets Covid

https://brownstone.org/wp-content/up...33-800x471.png

The US President Finally Gets Covid


The political hierarchy of infectious disease has finally come full circle. Biden got Covid.

Covid pandemic policies have always been driven by class bias. Right from the outset, governments divided people by essential and nonessential, and medical services by elective and nonelective. How all this came to be, and so suddenly, cries out for explanation. But the effect was undeniable.

By design, the working classes faced the pathogen first while the professional classes had the technological wherewithal and income stream to enable them to hide in their houses. They congratulated themselves for staying safe, daring to open their doors only to grab boxes of groceries dropped off by their lessers.

We don’t have to believe it was a plot. It’s just a class bias. Some people imagine themselves to be more valuable than others, more worthy of remaining clean. Under some epidemiological conditions, this strategy can work for the ruling classes. Let the workers and peasants bear the burden. Their immunity can drive endemicity while keeping their betters safe.

It’s a massive and egregious violation of the social contract, a habit decried in literature from the Bible to Edgar Allan Poe. But it happened nonetheless. It so happened, however, that this particular pathogen made up in prevalence what it lacked in severity. As the lockdowns prolonged the pandemic, the mutations began and the threshold for herd immunity rose ever higher.

At some point, it became obvious: everyone would get it. The stay-home-stay-safe crowd failed in their mission to foist the virus on everyone but themselves.

It took two years but it finally caught up to them. Even the masked. Even the vaccinated. Even the professional classes. Even the ruling classes. Even the president. And with the one little news release that he finally caught Covid, despite every precaution and being quadruple-jabbed, the hope that some could impose the bug on others completely collapsed.

But with that announcement, other myths came crumbling down. No, the vaccine would not protect against infection. No, the masks will not stop the germ. No, this is not a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” as the egregious slogan of last year would have it. None of it was true.

Despite trillions of spending, massive economic destruction, two years of lost education, the demolition of arts, the censorship of media, and the demonization of non-compliers, in the end, even the world’s most powerful man would get hit with Covid. The caste system failed.

Biden will also earn immunity, same as hundreds of millions of others. It’s the way pandemics like this end, not with tricks and lockdowns and jabs and closures but rather the same way it has always been: through exposure, recovery, and the remarkable capacity of the immune system to scale.

There is a proviso here, however: so long as the functioning of Biden’s immune system has not been degraded and disabled by four successive and identical shots.

The mistakes, the lies, the outrages of the policy response to this pandemic will go down in history as perhaps the greatest and largest public-health disaster in history. It’s somehow fitting that hardly anyone responsible has yet to admit it. On the contrary, people like Deborah Birx brag about what she did.

Whatever happened to the track-and-trace efforts of the CDC and every state government? Remember those days? They actually believed that you could hire tens of thousands of people to make phone calls to those who tested positive, find out the people with whom they interacted, and make a determination about the trajectory of the nasty thing. It was always delusional, truly.

It was all part of the fantasy that power was capable of mastering this bug. It never was and yet they kept trying. That was the whole point of the CDC’s rule that one should isolate until one tests negative. It’s preposterous. And yet that is the first point that the White House made when announcing that Biden finally got it. He is isolating. Why precisely? To keep from spreading the bug. We are still flattening the curve, one supposes, even after two and a half years.

But there’s more. A reporter asked the often-incoherent presidential spokesperson how the president picked up Covid. Karine Jean-Pierre said: “I don’t think that that matters.”

Oh really? It just doesn’t matter. That surely comes as news to many who were forced into isolation on mere exposure for the last two years. How many classroom hours have been missed? How much worker productivity lost? How much has privacy been compromised in the enforcement of this bogus “track-and-trace” system that we are now told doesn’t matter?

Oddly, on this point, she is right. It was all a delusion. And so much for the countless “studies” out there that pretended to trace Covid spread to “super-spreader” events, school, bars and restaurants, and motorcycle clubs. It was as preposterous as it was destructive.

Now we are told by the spokesperson that none of it matters.

And what about all the “precautions” he took?

