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“I have a dream … that epidemiologists would no longer voice their opinions on C- 19 mass vaccination …” – Geert Vanden Bossche

One of the more hilarious articles on herd immunity and vaccination I’ve encountered has, once again, been written by an epidemiologist: ‘Herd immunity was sold as the path out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s why we’re not talking about it anymore’, ABC, 3 June 2022

By Geert Vanden Bossche

This gentleman [from ABC] is poking fun at people who “were attached to the now-discredited notion of letting a dangerous virus rip through the population to reach the critical level of population immunity needed to reduce transmission.” It’s ironic that this epidemiologist dares to make such a statement as it quickly becomes crystal clear from his illiterate talk that he doesn’t even understand what herd immunity is all about.

In the case of acute, self-limiting viral infections that have the potential to spread asymptomatically (e.g., SARS-CoV-2), there is no immune mechanism other than sterlising immunity that could lead to the “possible elimination or eradication” of SARS-CoV-2 that this windbag is alluding to. As none of the C-19 vaccines (including those that are in the pipeline) are capable of inducing sterilising immunity, and as SARS-CoV-2 can spread asymptomatically, his idea that “when available and taken up at sufficient levels — [vaccines] could squash virus transmission” is completely nonsensical to begin with.

He then goes further to make a mistake so egregious that it deeply perplexes me: he links an increased vaccination rate to a higher level of herd immunity (“HI”) and to a lower susceptibility of the population to infection! Here is the analogy he uses (quite literally) to describe how herd immunity works:

“In fact, much like a bushfire goes out when it runs out of fuel to burn, an epidemic begins to decline when the virus runs out of susceptible people to infect.” 

He obviously is fully unaware of the real science that provides compelling evidence that vaccinees are not less, but more susceptible to infection! Unfortunately, even that information would be unlikely to help him understand the interactions between population-level immune pressure and the evolutionary dynamics of the virus. He believes that less effective vaccines (which, I assume, to him includes vaccines that, although protective against severe disease, enhance the susceptibility of vaccinees to infection) simply require more people to get vaccinated to achieve HI:

“In short, the more infectious the virus and the less effective the vaccine, the more people you need to vaccinate to achieve herd immunity” or: “the greater the proportion of the population vaccinated, the more difficult it becomes for the virus to spread.”

According to the author, it doesn’t matter that HI is out of reach—we can compensate for the low level of HI by “other behavioural and environmental measures”! How shallow can one’s understanding of this virus-host immune ecosystem be to not even grasp that diminished transmission does not always equal diminished transmissibility of the virus (or, for that matter, diminished susceptibility of the population or enhanced HI, all of which are synonymous)?

Diminished viral transmission only equals enhanced HI in the case intervention directed at diminishing viral transmission does not result in enhanced viral transmissibility! Especially with the advent of Omicron, C-19 vaccination has led to the expansion of the part of the population that is endowed with infection-enhancing antibodies (i.e., non-neutralising antibodies), which are now increasing the susceptibility of the vaccinees (but not of the unvaccinated) to infection and (mild to moderate) disease. How on earth could one even envisage, let alone propose, that this shortcoming (i.e., lack of HI) could be made up for by “other behavioural and environmental measures (such as physical distancing, wearing masks and improving ventilation)”?

Again, current vaccines that reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinees are not reducing viral transmissibility at the population level! This is because the dominant propagation of more infectious variants (a direct consequence of mass vaccination!) combined with the enhanced susceptibility of vaccinees to infection with these very same variants increases viral infection and (mild to moderate) disease rates largely beyond what can be compensated for by diminished viral transmission in vaccinees, even if combined with other behavioural and environmental measures. 

In other words, reducing viral shedding (amongst vaccinees) is completely futile if this implies enhanced susceptibility of this part of the population to the dominantly circulating variant. This is analogous to continuously ridding your bedroom of dust in a way that increasingly accumulates only the part of dust that you’ve become most allergic to. Will that cleaning operation make you less susceptible to an allergic reaction? No, it won’t— on the contrary, you will now be exclusively exposed to the type of dust you’re becoming increasingly allergic to!

The epidemiologist goes on to state that “based on what we know about currently circulating viral variants, today, herd immunity via vaccination is mathematically impossible.” Clearly, relying on vaccination to achieve HI during a pandemic has nothing to do with mathematics—it has only to do with understanding that ‘leaky’, ‘imperfect’ vaccines are inevitably doing exactly the opposite of what HI does in that they increase (instead of decrease) the proportion of people that become susceptible to infection. Mass C-19 vaccination, therefore, leads to enhanced herd susceptibility, not to herd immunity.

So why is it that epidemiologists who haven’t a clue about immunology or immune selection pressure engage in Op-eds on mass vaccination and herd immunity? They do not realise that mass vaccination throughout this pandemic has led to a disconnect between viral transmission and viral transmissibility to the same extent as viral infection rates have been disconnected from viral morbidity rates. Because of this, their contributions should be profoundly discredited. It is disgusting that their lack of insight into this complex ecosystem does not deter them from encouraging the broader public to hold on to the dangerous mantra that ‘more vaccination will help to control the C-19 pandemic while protecting the population from severe disease’.

According to the uninformed viewpoint from this associate professor, this primary purpose of Covid vaccination will be achieved by continuing mass vaccination campaigns in combination with other behavioural and environmental measures. Little does he know that mass vaccination cannot reduce viral transmission without eventually increasing viral transmissibility, and little does he understand that mass vaccination will not reduce viral disease without eventually increasing viral virulence.

It will only be when people like him and others illiterate in these matters discover (unfortunately, ‘the hard way’) the disastrous consequences of their ill-fated advice on future morbidity and mortality rates that they may begin to realise the level of their incompetence and stupidity.

In summary, I am rephrasing his concluding remarks as follows (I changed the part in bold):

“Right now, at the start of winter and with few COVID restrictions, it has never been more important to ensure you …… stay away from the vaccines.

About the Author

After a career in academia, Geert Vanden Bossche worked for several vaccine companies in various roles in vaccine research and development.  He then worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI and the German Centre for Infection Research in Cologne.  He is now an independent vaccine research consultant.

From early on, Vanden Bossche has been warning about the dangers of the use of mass vaccination during a pandemic.  His concern is an immune escape which can briefly be described as worldwide vaccination programmes of this type force the virus to mutate in an aggressive direction, i.e., to become more virulent and dangerous.

In March 2021 he published an open letter urging international health authorities to stop the current Covid injections or else risk unleashing “a global catastrophe without equal.”  In December 2021 he made a second call to WHO.

You can read other articles by Vanden Bossche on his Substack HERE or on his website HERE.