Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer Profile picture
May 5, 2022 18 tweets 6 min read Read on X
I read through a new preprint today which is potentially important: medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

Based on randomized data, the study examines to which extent the vaccinated (Moderna) and unvaccinated develops anti-nucleocapsid antibodies after a subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection.

🧵
While our Covid vaccines exclusively target the spike protein, we are some that have argued that infection would induce broader and longer-lasting (natural) immunity than vaccination, because immunity is induced against greater parts of the virus, not just the spike proteins. Image
We were fed the inane & illogical idea that 💉 would produce superior immunity than having cleared the🦠

This is despite that for essentially all infections known to man, natural immunity is superior.

The postulate was gradually moderated to equipotency;
We now know that almost all will be (and have now been) infected atleast once, so in the context of mass 💉on top of that (mainly before), there are several important research questions that needs to be answered:
How much worse is vaccine-induced immunity, compared to infection?
Is the immunity towards SARS-CoV-2 dominated by your last exposure (nothing,🦠 or 💉)?
Is the sequence of exposure(s) important?
🦠...
🦠-> 💉...
💉-> 🦠...
Present vaccines are based on the index (Wuhan) variant & especially omicron is packed with mutations in the spike protein Image
This is where nucleocapsid (anti-N) antibodies might come in handy, because if you have immunity to a larger share of the virus genome, then it will be harder for the virus to develop immune escape properties like those of omicron, which essentially completely evades 💉 immunity.
The preprint investigates this, but to my astonishment, the data is from prior to the delta and omicron variants, despite acknowledging that the hypothesis was formed during data collection in 2020..

They have been sitting on this important dataset for more than a year. Image
The data is from an RCT testing Moderna vs placebo, so high quality evidence.

The authors analyzed serum for anti-N antibody from participants that had a SARS-CoV-2 infection during the blinded phase of the trial, *or* at baseline.

The results are potentially important. Image
For baseline negative participants (no prior infection at enrollment), receiving 2 doses of Moderna and then being infected was associated with significantly blunted anti-N responses in terms of % developing antibody:
💉💉 ->🦠 -> 40% w. anti-N
Placebo ->🦠 -> 93% w. anti-N Image
Vaccination thus had a negative effect on the formation of anti-N antibody.

When I read this at first, I thought that this was just due to suppression of virus replication (vaccine doing its job). The authors tested whether this could explain their results, but it couldn't. Image
For the same 🦠copies per ml in nasopharyngeal swap samples collected at illness visits, the unvaccinated were subsequently much better at producing anti-N. Only at quite high viral loads did the two groups approximate in the ability to produce anti-N antibody. Image
This pattern was markedly different if infected at baseline (seropositive/PCR+ when randomized).
There was then no difference in anti-N production, indicating that infection-vaccination sequence is important.

🦠 ---> placebo ---> 95% w. anti-N
🦠---> 💉 💉 ---> 96% w. anti-N Image
What are the implications of this?

N protein can generate a robust T-cell response, is well conserved and does not recombine frequently. Anti-n immunity is likely important.

It is unknown whether patterns are the samewith omicron as well, or with other COVID vaccines.
The reduced capacity to produce anti-N was seen after dose 2 only, not after dose 1. So what happens after dose 3, 4?

Is the blunting sustained, increased? Is this important?

Perhaps a good idea to investigate these questions rather than vaccinating everyone blind-folded. Image
There are those of us that consistently argued that we should stratify the 💉 strategy targeting risk groups that are likely to die or get hospitalized from COVID, rather than rolling out mass 💉 to all age groups because eradication was futile anyways.
We warned of the possibility of antigenic sin.
We should vaccinate to prevent disease, not mild infection. If COVID 💉 blunts your immune response to subsequent COVID 🦠and you are old and moribund, where vaccination likely saves your life (or prolongs it), it is not a big deal.
But for children and healthy young adults, the balance of potential costs and benefits is very different.
A good proportion will experience even just short-term 💉side-effects equivalent or worse than whichever possible disease symptoms, if they even discover their infection.
Next winter, we shall survey the different combinations in detail⤵️
#1 🦠 ---> placebo ---> 95% w. anti-N
#2 🦠---> 💉 💉 ---> 96%
#3 💉 💉 ---> 🦠---> 40%
#4 Placebo --->🦠 ---> 93%

#3 is by far the most common trajectory people has taken through the pandemic.

🧵fim

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More from @FSBuchholzer

Dec 11, 2023
@IgumRasmussen, hovedargumentet for at vaccinere børnene i slut 2021 & start 22 var at bremse smittespredningen til andre grupper af samfundet, fordi man på daværende tidspunkt *stadig* ikke have anerkendt/forstået, at vaccination ikke forhindrede smitte.

nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2021-1…

Image
I starten af 2022 var jeg i Tv2news () og sige, at vi ikke skulle lukke skolerne på grund af lav 👦👧 vaccinationsdækning.