“The fact that he contracted the virus despite all these precautions speaks to how contagious emerging variants are,” writes the Washington Post’s Leana Wen, “and how difficult, if not impossible, avoiding covid-19 has become.”

That has been true from day one.

Despite every mandate, closure, and imposition – despite the destruction of rights, liberties, and law – the virus would have its way. No class would be protected. No profession was immune. No amount of power or pomp would make a difference. Covid would come for everyone.

One might think this would be a moment for some humility on the part of people who destroyed all principles of public health – shattering the lives of billions – to conduct a global experiment in despotism. Sadly, no. It’s the opposite. Instead of humble pie, they are eating paxlovid.



Author

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

By Jeffrey A. Tucker July 21, 2022

____________________

Dachsie comment:
This is Deep State move on the chessboard. Nothing to do with "COVID". Biden is being set up and escorted out. At the same time they are pushing assumptions about "COVID".

https://jamesfetzer.org/wp-content/u...1-1024x588.jpg


Kevin Barrett, Sen. Ron Johnson Takes Aim at the Biggest COVID Scandals
July 21, 2022 James Fetzer blog
Kevin Barrett

https://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.i...organ-edwards/

embedded video of show with Dr. Barrett

also on Rumble here

https://rumble.com/v1cj8lt-ffwn-how-jewish-and-british-is-the-war-in-ukraine-with-lucy-morgan-edwards.html

1:02:16 video runtime

As soon as I finished the live broadcast of this week’s False Flag Weekly News (watch it above) my wife and I drove to a park in Verona, Wisconsin, where a dozen or so Republican candidates were speaking at a picnic organized by my friend and former campaign manager Rolf Lindgren. The headliner, Senator Ron Johnson, drew a standing ovation when he vowed to investigate the biggest COVID scandals.

https://jamesfetzer.org/wp-content/u...on-768x346.jpg

Johnson said he chose to run for re-election rather than retire for one overriding reason: to investigate COVID issues. If the Republicans take the Senate, Johnson said, he will chair the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That would put him in a position to compel testimony, subpoena documents, and generally make life uncomfortable for various categories of COVID malefactors.

One such category would be the people at Pfizer and Moderna who pushed through the experimental MRNA injections by mishandling their own data. The world “mishandling” here may be a euphemism for deliberate fraud.

It now seems likely that the COVID vaccines have contributed to steeply declining sperm counts, impaired fertility and declining birth rates, a skyrocketing rate of excess deaths that are not due to COVID, and (ironically) impaired long-term immune response to COVID itself. As many as 200,000 Americans may have been killed by experimental injections.

Meanwhile COVID vaccine efficacy has been shown to decline sharply after about six months, while each booster offers about half the protection period of the previous shot. In other words, the vaccine “works” (i.e. lowers the odds that you’ll die or be hospitalized from COVID) for about six months; the first booster adds another three months of protection; and the second booster tacks on a mere six weeks. After that, you may find yourself more susceptible to COVID, including severe COVID and its consequences, than you would have been had you foregone vaccination entirely.

If that’s “safe and effective,” I’d sure hate to see “unsafe and ineffective”!

Ron Johnson has proved himself the bravest man in the Senate, indeed in the whole US government, when it comes to investigating COVID vaccine issues. On November 2, 2021, Johnson hosted an expert panel of doctors, scientists, and people who have suffered vaccine injuries:

embedded video

also on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkVN3KwDfvI

34:01 video runtime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkVN3KwDfvI

Johnson said he chose to run for re-election rather than retire for one overriding reason: to investigate COVID issues. If the Republicans take the Senate, Johnson said, he will chair the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. That would put him in a position to compel testimony, subpoena documents, and generally make life uncomfortable for various categories of COVID malefactors.

One such category would be the people at Pfizer and Moderna who pushed through the experimental MRNA injections by mishandling their own data. The world “mishandling” here may be a euphemism for deliberate fraud.

It now seems likely that the COVID vaccines have contributed to steeply declining sperm counts, impaired fertility and declining birth rates, a skyrocketing rate of excess deaths that are not due to COVID, and (ironically) impaired long-term immune response to COVID itself. As many as 200,000 Americans may have been killed by experimental injections.

