For close to two years
I have been not only criticizing the design choice for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, but all the systemic effects and problems it would entail. You don’t need to take my word for it, take it from one of the big names when it comes to virology and the concept of Viral Quasispecies. I recommend you to read the entire paper but this is the main part. (this paper was published years before the pandemic)
Vaccines should expose multiple B cell and T cell epitopes to the immune system
Vaccines should include repertoires of B cell and T cell epitopes to evoke an ample immune response. The broad response should minimize selection of escape mutants that may be present as minority components in mutant spectra, as repeatedly documented experimentally [14,16,35,57]. With the current types of available vaccines, those that best comply with the multiple epitope requirement are, in the order of expected efficacy to confer protection against highly variable viruses: attenuated > inactivated whole virus > several expressed proteins > one expressed protein > multiple synthetic peptide antigens > single peptide antigen. The scarcity of effective synthetic vaccines for RNA viral pathogens despite huge scientific and economic efforts is a reflection of the underlying problems.
Another paper from the same author of the above, short, more of a letter, is worth reading.
Whatever the mechanism, the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to generate variant genomes seems remarkable.
Note for lack of warning (and math) Rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and vaccination impact the fate of vaccine-resistant strains
The first paper warns about the use of a single synthetic protein, Ralph Baric, the world's biggest expert on bat born coronaviruses had an interesting conversation during a podcast 7 years ago, where he remarks on the incredible potential of SARS-like viruses to recombine and form new variants, and one part, in particular, it has such affinity towards mutation and recombination it can literally recombine over a half dozen times inside one host, and jump to another and to another and pass down only one change in molecule to it’s “family” members.
That part is the S protein. The spike protein.
Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Evolution Revealing Vaccine-Resistant Mutations in Europe and America
"By tracking the evolutionary trajectories of vaccine-resistant mutations in more than 2.2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes, we reveal that the occurrence and frequency of vaccine-resistant mutations correlate strongly with the vaccination rates"
Months ago, while deep into researching both the vaccine design and the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 I had a stupid thought. “Can a virus evolve to evade monoclonal antibodies?”. It was so stupid I didn’t even give a second thought…
And of course, using one of the poorest designed “high tech” genetic therapies in history for ages to come, could only lead to one thing.
Omicron incompletely escapes immunity induced by the Pfizer vaccine
A bitter mistake making will carry for decades to come. And this isn’t the worst part. Yet.
World Edge Analysis
Next year's news, today. Or something like that.