Will Omicron Serve as a Blessing, Become Nature's Vaccine?

The following article has been authored by a non-clinician.

I'm but one of well more than three hundred million Americans who are terribly tired of worrying about when this deadly and destructive virus pandemic will end: tired of witnessing losses of family members and friends; shut downs of activities and businesses; school closures and social isolation of children; and mixed, confusing precautions and advice from government "experts" regarding our own personal risks and behaviors.

Like many others, I have special health conditions to take into consideration which were mentioned in my previous column.

As an 84-year-old cancer survivor who continues to interact face-to-face with my graduate students, I also have a known genetic family propensity for COVID vaccine-induced blood clotting. In addition, I recently contracted and recovered from omicron following two vax jabs received before I knew about that added clotting risk.

So, herein lies a question: Might omicron actually be a blessing — not just for my family and me, but also for many millions of others — perhaps serving as nature's vaccine?

That intriguing possibility, but by no means any certainty, seems like a bright ray of hope in dark times of unrelenting disaster and dread vaccine-or-death mantra.

Having come to thoroughly distrust the Biden administration's repeated misinformation on the subject — fundamentally including our own government's NIH-confirmed role in sponsoring the gain-of-function experiments at the Chinese Wuhan laboratory that likely created the entire mess — I'll share some insights gleaned from some other seemingly more agenda-independent sources.

A credibly cautious article posted in The Atlantic, "Should I Just Get Omicron Over With?" warns that whereas if you're already vaccinated, an infection "might not make you super sick, but don't count on it making you super immune either."

The logic here, is that since additional exposures to extra bits of a virus do seem to tend to build immunity incrementally, it's "not irrational to imagine that an infection will leave one's antiviral armor just a shade thicker."

Analogously, the latest omicron wave has created a kind of post-COVID honeymoon phase, which like any honeymoon, is transient. In this regard, no combinations of vaccines or viruses can confer invulnerability to future COVID strains.

Whether acquired from an injection or an infection, immunity will always work in degrees, not absolutes.

Immunity is, in many ways, a game of repetition. The more frequently, and more intensely, immune cells are exposed to a threat, the more resolutely they'll commit to fighting it, and the longer they'll store away any microbial information they glean.

Over time, as new viral mutations pare down those protections, additional vaccine requirements and sickness can build them back up.

As Ai-ris Yonekura Collier, a physician and vaccine researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, explains, an infection on top of layered vaccinations can coax out "almost what you would call a boosted response."

Together, vaccines and infections can confer what some immunologists refer to as "hybrid immunity," potentially the best protection possible.

In theory, post-vaccination infections such as a highly mutated omicron may also influence immunity in beneficial ways vaccines can't by offering more up-to-date protections as well as providing the body more complete information about the virus anatomy to help identify and destroy it, thus broadening the defense.

After nearly two years into this pandemic, with the U.S. reporting a record high of more than 1 million new COVID-19 cases earlier this month, many are wondering when a sufficient number of the population will reach a level of "herd immunity" so that the virus can no longer find a place to reproduce.

Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, chief of infectious diseases with McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, believes this may be possible with this omicron wave, and Israel's top health adviser, Dr. Nachman Ash, agrees that the current surge might also make this happen in his country.

According to the Mayo Clinic, approximately 94% of people must be immune in order to successfully halt transmission.

Although many health experts say the best way to achieve some level of immunity is through vaccinations, those protections may not last or may become obsolete just as with natural immunity.

So long as the virus is able to mutate, lasting immunity is likely off the table when another variant surges that can evade antibodies people have built up.

The eternal hope is that, like omicron, although highly infectious, the worst effects of future COVID variants can be mitigated through regularly adapted vaccines as the virus goes "endemic" over time with conventionally treatable symptoms.

Influenza, a respiratory virus commonly known as the flu, is an example, which a century after first appearing in 1918, still sees seasonal outbreaks requiring shots. Similarly, generations one hundred years from now may still be receiving periodic COVID shots.

So, getting back to the basic question I started with, the answer is "Yes," it seems that omicron may turn out to act much like a natural vaccine against more dangerous previous variants — at least for now.

Nevertheless — as with all "vaccines" — we can't necessarily count it to offer protections against its own — or a cousin's — future mutant progeny.

Whereas the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed evidenced remarkably rapid progress in developing mRNA vaccine platform technologies, omicron wasted no time leapfrogging ahead of the defense.

In addition to safer time-proven vaccines, there's also a critical need for effective new therapeutics to build our body's ability to offset and combat infections, particularly at early and most treatable stages.

Each of us as well has vital self-defense roles through healthy lifestyles: eat right, drop some weight if you need to, remain physically and mentally active, and practice good hygiene.

And above all, since we apparently can't entirely count on herd immunity for salvation, let's at least take this experience as a dire warning — perhaps our last — not to bioengineer viruses that readily outsmart the mutant strain of herd imbecility responsible for creating them in the first place.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 11 books, "Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier" co-authored with Buzz Aldrin (2021), is available on Amazon along with all others. Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.