With the Delta variant dominant, much of America is now under siege. TrialSite has pointed out that each of the top ten most vaccinated states all experience surges, dispelling the propaganda promulgated by the Biden Administration that this is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Just like in heavily vaccinated Israel, the pandemic rages on with a growing number of breakthrough infections and hospitalizations due to what TrialSite increasingly suspects is a subpar Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine combined with a strong virulent variant. BNT162b2 was approved in an unorthodox manner under the PREP Act’s severe controls and liability shield. Studies indicate it wanes in effectiveness from above 90% to less than 42% and even under 40% within four or five months concerning the Delta variant. Moderna’s vaccine, according to some of the data, performs at a higher level. Regardless, with an approved vaccine and imminent mandates across society, Pfizer stands to generate about $33 billion in one year for one product—an unprecedented sales figure that shatters all records. With a vaccine-centric, complete eradication policy in place—backed by the PREP-Act—the federal government, as directed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), believes the vaccination program is working. Now mandates will force ever more vaccines, which according to the eradication theory, helps move toward the goal of eradication—yet is this approach really working?
That’s the real question—is the vaccine-centric strategy of vaccinating a live coronavirus out of existence working? Well, answering this question is as politically loaded nowadays as one premised on a scientific discussion. Some argue in this TrialSite OpEd that the exact opposite problem is occurring, that mass vaccination is allowing variants to thrive. We can’t say for sure. However, we agree pandemics are not static but dynamic, and already Dr. Anthony Fauci has been on record that at some points, the current crop of vaccines, let’s say version 1.0, will live out their usefulness. But at what cost?
While daily new infections rise above 160,000 a day, Fauci still classifies the country as being in “pandemic mode,” although the endgame is to vaccinate until viral suppression is achieved. But has this approach ever been attempted before, with a novel vaccine and a new, dynamic, and unfolding virus? The answer is no; the reality is that the federal government imposed the PREP Act to contain the U.S. population in what can be considered a giant experiment to overcome the pandemic.
So Fauci believes until the numbers go “well below 10,000,” there is no comfort, and more than likely, the American public will be locked up and contained in what could be a top-down, federally imposed research program.
POTUS to Focus on Vaccine Eradication in Updated Plan
As reported by Thomson Reuters Foundation, POTUS plans an imminent update to the strategy in a bid to control the pandemic. With a focus on six areas, more vaccine mandates (some seemingly draconian) are on the table as POTUS cannot afford this contagion to continue into the end of the year or 2022. With troubling economic signs, the economy could go into a complete tailspin.
Hence, the importance of the eradication through vaccination approach and other controls that are politically acceptable in American society at this pandemic stage.
Key focus areas include increased testing, mask-wearing, protecting the economy, and improving healthcare for people infected with the disease.
TrialSite suspects some good things can come out of the POTUS strategic upgrade, assuming there is a recognition that brute force eradication through vaccination is probably not the answer.
Why No Lockdowns?
That’s ideally what some public health and health and human services leadership would like to see to stop the viral spread of the pathogen. But such measures would probably not be politically feasible at this point, as they are in places like Australia.
For example, as mentioned above, the American economy is in trouble, with inflammation and low job growth. And with the recent debacle in Afghanistan (still apparently hundreds of Americans and green card holders left behind), POTUS needs to set some positive direction well in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. So even if Biden believed lockdowns in areas with high infectious clusters made sense, he doesn’t have the political capital to make that call. He would undoubtedly lose the 2024 election, and 2022 would be, and still probably will be, problematic for the party currently in charge.
Does Mass vaccination contribute to variants?
We cannot be certain one way or another. In a way, Fauci has already acknowledged this by recognizing that the current batch of V1.0 vaccines might become useless at some point. None of the vaccines are designed with the Delta variant in mind, yet the operating assumption is that they work. However, the Biden Administration went on a limb declaring greenlight on a booster program, much like Israel, despite the fact the FDA hadn’t even completed reviewing study data. As a consequence, two prominent vaccine regulators at the Gold Standard agency resigned.
The COVID-19 viruses are not alive but rather need us—their host—to survive, much like the cells in our body. However, once the pathogen enters our body, they reproduce and propagate themselves. The more the pathogen can disseminate within a set population of people, the more it can morph—some at a fast rate, some not so fast. While some viruses morph at a fast rate of change, such as the flu, others are slow, which, thankfully, SARS-CoV-2 could fall under.
Now, given the current vaccines do not stop transmission—the NIH and CDC have acknowledged this—that implies that even when people are vaccinated, they can still become infected and spread the virus, serving as vectors. So theoretically, if every conceivable being were to be vaccinated on the planet, there could still be transmission, thus mutation and new variants.
Moreover, given that the developed world has used up 80% of the vaccine supply and the WHO calls for a halt of booster programs to let the low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) catch up, the holes in the current paradigm of pandemic control are becoming quite apparent to anyone that bothers to review unfolding data critically.
However, the vaccine has helped reduce the rate of serious infection and death in some countries—but not all—so there are most certainly benefits for having next-generation vaccines.
But, unfortunately, the entire experiment unfolding isn’t going in the direction contemplated. TrialSite’s been on the record since the earlier days of the pandemic that a combination of safe and effective vaccines, early care options accessible for all socioeconomic levels, and intelligent public health management at the local level would have the most impact to support a coexistence strategy until this horrible pathogen runs its course.
0 Comments