If COVID-19 has become endemic, is there still a compelling reason for healthy individuals to take repeated boosters?
For Context, this is a question I answered on Quora
As a general rule of thumb I do not provide medical advice. However, even as a non-medical professional I can still read the emerging scientific evidence published in journals and pre-prints and relay abbreviated summaries on Quora of what the “experts” who wrote them found during the course of their research. The immune system is something 1) everyone possesses 2) everyone should have learned about in high school biology and probably again in college 3) everyone should continue to learn about as new evidence emerges. So while I wouldn’t tell anyone in particular to avoid or receive any new booster I will mention that 1) anti-nucleocapsid seroprevelance is nearly 100% at this point in time including for people that claim to have never been infected who are likely just the 50% that experienced asymptomatic infection but didn’t do an antigen test and 2) infection induced immunity is more comprehensive and durable than the brief cross reactive antibody response provided by an annual modRNA transfection.
SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans
A serological study of convalescent participants recovering from mild SARS-COV-2 infections (n = 77) that collected both blood and bone marrow aspirate samples at multiple times up to 11 months post infection found that while anti-spike IgG antibody levels initially declined rapidly 1 to 4 months post infection they declined much more gradually 4 to 11 months after infection. The authors note this is consistent with a transition from short-lived antigen specific plasmablasts to long lived antigen specific plasma cells. An assessment of antigen specific bone marrow plasma cells in the bone marrow aspirate samples provided by convalescent participants 7 months after infection revealed that 15 out of 19 had IgG spike specific bone marrow plasma cells while 9 out of 19 had IgA spike specific bone marrow plasma cells. Spike specific bone marrow plasma cell levels remained stable in the 9 out of 10 convalescent participants that provided bone marrow aspirate samples 11 months after infection. IgG spike specific bone marrow plasma cells were also correlated with circulating anti-spike IgG antibodies 7-8 months after infection. They also found, using flow cytometry, that convalescent participants maintained spike binding memory B cells for at least 7 months after infection ‘at significantly higher frequencies relative to healthy controls’ which were ‘comparable to the frequencies of influenza HA-binding memory B cells that were identified in both groups’ after the 2019-2020 annual influenza vaccine.
modRNA transfections DO NOT induce long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans
As I noted in a prior answer, another serological study, also published in Nature, found no correlation between anti-SARS-COV-2 IgG levels in the blood and SARS-COV-2 specific long lived plasma cells in bone marrow among vaxxed adults (for both COVID and Flu) undergoing bone aspiration (n = 19) 2.5–33 months after their last dose. They found no SARS-COV-2 specific long lived plasma cells except at one time point (23 months) where it was 0.3% of antigen specific plasma cells and only 35% of participants had detectable SARS-COV-2 specific long lived plasma cells which were found at extremely low levels despite receiving multiple boosters. This partially explains why the COVID-19 disease risk reduction is gone only a few months after the last modRNA dose with the other variable being the IgG4 subclass switch. The general consensus is that natural immunity from prior infection lasts at least 8 months in immunocompetent persons with several studies finding the persistence of antigen specific white blood cells (of the innate immune system) for a year or more after infection.
I have an entire answer dedicated to extrapolating the evidence for the superiority of anti-nucleocapsid IgA induced mucosal immunity over anti-spike IgG induced immunity in the lymphatic system in both durability and comprehensiveness.
If you are not vaccinated, does that mean you are not protected from the coronavirus infection?And as I noted in There is No Improvement on Mucosal Immunity boosters do not appear to have any effect on disease risk for people who were infected prior to receiving any dose.
The few months of modest severe disease risk reduction is even less appealing to healthy and previously infected individuals when we consider the historically high rate of SAEs that follow modRNA transfections.
1 in 7 modRNA recipients report medically serious adverse events
The UK’s Yellow Card Vaccine Monitor found that 13.7% of randomly selected registrants (n = 4,134) reported medically serious adverse events to any one of 5 doses including 18% between 18–29 years of age and >21% of those between 40–49 years of age.
A population based retrospective cohort study found 5,137 cases of cerebral thromboembolism (blood clot in the brain) reported in VAERS 3 years after the COVID vaxx while only 52 cases were reported after the annual flu shot and 282 cases after all other vaccines combined over 34 years.
As I mentioned a prior post, the baseline rate of documented myocarditis for all vaccines averages only 10.8 cases per year in VAERS; this means there was a 223x higher rate of myocarditis following the modRNA shots compared to every other (attenuated or inactive antigen) vaccine for the past 3 decades.
modRNA LNPs have been found to induce heart muscle cell dysfunction in experimental cell culture studies.
Is Stress Induced Cardiomyopathy Not Myocarditis the Culprit of Died Suddenly?As well as in a chronic inflammation rodent experiment which demonstrated that intravenous administration of modRNA increased inflammatory cytokine infiltration of heart cells specifically interleukin-6 and interleukin-1beta cytokines causing myocardium and pericardium damage both with and without the osmotic pump administering controlled release of a bacterial endotoxin known as lipopolysaccharide.
Despite being injected intramuscular (supposedly), the vaxx modRNA and spike protein have been found in the myocardium.
Spike Protein Detected in Vaccinated Blood Well After A Few Days (Part 2)1 in 8 modRNA recipients report non-COVID19 disease immediately after
A retrospective cohort study conducted in India between the beginning of April and end of December 2021 among vaxxed patients admitted to the ICU for non-COVID-19 illnesses after their last dose across 4 centers (n = 175) found that median time from vaccination to ICU admission was 55 days (< 8 weeks) and the range of non-COVID-19 illnesses included neuromuscular illness such as Guillian Barre syndrome (n = 6) and thromboembolic (blood clots) events (n = 28) and about a quarter of them died in ICU.