According to:
"The Lies Behind the ‘Pandemic of Unvaxxed’”
"real-world data show it (delta variant] is actually weaker and far less dangerous, even though it does spread more easily" and vaccinations will leave us to "end up on a never-ending booster treadmill."
| Fig 1 | Fig 2 |
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Fig 1
- Indicates the confirmed COVID-19 daily cases noticeably started to increase around the 3rd week in June 2021.
- At this time the delta variant was about 50%
- By August 17, 2021, the leading states in terms of daily cases were Louisianna, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina
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- As the % deltas variant passed 60% there is a noticeable decrease in the ratio, more specifically by 8/16/2021 for :
- Hawaii decreased by -22.5%, Louisianna -18.3%, Michigan -12.6%, Oklahoma -8.7%, Michigan -8.28%, and South Carolina by -7.93%.
- On the other hand, Maine increased by 2.46%, Wisconsin by 0.85%, Michigan by 0.49%, and Montana, South Dakota, Utah, and Minnesota had a 0% change.
- The average change in the ratio was 4.71%
+-4.68%6
Thus there is some evidence that the delta variant does not kill as large a proportion of those it infects as the previous variants. However, the difference is a few %. The statement "far less dangerous" currently appears to be an overreach based on the data so far.
Dr Joseph Mercola also says: "Natural immunity offers robust protection against all variants, whereas vaccine-induced immunity can’t. The reason for this is because when you recover from the natural infection, you have both antibodies and T cells against all parts of the virus, not just the spike protein". However, natural infection can lead to hospitalization, death or long term disability.
Dr Joesph Mercola also says without any proof "Natural Immunity Offers Far Superior Protection". On the other hand, health experts such as the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says though people can gain some immunity protection after contracting Covid-19, it's "not nearly as strong" as the vaccine (see https://whyy.org/articles/what-immunity-did-having-covid-19-give-me-do-i-still-need-a-vaccine/ or https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html)
Dr Joseph Mercola says: "real-world data show it [the Delta variant] is actually weaker and far less dangerous, even though it does spread more easily". However, the CDC is less sure about this and says "Some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous strains in unvaccinated persons. In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains" (see https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-variant.html). In this case (see above Fig 2) I tend to lean slightly towards Dr Mercola's view, but take issue with 'it does not appear to be much weaker' and can indeed stlll be a killer in a few percent of the cases, as well as leading to hospitalization, or long-term disability.
Dr Mercola points out that "People who are vaccinated still get infected, it only seems particularly good at blunting the disease, and what that tells you therefore is that these vaccines in the vast majority of people are applying a nonlethal pressure, narrowly focused on one protein, and the vaccine rollout is occurring over a long period of time. That’s the recipe for driving variants.” That would appear to be the case, if we do not reach herd immunity. Thus the vaccines will need to be enhanced to compete with the new variants. However, rather than pushing for increasing vaccination, the only remedy Dr. Mercola appears to encourage is the natural infection which as mentioned above can lead to hospitalization, death or long-term disability. In addition. as has been pointed out both polio and smallpox were overcome by vaccines and not by natural immunity.
Dr Mercola also says: "If we are to depend on vaccine-induced immunity, as public health officials are urging us to do, we’ll end up on a never-ending booster treadmill. Boosters will absolutely be necessary, as the shot offers such narrow protection against a single protein of the virus. Already, data around the world show vaccine-induced protection is waning rapidly in the face of new variants, and Moderna has publicly stated that the need for additional boosters is expected." Again his alternative of natural immunity would appear to say we need to not vaccinate but let nature take its toll. In fact, the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 did not have a vaccine and thus 'The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans'" see https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic. Also bear in mind in 2018 the US population was 103 million, whereas in 2018 the US population was 328 million and so far there have been 624,000 deaths. The world's population today is about 7.9 billion, and so far there have been 209 million cases and 4.3 million deaths.
What the Experts say
https://whyy.org/articles/what-immunity-did-having-covid-19-give-me-do-i-still-need-a-vaccine/
Though protection is decent for those who have previously had COVID-19, health experts say it is not as strong as when people get vaccinated.
A prior infection offers protection in the range of 80%, compared to about 95% for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, said Dr. John Wherry, director of the Institute for Immunology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Lab studies suggest that protection following a case of COVID-19 begins to wane slightly after about three months, but can last for up to 10 months, although there’s a range to that, Wherry said.
People with more severe infections appear to have stronger antibody responses than those who had milder or asymptomatic infections, said Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director for infection prevention at Johns Hopkins.
A study published in July in the New England Journal of Medicine found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective at preventing symptomatic disease from the delta variant, compared to about 95% for the original virus strain. Data from Israel estimated lower effectiveness against symptomatic disease, but said that the protection against severe illness remains high.
The concern, though, is that “the more the virus is allowed to circulate, the more variants may emerge and we may see a time that a variant escapes the currently available vaccine. And at that point, we would have to modify the vaccines and re-vaccinate people against the new variant,” Maragakis said.
Overall the immunity induced by both vaccination and prior infection was still robust one year later, particularly against wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and the now more common alpha and delta strains, though potency towards the later-emerging beta and gamma strains is waning. In low vaccine availability locations, this is reassuring, as some protection can still be granted to individuals without committing to regular vaccine boosters in the short term.
However, the next generation of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines will need to account for mutations that allow evasion of the previously developed antibodies and preferably be better future-proofed against other novel mutations.
The rise of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VoCs), especially the Delta variant, has increased concerns on the effectiveness of vaccines against these more transmissible VoCs.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html
A study of COVID-19 infections in Kentucky among people who were previously infected with SAR-CoV-2 shows that unvaccinated individuals are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus. These data further indicate that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.
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do the previous variants.
Fig 3 shows the daily confirmed cases on 8/19/2021 vs % population vaccinated for the US states. With the exception of Florida it is seen that the states (Mississippi, Lousiana, Alabama, and Arkansas) with the lower % of people fully vaccinated have the higher confirmed cases.
Fig 3 | |
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