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Yes, COVID BA.5 Variant is More Infectious, But its Outcomes are Not as Severe as Original Strain
By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal, July 27, 2022
The hype and hysteria are beginning to ramp up over the dreaded BA.5 variant of the COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. However, what's being lost in the sensationalist reporting is the variant, and others close to it, is not more deadly and dangerous than the original Wuhan strain from 2020. Furthermore, it's quite likely that the mass vaccination campaign done with a slate of experimental gene therapy drugs may have caused the mutations in the original virus to occur faster than they would have naturally in the first place. Rapid mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was expected and predicted, as vaccinating against any highly mutable virus, such as the coronavirus, pressures a virus to adapt much more quickly than it ordinarily would if left alone.
One of the latest variants, BA.5 - now believed to be the cause of nearly all current COVID infections - is tied with measles in terms of its infectiousness. That makes it the most infectious of all SARS-CoV-2 variants, and one of the most infectious viruses known to man. But, infectious does not necessarily mean deadly and dangerous. The common cold, for example, is highly infectious, but it is not deadly or dangerous. Fortunately, the new strain is considerably less impactful than the original Wuhan strain. The only experimental study we have for BA.5 so far suggests the virus replicates more efficiently in human lung cell cultures in a Petri dish than the Omicron sub variant BA.2, and infection experiments on hamsters suggest it may cause more severe infection than BA.2. “That said, there's really no evidence to suggest BA.5 is deadlier than any previous version,” said Dr. Joseph Mercola, M.D.
The conclusions on BA.4 and 5 were derived from in vitro studies, which means they were done in a laboratory, in this case, on hamster lung tissue in a Petri dish. They were not done with the entire respiratory system functioning and intact in a living being with all of the complexities of immune response, metabolism and cellular waste management and thus cannot by themselves speak to how the disease will actually progress in humans.
Dr Mobeen Sayed has been analyzing and clarifying medical reports on his YouTube channel, Drbeen, throughout the plannedemic. He noted of the BA.5 studies, “The point is, these are in vitro studies. These are good studies that tell us lots of data, science, but they don't give us the evidence of what will happen in the human tissue,” said Dr. Sayed. “These in vitro studies do not [take place in] a complete environment. For example, a complete lung tissue or complete upper respiratory tract tissue where there are tissue cells and there are mast cells, there are macrophages and there are denderic cells and there are B-cells and T-cells and so many other cells and the fluids circulating and the nutrition coming in and waste products going out. That whole system has its own behavior which is not replicable in the in vitro studies.”
Dr. Sayed pointed out that regardless of how infectious the virus variants are, what's most important is the actual impact on the human body at the end of the day. As it turns out, he said, the dreaded cytokine storm that occurred in the original Wuhan strain is less prevalent with these new strains. “[The] cytokine storm, we already know is less. So, [whether] this virus infects more or not and is fusogenic more or not in vitro doesn't matter because the cytokine storm is less.”
While BA.4 and 5 are more infectious, the actual data from hospitals around the world where it has been most prevalent since April of this year shows that the disease and illness those variants cause are not more severe than the original Wuhan strain. In many cases, the disease severity is less. That is where the fear mongers are twisting the analysis of the data. With the original Wuhan strain, “disease severity” was defined as the intensity of the cytokine storm, the likelihood of ending up in the hospital and ultimately suffering long term ill health effects or dying. With BA.4 and 5, disease severity is being described simply as the ability for the virus to replicate and infect people without any consideration being given to hospitalizations and deaths, which are much more important indicators of severity. When looked at objectively, using empirical evidence from countries that have had BA.4 and 5 circulating for months, the actual hospitalizations and deaths from the virus are not more severe. So, the way you define a word, in this case, “severity,” does affect how the perception of a disease is reported in the news and understood by the public.
The rapid push to vaccinate as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time may have been politically expedient and provided a measure of psychological comfort for the public, but many doctors were advising against doing so in the midst of a pandemic because the vaccines would cause the highly replicable viruses to mutate much more rapidly to the point that the vaccines and anti-bodies they create are no longer effective. This is a process called “vaccine escape” and is what was witnessed around the world as the alleged “vaccines” for COVID-19 became progressively less effective over just a period of months.
Omicron initially arose in “fully vaccinated” patients, raising suspicions that the mass vaccination campaign itself was driving the rapid mutation of the virus. “By that I don't mean we're facing reinfection with a dangerous virus. That's not the case,” said Dr. Mercola. “We're essentially looking at endemics of something similar to the common cold; the main difference being that it's no longer seasonal.”
Dr. Mercola said that even if you’ve had COVID before, got the jab and all your boosters, and even if you have hybrid immunity (meaning you’ve had both past infection and the COVID jab), chances are you’ll probably catch BA.5, as it seems particularly adept at circumventing all previous defenses. “This immune-evading ability is likely an outgrowth of a mass injection campaign, as vaccinating a population during an acute outbreak pressures the virus to mutate more rapidly.”
The likelihood of reinfection is the fodder fearmongerers needed to reignite calls for COVID restrictions such as lockdowns and stripping people of their inherent rights and freedoms, and, of course, more boosters. Some banks in Northern Maine are even going back to closing their lobbies to the public - a mitigation measure that will have as much impact on reducing transmission of the virus as lowering sea level by removing a cup of water from the ocean.
Interestingly, as rapidly as BA.5 took over the world, it's already on pace to be replaced by another strain with the designation BA.2.75. “The real problem is that authorities are responding to COVID as if it was a deadly plague, and are using what are essentially cold symptoms to lock down economies and strip people of their rights and freedoms, over and over again,” Dr. Mercola concluded.