Here’s the latest news from the United Kingdom, with the Prime Minister announcing updates to the nation’s COVID-19 plan. There are 3 things to focus on:
1.England has scrapped plans for vaccine passports
In the middle of summer, plans were initiated for vaccine passports to enter indoor venues including nightclubs and other crowded arenas. A current negative COVID test would not suffice (even though thinking logically, this would be much better than a vaccine passport for reducing spread). I spoke about this issue a couple of months ago, and my own concerns including both from a civil liberties perspective in a free country, but also how it wouldn’t necessarily even achieve the health goals in mind. I am personally glad to see England shelve this plan (for now).
2.Proceeding with a vaccination program in children 12-15
There has been intense debate about this in the UK over the last few months, and I recently also spoke about how the government expert advisory committee, the JCVI, said that it couldn’t recommend a widespread vaccination program to healthy children based on health benefits alone. The Chief Medical Officers of the United Kingdom and government ministers, have now overruled that decision—and decided to proceed with a one dose strategy only in children. I know this is causing a lot of discussion in the UK, and many British doctors I’ve seen have differing views on this. Every European country appears to have its own approach, France was one of the first countries to start vaccinating children, Sweden is still not recommending it. In the UK, it appears one of the reasons cited with proceeding was concern over “educational disruption”. One caveat though that is very different from the USA’s all-or-nothing approach, is that the UK is only proceeding with a single-dose strategy for under 18s. As a physician who is all about acknowledging nuances in medicine, and modifying strategies when necessary, I applaud the UK taking its time here. My understanding too is that this will not be mandated in the UK, and will be a choice for every family.
3.Boosters for the vulnerable
The UK will be rolling out a booster program, focusing on the most vulnerable first. The necessity of boosters in younger healthier people is also currently being debated in the US, and we have yet to see solid evidence yet of whether it will truly improve outcomes. My thought though on the vulnerable, and I’ve been having some of these discussions over the last couple of weeks, and also talking to some elderly family members and contacts even in the UK—I know winters can be harsh, people are driven indoors, and that’s when respiratory viruses love spreading. Vulnerable people who I have spoken to who took their COVID jabs in December and early this year, and have been fine with it— I have said it’s probably wise to consider a booster shot before the winter sets in, to give a compromised immune system any boost you can give it.
Some very interesting developments then from the UK, and also interesting to see how different thought processes are on different sides of the Atlantic.
Suneel Dhand is a physician, writer, and YouTuber. He is Founder at MedStoic Lifestyle Medicine and DocsDox . Follow him on YouTube and Facebook.
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Anne-marie
Thank you for your presentations of these studies on immunity.
Could you update us on the availability of the novavax vaccine? Is it available in the US yet?
Do you have a test you recommend for someone that wants to check their immunity? We had Covid in November 2020 and are trying to figure out if we need the vaccine.
Thank you again for sharing your expertise.
The problem with current vaccines is that they all are using the Spike protein as an antigen, which is precisely the part of the virus that attaches to receptors in human cells and can cause many unknown effect. Putting into your body something that attaches to a receptor in human cells is a bad thing to do in general (unless you want it to happen for some medical condition and you design a drug to block that receptor). But it’s even worse knowing the danger of the spike protein itself:
The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein subunit S1 induces COVID-19-like acute lung injury in Κ18-hACE2 transgenic mice and barrier dysfunction in human endothelial cells. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajplung.00223.2021
Gene changes caused by Spike protein could explain long COVID. https://www.drugtargetreview.com/news/90224/gene-changes-caused-by-spike-protein-could-explain-long-covid/
SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro. https://doi.org/10.3390/v13102056
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces abnormal inflammatory blood clots neutralized by fibrin immunotherapy (preprint). https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.12.464152
I’d rather see trials with vaccines based on other subunits as the antigen. Like this experimental one:
Replicating bacterium-vectored vaccine expressing SARS-CoV-2 Membrane and Nucleocapsid proteins protects against severe COVID-19-like disease in hamsters. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-021-00321-8