Flere argumenterede for, at 💉ville kunne stoppe smittespredningen i samfundet - inkl SSI m Tyra i front på pressemøde i slut 2021.
Det burde også være rimelig klart af det nedenstående, at hele intentionen var at vaccination ville bremse smitte, selvom vi var flere uafhængige forskere der sagde, at det ikke var tilfældet.

Man brugte fx ikke MIS-C som argument (data også sparsom).
coronasmitte.dk/nyhedsarkiv/pr…
Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 27, 2023
We work with non-specific effects of vaccines, studying effects on overall health in terms of all-cause morbidity and all-cause mortality.
A good chunk of the research field and practically all of my contribution has been reg. the tuberculosis 💉 Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG).
Across 3 randomized trials (compared to no BCG vaccination), we uncovered that BCG-at-birth halves the risk of neonatal sepsis:

Furthermore, being born to a BCG-vaccinated mother appears to reduce sepsis risk substantially:
https://t.co/8coilHmSW5
BCG normally results in a scar, but the scar prevalence is heavily influenced by the BCG strain used and vac technique ()

In a combined analysis of scar studies (in vaccinated children), having a scar markedly reduced mortality risk https://t.co/JhVceLZ6Vdacademic.oup.com/cid/article/71…
Read 10 tweets
Apr 27, 2023
Et par eksempler på uheldig kommunikation fra @mikebarnkob ⤵️
1) Angriber og beklikker vaccineforsker (uden at tagge pågældende):
Total polemik i kommentarfeltet, zerocovidklientellets kommentarer får lov til at stå, snesevis af negativ feedback gemt væk
2) Skriver hånende, ukollegial tråd om at BCG ikke beskytter mod COVID:
"Aldrig-publiceret trial" (🇩🇰 trial submitted)
"BCG vac har været poster child for hypotesen om at nogle vacciner har positive uspecifikke effekter" --> Der forskes i BCG over hele 🌎
Til info vil jeg nævne at COVID vaccinerne ikke er testet i RCTer for deres effekter mod svær COVID sygdom - der foreligger hverken RCT evidens for en effekt mod hospitalisering pga. COVID eller dødsfald fra COVID:
Read 5 tweets
Apr 2, 2023
Just in

From the great 🇩🇰 registries - among the best in the World - pandemic total mortality *from* COVID-19, by age group, provided by @SSI_dk to @brianweichardt following a FOIA request.

The official number of 🇩🇰 COVID-19 deaths is 8385; deaths FROM COVID-19: 3861 (46%)

🧵
To put these numbers into context by population at risk, through a full 3 pandemic years there were 450 deaths for Danes <70, the mortality risk being 0.01% (450/3627881)

For 20-29 year olds it was <1/100,000 (0.0009%) vs >1/25 (4.2%) for 90+ year olds, a 4688-fold difference!
While a very steep age factor for COVID-19 mortality was indeed reported already in 🇨🇳 data from the spring of 2020, I am nevertheless surprised by this huge difference - which likely becomes clearer because the "with C19" deaths were filtered out.
Read 14 tweets
Oct 31, 2022
@StabellBenn and I in today's @berlingske:
🇩🇰 COVID-19 policy has been dominated by excessive caution, sometimes taken to extremes.

The prime minister's mantra from one of the first pressers that every COVID-19 death is a tragedy disseminated everywhere.
berlingske.dk/kronikker/den-…
Already clear in 🇩🇰 data from May '20, the average age (82 yr)+risk factors for COVID vs other infectious deaths was very similar (academic.oup.com/ije/article/49…), but at times extreme cautiousness was nevertheless practised: COVID-19 moved to list A with ebola, smallpox and the plague.
Extreme caution, an unbroken series of wrong decisions & misinterpretations with associated panic led to the unnecessary and by Danish and international experts heavily critizised culling of millions of mink plus costly+unnecessary strict local lockdown:
Read 14 tweets
Sep 27, 2022
The below data, hidden away on p. 34 of the appendix, indicates that by the end of 2021, when omicron was rampant, Danish authorities had adequate data available to conclude that vaccinating/boosting previously infected individuals did *not* reduce transmission in the household.
Nevertheless, C19-passport was in place to Feb 1, with exemption length reduced for prev 🦠 shortly before:
A large group of convalescent individuals were therefore driven to get a booster which the authorities knew, or should've realized, was unnecessary
This will have put especially youngsters at unnecessary risk of side effects, which is not a trivial issue:
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
A recent preprint even indicate that boosters to even uninfected youngsters were associated with more harm than good ^^ ⤵️
Read 4 tweets

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