Meanwhile COVID vaccine efficacy has been shown to decline sharply after about six months, while each booster offers about half the protection period of the previous shot. In other words, the vaccine “works” (i.e. lowers the odds that you’ll die or be hospitalized from COVID) for about six months; the first booster adds another three months of protection; and the second booster tacks on a mere six weeks. After that, you may find yourself more susceptible to COVID, including severe COVID and its consequences, than you would have been had you foregone vaccination entirely.

If that’s “safe and effective,” I’d sure hate to see “unsafe and ineffective”!

Ron Johnson has proved himself the bravest man in the Senate, indeed in the whole US government, when it comes to investigating COVID vaccine issues. On November 2, 2021, Johnson hosted an expert panel of doctors, scientists, and people who have suffered vaccine injuries:

It appears " BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant" has been given the nickname "ninja". This has nothing to do with a new variant being discoverd. BA.5 has been around almost a month.

It is valuable to be aware of garbage reporting like this.

Vaccines and boosters forever for everyone- that's their game.

"BA.5, as they are also calling it, is said to be a “subvariant” of the “Omicron” variant, which is an anagram for the Moronic variant. Yes, they really expect people to believe that a Moronic Ninja will kill us all if we do not mask up again and get “boosted” repeatedly."

Natural News
___________________________

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ninja-cov...084832058.html

This New ‘Ninja’ COVID Variant Is the Most Dangerous One Yet

David Axe

July 8, 2022·6 min read

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/kY...ad94317996c79d

David Axe
July 8, 2022·6 min read
In this article:

Coronavirus
Coronavirus

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

The latest subvariant of the novel coronavirus to become dominant in Europe, the United States, and other places is also, in many ways, the worst so far.

The BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant appears to be more contagious than any previous form of the virus. It’s apparently better at dodging our antibodies, too—meaning it might be more likely to cause breakthrough and repeat infections.

Vaccines and boosters are still the best defense. There are even Omicron-specific booster jabs in development that, in coming months, could make the best vaccines more effective against BA.5 and its genetic cousins.

Still, BA.5’s ongoing romp across half the planet is a strong reminder that the COVID pandemic isn’t over. “We’re not done yet, by any stretch,” Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, wrote on his Substack.

High levels of at least partial immunity from vaccines and past infection continue to prevent the worst outcomes—mass hospitalization and death. But globally, raw case numbers are surging, with serious implications for potentially millions of people who face a growing risk of long-term illness.

How COVID Could Screw You Worse With Each Reinfection

Equally worrying, the latest wave of infections is giving the coronavirus the time and space it needs to mutate into even more dangerous variants and subvariants. “The development of variants now is a freight train,” Irwin Redlener, the founding director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Daily Beast.

In other words, unstoppable.

BA.5 first turned up in viral samples in South Africa in February. By May it was dominant in Europe and Israel, displacing earlier forms of the basic Omicron variant while also driving an increase in global daily COVID cases from around 477,000 a day in early June to 820,000 a day this week.

In late June, BA.5 became dominant in the United States. Cases haven’t increased yet—the daily average has hovered around 100,000 since May. But that could change in coming weeks as BA.5 continues to outcompete less transmissible subvariants.

Topol offered a concise explanation for BA.5’s ascendancy. Where the mutations that produced many earlier variants mostly affected the spike protein—the part of the virus that helps it to grab onto and infect our cells—BA.5 has mutations across its structure. “BA.5 is quite distinct and very fit, representing marked difference from all prior variants,” Topol wrote.

BA.5’s widespread mutations made the subvariant less recognizable to all those antibodies we’ve built up from vaccines, boosters and past infection. BA.5 has been able to slip past our immune systems, ninja-style, contributing to the rising rate of breakthrough cases and reinfections.

This comes as no surprise to epidemiologists who’ve warned for many months now that persistently high case-rates—which they largely attribute in part to a stubborn anti-vax minority in many countries—would facilitate ever more infectious and evasive variants and subvariant. The more infections, the more chances for significant mutations.

