Spike-Only Vaccine a Colossal Blunder: Michigan State University Shows SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Escape is Due to Vaccination

Earlier analyses had shown correlation of new COVID-19 cases with vaccine uptake, indicating vaccine escape. Now that causality is confirmed, the question is: Will policy makers stop making it worse?

Yesterday, I published a mathematical analysis that showed that the Barnstable County, Massachusetts (CDC data) supports the conclusion of negative efficacy (vaccinated people more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19). Earlier, I had published and announced in a public speech (Harrisburg) that the vaccine program had failed, in part based on my findings that the number of new cases was highest in countries with highest vaccine uptake (See article here). The Israeli and UK data showed more cases in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated, and my analysis yesterday should silence the pedestrian response “that’s because there are more people who are vaccinated”. I’ve pointed out (as have others) that Fauci’s “go home until you are sick enough to need emergency care” makes people variant incubators.

Now a new study has found the specific mutations by which the SARS-CoV-2 lineages have escaped the vaccine. The study, which is behind a paywall (US$40), reports that these mutations lead to less infectivity compared to the original SARS-CoV-2, but, according to the authors, “can disrupt existing antibodies that neutralize the virus”.

That sounds like disease enhancement to me.

“By tracking the evolutionary trajectories of vax-resistant mutations in more than 2.2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we reveal that the occurrence & frequency of vax-resistant mutations correlate strongly with the vaccination rates in Europe and America.”

Their analysis went well beyond mere correlation of the rise of the vaccine-resistant variants and vaccination rates. Specifically, these authors had previously predicted the precise amino acid location in the receptor binding domain (RBD) at which vaccine escape variation would likely emerge as a result of targeting the spike protein with vaccines. Now that we see those specific amino acid residue positions changing, and, importantly, changing in ways that alter infectivity, the evidence is strong that the rise in these mutations was caused by the vaccination program.

They wrote:

“(I)n early 2020, we successfully predicted that residues 452 and 501 ‘have high changes to mutate into significantly more infectious COVID-19 strains’. In the same work, we hypothesized that ‘natural selection favors those mutations that enhance the viral transmission’ and provided the first evidence for infectivity-based natural selection. In other words, we revealed the mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 evolution and transmission based on very limited genome data in June 2020.19 Additionally, we predicted three categories of RBD mutations: (1) most likely (1149 mutations), (2) likely (1912 mutations), and (3) unlikely (625 mutations).19 To date, almost all of the RBD mutations we detected fall into our first category.3,20 Moreover, all of the top 100 most observed RBD mutations have a BFE change greater than the average BFE changes of −0.28 kcal/mol.”

The BFE measurement is a very strong predictor of infectivity to the ACE2 receptor in humans.

What this means to the authors is that vaccine-breakthrough and antibody-resistant mutations will increase transmission once most people are carrying antibodies through either vaccination or infection. The authors call for use of this information in vaccine programs (!). That, of course, will lead to further selection pressure.

What this means to me is that the infamous “new variants” Delta and Omicron variants have the mutations in the RBD now make all existing spike-only vaccines obsolete. Once Omicron dominates, another evolutionary arms race will take place - as long as we are targeting only the spike protein in so many people.

Our best bet is to foster immune health so when people are inevitably infected, they have a better shot at very long-lasting immunity via neutralizing antibodies, memory B-cells and memory T-cells to the 55 other epitopes from other SARS-CoV-2 virus proteins that I reported in April 2020.

The latest news that using different vaccines during boosters to the spike-protein-only vaccinated appears to confer stronger short-term immunity confirms that multi-epitope immunity is superior to spike-only immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Natural immunity is multi-epitope immunity. It’s time we start testing for t-cells immunity to SARS-CoV-2 proteins other than spike. We urgently need to know who is immune and who is not so people who are naturally immune can stay productive with far less concern over infection.

Those with natural immunity will be a valuable asset to society as we try to recover from the pandemic and the vaccination program that has made it much worse.

Stop blaming the unvaccinated for the rise of variants. Science says you’re wrong, and that the vaccinated who accepted spike-only vaccines are making things more difficult than they need to be.

I’m an evolutionary biologist, so I don’t pray much. But my hope is that pathogenic priming in the vaccinated can be minimized by the Brownstein protocol.

Correction: The title originally attributed University of Michigan for the Wang et al., study. The correction to Michigan State University has been noted.