Thread by @CartelSingh

Why the ongoing mass vaccination experiment drives a rapid evolutionary response of SARS-CoV-2 geertvandenbossche.org/post/why-the-o…

Summary of the Article by a Vaccine Researcher @GVDBossche

As Sars-CoV-2 entered a highly susceptible human population, it has initially been spreading rapidly and in an uncontrollable way.

This already explains why Sars-CoV-2 has been evolving rather slowly with no substantial selection of fitness-enhancing mutations occurring over the first 10 months of the pandemic (i.e., between December 2019 and October 2020).

More infectious ‘variants of concern’ (VoCs, i.e., alpha [B.1.1.7], beta [B.1.351], gamma [P.1]) started to appear as of late 2020 and led to a steep increase in cases worldwide.

Molecular epidemiologists have observed that mutations within the Sars-CoV-2 spike (S) protein of these emerging, more infectious lineages are converging to the same genetic sites,

a phenomenon that coincided with a major evolutionary shift in the landscape of naturally selected Sars-CoV-2 mutations.

Significant convergent evolution(*) of more infectious circulating Sars-CoV-2 variants is not a neutral, host-independent evolutionary phenomenon that merely results from increased viral replication and transmission but is strongly suggestive of natural selection

and adaptation following a dramatic shift in the host(ile) environment the virus is exposed to.

Molecular epidemiologists fully acknowledge that the pandemic is currently evolving Sars-CoV-2 variants that “could be a considerably bigger problem for us than any variants that we currently know in that they might have any combinations of increased transmissibility,

altered virulence and/or increased capacity to escape population immunity”

This is to say that phylogenetics-based natural selection analysis on circulating Sars-CoV-2 lineages strongly suggests that viral variants resistant to spike (S)-based Covid-19 vaccines are currently expanding in prevalence and highly suspicious of causing future epidemic surges

Deployment of current Covid-19 vaccines in mass vaccination campaigns combined with the ongoing widespread circulation of Sars-CoV-2 can only increase immune selective pressure on Sars-CoV-2 spike protein and hence,

further drive its adaptive evolution to circumvent vaccine-induced humoral immunity.

In this regard, the expectation of an increasing number of vaccinologists matches the current observation made by genomic epidemiologists in that S protein-directed immune escape variants are highly likely to further spread and expedite the occurrence of viral resistance

to the currently deployed and future (so-called ‘2nd generation’) Covid-19 vaccines

To monitor the circulation of hazardous viral variants in the population and to be able to provide unequivocal proof of the immune selection pressure exerted by mass vaccination campaigns and the harmful consequences thereof,

there is an urgent need for conducting representative viral sampling on vaccinees, including those who are healthy or only subject to mild disease, and to genetically characterize the variants they shed upon exposure to Sars-CoV-2.

Conducting a mass vaccination experiment at a global scale without understanding the mechanisms underlying viral escape from vaccine-mediated selection pressure is not only a colossal scientific blunder but

, first and foremost, completely irresponsible from the perspective of individual and public health ethics.

Specially when the Vaccines are a leaky ones like mRNAs or Adenovirals putting Human Immune system on ultimate Antigenic Sin of Spike Protein will only push for more viral mutations. Thus world needs to adopt a better safer approach of Inactivated Virion Vaccines for immunisation

For Eg.

Upon re-vaccination with updated S- targeting vaccines (so-called ‘second generation’ vaccines), previously vaccinated people will rapidly recall their original vaccinal Abs

while those who are waiting for their updated vaccine shot may do so as a result from natural exposure (as the virus will, indeed, still be circulating, primarily among asymptomatically infected vaccinees). In immunology, this phenomenon is known as ‘antigenic sin’.

Consequently, a high level of S- directed immune selection pressure will be maintained within the vaccinated population, thereby promoting further expansion of viral variants and accelerating the speed at which variants will evolve a repertoire

of additional immune escape mutations that is sufficient to eventually enable full resistance to the updated vaccine as well.

In this context, it is also important to note that one single additional mutation could suffice to abolish the enhanced neutralization capacity of the updated vaccine by virtue of epistatic interaction between the additional mutation and

multiple previously established adaptive mutations targeted by vaccinal nAbs.

In addition, molecular epidemiologists are increasingly worried about a potential expansion of recombination-generated combinations of immune escape mutations as those could occur during co-infections with different variants and generate even

more problematic variants of concern that will better match the evolving fitness landscape of the continuing pandemic.

How to get out of this Endless Loop of Vaccines & Variants:

> Use Inactivated virion Vaccines,

> targeted vaccination towards eldery, vulnerable & immuno compromised not universal vaccination.

> Develop Antivirals & focus early therapeutic treatment of people

> enabling natural herd immunity to develop making the virus mutate less become endemic from a Pandemic.

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