In that sense, BA5 might be a preview of the months and years to come. A year ago, we had a chance to block SARS-CoV-2’s main transmission vectors through vaccines and social distancing.

But we didn’t. Restrictions on businesses, schools and crowds have become politically toxic all over the world. Vaccination rates remained stubbornly low, even in many countries with easy access to jabs. In the U.S., for example, the percentage of fully vaccinated has stalled at around 67 percent.

The Massive Screwup That Could Let COVID Bypass Our Vaccines

So COVID lingers, 31 months after the first case was diagnosed in Wuhan, China. The longer the virus circulates, the more variants it produces. BA.5 is the all but inevitable result of that tragic dynamic.

The situation isn’t entirely hopeless. Yes, BA.5 seems to reduce the effectiveness of the best messenger-RNA vaccines. Vaccine-maker Moderna published data indicating that a booster shot it’s developing specifically for Omicron and its offspring works only a third as well against BA.5 compared to earlier subvariants.

But vaccines, boosters and past infection still offer meaningful, if reduced, protection against BA.5. “Even a boost of the original genome, or a recent infection, will [produce] some cross-protective antibodies to lessen the severity of a new Omicron subvariant infection,” Eric Bortz, a University of Alaska-Anchorage virologist and public-health expert, told The Daily Beast.

The more additional jabs you get on top of your prime course, the better protected you are. Arguably the best protection results from two prime jabs of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna plus a couple boosters. “Get your damn fourth shot!” Redlener said.

The problem, in the United States, is that only people 50 years old or older or with certain immune disorders qualify for a second booster. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration won’t say whether, or when, it might authorize second boosters for younger people. “I have nothing to share at this time,” an FDA spokesperson told The Daily Beast when asked about boosters for under-50s.

David Axe
July 8, 2022·6 min read
In this article:

Coronavirus
Coronavirus

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

The latest subvariant of the novel coronavirus to become dominant in Europe, the United States, and other places is also, in many ways, the worst so far.

The BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant appears to be more contagious than any previous form of the virus. It’s apparently better at dodging our antibodies, too—meaning it might be more likely to cause breakthrough and repeat infections.

Vaccines and boosters are still the best defense. There are even Omicron-specific booster jabs in development that, in coming months, could make the best vaccines more effective against BA.5 and its genetic cousins.

Still, BA.5’s ongoing romp across half the planet is a strong reminder that the COVID pandemic isn’t over. “We’re not done yet, by any stretch,” Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, wrote on his Substack.

High levels of at least partial immunity from vaccines and past infection continue to prevent the worst outcomes—mass hospitalization and death. But globally, raw case numbers are surging, with serious implications for potentially millions of people who face a growing risk of long-term illness.

How COVID Could Screw You Worse With Each Reinfection

Equally worrying, the latest wave of infections is giving the coronavirus the time and space it needs to mutate into even more dangerous variants and subvariants. “The development of variants now is a freight train,” Irwin Redlener, the founding director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Daily Beast.

In other words, unstoppable.

BA.5 first turned up in viral samples in South Africa in February. By May it was dominant in Europe and Israel, displacing earlier forms of the basic Omicron variant while also driving an increase in global daily COVID cases from around 477,000 a day in early June to 820,000 a day this week.

In late June, BA.5 became dominant in the United States. Cases haven’t increased yet—the daily average has hovered around 100,000 since May. But that could change in coming weeks as BA.5 continues to outcompete less transmissible subvariants.

Topol offered a concise explanation for BA.5’s ascendancy. Where the mutations that produced many earlier variants mostly affected the spike protein—the part of the virus that helps it to grab onto and infect our cells—BA.5 has mutations across its structure. “BA.5 is quite distinct and very fit, representing marked difference from all prior variants,” Topol wrote.

BA.5’s widespread mutations made the subvariant less recognizable to all those antibodies we’ve built up from vaccines, boosters and past infection. BA.5 has been able to slip past our immune systems, ninja-style, contributing to the rising rate of breakthrough cases and reinfections.

