Leaky vaccines, perfect vaccines and superbugs

First of all, I’d love nothing more than to be wrong, so if you can debunk my thinking on this subject, please do.

I’m going to make the case that what we’re currently doing as a global society to mitigate the harm of Covid-19 pandemic is basically pushing us towards the very thing we’re trying to prevent: a truly deadly global pandemic. So let’s start with a couple of concepts: Selection pressure, perfect vaccines and leaky vaccines.

Selection pressure essentially means that the inputs we apply to the environment of the virus will guide the evolutionary direction of that pathogen. There are new strains popping up around the world already, and it’s only logical to expect this to continue. Perfect vaccines are the types of vaccines that create a “perfect” natural immunity, same as having the virus infection. Many of the vaccines we’re customed to such as smallpox, polio, mumps, rubella and measles vaccines are perfect vaccines. Leaky vaccines refer to vaccines that don’t completely eliminate the virus but rather mitigate the symptoms and thus allow you to transmit the virus on. Now, let’s look at the current line-up of Covid-19 vaccines on the market. They are all leaky vaccines. None of them completely eliminate symptoms nor completely block transmit.

These less-than-perfect vaccines create a “leaky” barrier against the virus. Vaccinated individuals may get sick but have less severe symptoms, but the virus survives long enough to transmit to others, which allows it to survive and spread throughout a population. Our research demonstrates that the use of leaky vaccines can promote the evolution of nastier ‘hot’ viral strains that put unvaccinated individuals at greater risk.

Venugopal Nair, the head of the Avian Viral Diseases program at The Pirbright Institute. (Full article: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/leaky-vaccines-can-produce-stronger-versions-of-viruses-072715#What-We-Learned-from-Chickens )

There seems to be a misguided global consensus on the topic of Covid-19 vaccine: People act as if we have perfect vaccines, and push for political agendas that would perhaps make sense if that was the case. For example, forcefully vaccinating the entire public, or requiring a vaccine passport to travel, whilst draconian, at least are based on a logical idea that we can eliminate the pathogen if we vaccinate everybody. But, with leaky vaccines that same approach can lead to completely opposite direction. By vaccinating people that would have had no problem clearing Covid-19 infection (such as healthy young adults and children) we’re creating tremendous selection pressure for more virulent and more deadly strains of the virus. The opposite is also true: The more the virus runs through an unvaccinated population, the more selection pressure there is towards a milder iteration of the bug, such as what happened with the Spanish Flu.

What should we do then?

I’m not arguing we shouldn’t vaccinate the elderly or other people at high risk for complications. We definitely should. But we should also absolutely stop there. Any vaccine on the market today already protects the person who got the jab. There is no additional protection inferred from vaccinating people around them.

The nightmare scenario goes as follows: We vaccine the majority of the global population with leaky vaccines and keep re-vaccinating them on yearly basis when new strains arise and end up summoning a version of Covid-19 that not only never goes away, but becomes deadlier with every iteration. Right now the disease is basically harmless for kids but it’s not a stretch to imagine this changing. Medical innovation might still keep people alive in the face of this new deadly virus, but is this a rat race we really want to be on?

First, do no harm

Primum non nocere, first do no harm, is what every medical professional is taught. Hopefully one day we’ll have a safe, properly tested perfect vaccine for Covid-19. The ethical case for any individual getting that vaccine as soon as it’s out on the market is strong. But before that day comes, any healthy person should really consider the implications of their decisions today. Is marginally mitigating your own personal risk more important than putting billions of people at risk in the form of a superbug our own making?

And if instead of some guy on the Internet you’d rather take your pandemic advice from medical professionals, maybe start with The Great Barrington Declaration.