The names of the COVID-19 variants are getting longer. The current version is omicron-XBB.1.5, and it is credited with a spike in hospitalizations during late December in New York City that is now moving throughout the Northeast. Coincidentally, this is the country’s most highly vaccinated and boosted region.
According to an analysis by Eric Topol, executive vice president of the Research Department of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Institute, XBB.1.5 has mutations that lead to immune escape and possesses a distinct growth advantage against the previous dominant omicron variant, BQ.1. More great news includes a study published in Cell that shows all of the currently available monoclonal antibodies, including Evusheld, are rendered useless by the BQ and XBB lineages. Evusheld was used in immunocompromised patients to prevent infection.
The paper also notes that researchers have no idea why the new variants skirt the current immune response:
Lastly, we found that the spikes of BQ and XBB subvariants have similar binding affinities to hACE2 as the spikes of their predecessors (Figure 5), suggesting that the recently observed growth advantage for these novel subvariants is likely due to some other factors. Foremost may be their extreme antibody evasion properties, especially considering the extensive herd immunity built up in the population over the last three years from infections and vaccinations.
The pandemic response is not going well. Three years in, we still have a rapidly evolving virus that defeats everything we throw at it. There is also an increasing body of research indicating that repeated mRNA vaccines may not help and could even hurt. A recent Wall Street Journal article posits that vaccines may be causing continued variant development.
Related: Could the COVID Jab Make You Sicker Next Time You Run Into the Virus? New Research Says Maybe.
For many of us, these are headlines from 2021, when dissident doctors like Dr. Peter McCullough warned about the dangers of vaccinating into a wave of the illness. In a presentation to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons in October 2021, he said, “By pushing mass vaccination, governments have created evolutionary pressures on SARS-CoV-2, and people warned us about this. Gia Vanderburgh, Michael Yeadon, Dr. Luke Montie, they warned us about this. “Don’t do this, don’t vaccinate into a pandemic, because we have a high prevalence of virus.”
The fear at that time was that continued vaccination could create more deadly variants. To date, that has not happened. Mass vaccination may contribute to new variant formation, but patients over 70 still drive hospitalizations, and deaths are not rising exponentially with hospitalizations. Some say we’ve been lucky, and the risk is not gone.
And a new finding about Merck’s antiviral molnupiravir may add to concerns about more virulent variants all over again. Molnupiravir impairs the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to replicate. It accomplishes this by forcing mutations throughout the virus’s genome. You read that correctly — the drug to cure COVID forces COVID to mutate.
Theoretically, in healthy people, this should not be a problem. Their immune system clears the damaged cells and viruses through phagocytic functions. These occur when cells like macrophages ingest the impaired cell or foreign substance and destroy it. However, a new preprint study shows that in patients with compromised immune systems, like the elderly and chronically ill, mutated cells can persist and continue to change:
Within days of treatment [with Molnupiravir], we detected a large number of low-frequency 20 mutations in patients and that these new mutations could persist and, in some cases, were 21 fixed in the virus population. All patients treated with the drug accrued new mutations in the 22 spike protein of the virus, including non-synonymous mutations that altered the amino acid 23 sequence. Our study demonstrates that this commonly used antiviral can ‘supercharge’ viral 24 evolution in immunocompromised patients, potentially generating new variants and 25 prolonging the pandemic.
It certainly seems like this is an open question that needs to be answered quickly. Especially since a large randomized study in the U.K. found that the drug did not reduce hospitalizations or deaths among high-risk vaccinated adults who contracted COVID. The failure to produce clinical benefits and the suspicion that molnupiravir can create variants are arguments that the FDA should yank the emergency use authorization (EUA) today.
Related: An Astonishing Percentage of Americans Blame COVID-19 Vaccines for Unexplained Deaths
The drug’s failure also creates a hole in outpatient treatment for high-risk patients. The other option, Pfizer’s Paxlovid, has 236 major interactions with commonly prescribed drugs and 359 minor ones. It may also cause severe side effects in people with high cholesterol, diabetes, kidney disease, and conductive heart disorders. These are significant barriers to prescribing in high-risk patients who often take multiple prescriptions and are more likely to suffer from chronic illness.
It is time for the “experts” to start listening to the dissident doctors and take their proposals for repurposed, multi-drug therapy seriously. At this point, almost every American knows numerous people who took all of the recommended vaccines. They also know someone who used telemed to get generic medications like ivermectin or steroids to treat their symptoms. It is time to admit the former group is no better off than the latter and try a new approach.
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