This comes as no surprise to epidemiologists who’ve warned for many months now that persistently high case-rates—which they largely attribute in part to a stubborn anti-vax minority in many countries—would facilitate ever more infectious and evasive variants and subvariant. The more infections, the more chances for significant mutations.
<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>A young child receives a Moderna COVID-19 vaccination at Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, Massachusetts, on June 21, 2022.</p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty</div>

A young child receives a Moderna COVID-19 vaccination at Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, Massachusetts, on June 21, 2022.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty

In that sense, BA5 might be a preview of the months and years to come. A year ago, we had a chance to block SARS-CoV-2’s main transmission vectors through vaccines and social distancing.

But we didn’t. Restrictions on businesses, schools and crowds have become politically toxic all over the world. Vaccination rates remained stubbornly low, even in many countries with easy access to jabs. In the U.S., for example, the percentage of fully vaccinated has stalled at around 67 percent.

The Massive Screwup That Could Let COVID Bypass Our Vaccines

So COVID lingers, 31 months after the first case was diagnosed in Wuhan, China. The longer the virus circulates, the more variants it produces. BA.5 is the all but inevitable result of that tragic dynamic.

The situation isn’t entirely hopeless. Yes, BA.5 seems to reduce the effectiveness of the best messenger-RNA vaccines. Vaccine-maker Moderna published data indicating that a booster shot it’s developing specifically for Omicron and its offspring works only a third as well against BA.5 compared to earlier subvariants.

But vaccines, boosters and past infection still offer meaningful, if reduced, protection against BA.5. “Even a boost of the original genome, or a recent infection, will [produce] some cross-protective antibodies to lessen the severity of a new Omicron subvariant infection,” Eric Bortz, a University of Alaska-Anchorage virologist and public-health expert, told The Daily Beast.

The more additional jabs you get on top of your prime course, the better protected you are. Arguably the best protection results from two prime jabs of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna plus a couple boosters. “Get your damn fourth shot!” Redlener said.

The problem, in the United States, is that only people 50 years old or older or with certain immune disorders qualify for a second booster. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration won’t say whether, or when, it might authorize second boosters for younger people. “I have nothing to share at this time,” an FDA spokesperson told The Daily Beast when asked about boosters for under-50s.
<div class="inline-image__caption"><p>A girl gets a COVID-19 test at a testing station on July 7, 2022, in Shanghai, China.</p></div> <div class="inline-image__credit">Hugo Hu/Getty</div>

A girl gets a COVID-19 test at a testing station on July 7, 2022, in Shanghai, China.
Hugo Hu/Getty

It’s an obvious bureaucratic screw-up. As many as a million booster doses are about to expire in the U.S., all for a want of takers. “A profound waste, which should be made available to all people, age under-50 who seek added protection,” Topol wrote.

To be fair, Pfizer and Moderna are both working on new boosters that they’ve tailored specifically for Omicron subvariants. On June 30, an FDA advisory board endorsed these variant-specific boosters. The FDA announced it might approve them for emergency use for some Americans as early as this fall.

But there’s a risk these jabs will show up too late, especially if they’re highly optimized for just one recent subvariant and thus ineffective against future subvariants. “Variant-chasing is a flawed approach,” Topol wrote. “By the time a BA.5 vaccine booster is potentially available, who knows what will be the predominant strain?”

Fortunately, there are fallbacks. Masks and voluntary social-distancing, of course. Post-infection therapies including the antiviral drug paxlovid also help. “This is not a time to abandon non-pharmaceutical intervention,” Redlener stressed.

But voluntary mask-wearing and paxlovid are bandaids on a festering global wound. The surge in BA.5 infections creates the conditions for the next major subvariant—BA.6, if you will. It might be even worse.

It’s looking more and more likely that COVID will be with us, well, forever. “COVID is becoming like the flu,” Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington Institute for Health, told The Daily Beast.

That is, endemic. An ever-present threat to public health. The big difference, of course, is that COVID is much more dangerous than today’s flu. And it keeps mutating in ways that make it even worse.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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"It’s looking more and more likely that COVID will be with us, well, forever."

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