A pat on the back on the way to the gallows…

• Introductory background:

In a recent Substack post (https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/viral-gain-of-function-is-associated?r=y46t6), I wrote the following:

“Even in the absence of immune pressure or adaptation, any mutation or combination that further suppresses both antiviral and inflammatory components of innate immunity could severely weaken this most basic, nonspecific line of immune defense. For example, suppression of humoral innate immune responses in XFG descendants may facilitate the stochastic emergence and accumulation of additional mutations in chronically infected individuals, some of which could enhance the virus’s ability to evade interferon-mediated innate immunity and/or innate immune sensing without compromising intrinsic viral infectiousness. When combined with failing adaptive immunity, this would inevitably result in immune tolerance and consequently trigger unchecked viral replication and dissemination of the virus within the host — and even on a large scale due to the associated increase in inter-host transmission of the virus.”

Just today, a follower sent me the following article. https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/covid-stratus-new-variant-strain-xfg-symptoms-b2783494.html

I couldn’t help but comment on it, since I just had a brief spell of hoarseness (which, by the way, my partner quite enjoyed).

• The opinions and interpretations of epidemiologists, public health experts, and scientists are a scourge when it comes to understanding the evolutionary dynamics and outcome of the ongoing Covid-19 (C-19) immune escape pandemic.

The hoarse voice—without accompanying sore throat—regularly caused by infections with XFG (sub)variants (the so-called Stratus variant) is a clear sign of suppressed local inflammatory symptoms. As long as the remaining cell-mediated innate immunity (mainly in the unvaccinated) or adaptive immunity (mainly in the vaccinated) is still strong enough to eliminate the virus in time or to prevent symptoms, respectively, hoarseness remains practically the only notable sign of an XFG infection.

Our naïve health authorities seem to welcome this and take it as proof that the vaccines are still doing their job. What they completely fail to grasp is that this suboptimal, i.e., merely symptomatic protection in many C-19 vaccinated individuals, combined with the lack of strong local inflammation (and thus lack of viral sequestration in the upper respiratory tract), results in significantly increased viral replication and transmission. The inevitable consequence is a sharp rise in chronic infections and, with that, an explosion of new mutations and recombination events. They are entirely unable to understand that this evolution means highly C-19-vaccinated populations are now, in an unnatural way, continuously generating and shedding highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants—and are on the verge of producing viral mutants that not only escape whatever remains of adaptive immunity, but further weaken innate immune defenses. Eventually, immunity will drop to such a critically low level that massive viral invasion and spread—both within individual hosts and between them—can no longer be prevented.

So, when epidemiologists and health authorities reassure the public that the rise of Stratus is nothing to worry about because symptoms appear no worse than before, it sounds like one last lullaby before the guillotine drops.