Fact check: Omicron is no worse than a mild flu.
The doctors who treated it and the studies say it's a mild illness.
THE INITIAL DISCOVERY OF THE OMICRON VARIANT
Dr. Angelique Coetzee, currently head of the South African Medical Association, is the discoverer of the Omicron Covid-19 strain. She said in February 2022 it is a milder variant.
"I am a clinician and based on the clinical picture there are no indications that we are dealing with a very serious disease. The course is mostly mild. I'm not saying you won't get sick if you're mild.
"The definition of mild Covid-19 disease is clear, and it is a WHO definition: patients can be treated at home and oxygen or hospitalization is not required… A serious illness is one in which we see acute pulmonary respiratory infections: people need oxygen, maybe even artificial respiration. We saw that with Delta - but not with Omicron. So I said to people, "I can't say it like that because it's not what we're seeing.""
She said that during discussions with European government officials, they pressured her to say that Omicron was just as severe as the earlier strains but she refused.
“I was told not to publicly state that it was a mild illness,” she said. “I have been asked to refrain from making such statements and to say that it is a serious illness. I declined.”
An early study into the protection afforded by vaccination and natural immunity points out the same thing; that Omicron is a much milder version of the illness.
Despite the sharp increase in cases in South Africa in the current surge, this has not translated into the expected increase in hospitalization or deaths, compared with previous waves… Emerging data hint at reduced intrinsic severity of Omicron, including reduced infection of lower airway cells. T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike cross-recognize Omicron
Other studies have discovered the reason why Omicron is not resulting in as many hospitalisations or deaths: it is to do with a change in something called the furin cleavage site on the S protein.
S, or the Spike Protein is the part of the virus that infects human cells. There are small genetic changes to the Spike Protein in Omicron, that explain why Omicron appears to be a much less serious illness.
CHANGES IN OMICRON MEAN IT INFECTS UPPER AIRWAYS BUT NOT LUNGS SO MUCH
It appears that Omicron is much less able to infect the deep lung tissue.
TMPRSS2 is a protein on the surface of deep lung tissue, that viruses can use to infect the cells in the lungs. TMPRSS2 is also found in the intestines. Omicron is not as good at infecting TMPRSS2. Therefore, Omicron is not as efficient at infecting deep lung tissue or the intestines.
This is why the symptoms of Omicron appear to be much milder and do not result in as many hospitalisations: people are not catching pneumonia from the Omicron variant.
There are two studies that mention this feature of Omicron:
Omicron is inefficient in using TMPRSS2 for its entry (Fig. 3c).
Having established that TMPRSS2 modulates entry mediated by Delta to a greater extent than for Omicron BA.1 spike, we sought to understand the distribution of TMPRSS2 and ACE2 expression in human respiratory cells.
Furthermore, our analysis of single-cell RNA-seq datasets and direct qPCR measurements on human respiratory tissue samples suggest that lung cells have higher TMPRSS2 mRNA compared with cells found in the upper airway. Indeed recent data indicate lower virus burden in deep lung tissue and reduced pathogenicity in Omicron versus Delta infections using Syrian hamster models Altered TMPRSS2 usage by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron impacts infectivity and fusogenicity
Both agree that the evidence indicates that there is poorer replication in the lungs.
In the current study, we showed that in contrast to the Delta variant, Omicron variant was not effective in using TMPRSS2 for viral replication. Our results suggest that the Omicron variant may have poorer replication in the lungs when compared with the Delta variant. Indeed, there are preliminary epidemiological studies showing that the Omicron variant may have the milder disease. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2021.2023329
NATURAL IMMUNITY IS BETTER THAN BEING VACCINATED
An Israeli study (which has yet to be published in a peer review journal; this is an indictment on the peer review process, actually) discovered that natural immunity is much better protection from future infection than vaccines.
This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity
In a rather amusing comment by Bill Gates, who is basically the financial and ideological driver behind the WHO’s push to vaccinate, Gates says it is sad that Omicron has resulted in immunity against COVID-19 without the need for vaccines.
Sadly, the virus itself particularly the variant called Omicron is a type of vaccine, that is it creates both B cell and T cell immunity, and it’s done a better job of getting out to the world than the vaccine…. the chance of severe disease… those risks are now dramatically reduced because of that infection exposure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNc9PqIZ31M
SHOULD I EXPOSE MYSELF TO OMICRON INTENTIONALLY?
Dr John Campbell has an article about Omicron from January 2022 where he muses on why it might be a good idea for him to expose himself to Omicron.
MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH OMICRON
I am unvaccinated. I was familiar with most of the research saying that Omicron is mild and I made the decision to intentionally expose myself to the virus.
A day after being exposed I tested positive in a RAT test. I had a second positive test a couple of days later.
I isolated myself and did further RAT tests about six days later and afterwards, which were negative.
Omicron turned out to be a fairly mild cold that lasted six-seven days, with a slight residual cough in the early mornings for a few days after that.
I followed the FLCCC treatment protocols, which were worked out by frontline doctors in the United States and around the world; they can be found at this link.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-mask-plus-protocol/
Due to the TGA and the AHPRA pushing universal vaccination in Australia, Ivermectin is not available in Australia for the treatment of Covid, but I found that the Nigella Sativa seeds helped at least as much as Ivermectin (infer).
Nigella Sativa is otherwise called Black Cumin, and can be found in Indian stores, where it is named Kualanji or Kalonji.
One of the recommendations in the protocol is a Betadine sore throat gargle (here is a link to it in Chemists Warehouse in Australia; I’m not recommending them but it was where I bought it).
I put a small amount of Betadine up my nose, and allowed it to drip down through my sinuses, as well as gargling. This sounds rather gross; however it brought such great relief from the nasal symptoms for about two-three hours that I’m going to do this every time I have a cold or flu in future. There is evidence in several studies that this is a useful treatment.
A small disclaimer: I am not recommending that anyone should expose themselves to the virus – you need to do your own research and consider your own circumstances.
VACCINATION FOR 5-11 YEAR OLDS VERSUS OMICRON EXPOSURE
Dr Lachlan Dunjey has written an extremely good article on why COVID vaccination is extremely unwise for 5-11 year olds; you should read it before you vaccinate your children.
It seems logical to me that it might very well be much better for children to be exposed to the virus now, while a very mild variant is circulating through the community; I highly recommend that if you have children you actually look at both sides of these arguments before you vaccinate them, or if you have already, before you give boosters etc.
DIMINISHING DEATHS FROM COVID
A very quick glance at the chart below shows that deaths in most of the places where there has been a large number of cases has levelled off (US is odd, less cases more death - CDC miscounting? Last 60 days deaths have levelled.); it looks as if this levelling off has occurred since Omicron was the major variant. Omicron seems to have exhausted itself in most countries now, after an initial sharp rise in cases but not in deaths. Iran is particularly interesting, because their cases and deaths have not increased much at all, presumably since they were vaccinated with Professor Nikolai Petrovsky’s traditional protein based vaccine.
CONCLUSION
All of the evidence I have looked at indicates that Omicron is a less severe form of COVID-19.
ADDENDUM: DENMARK AGREES WITH THIS CONCLUSION
Denmark is a country with an extremely efficient and data-driven public health system. Because of this many great studies have been written using Denmark’s data.
On May 15th 2022, Denmark is suspending vaccinations, the first country to do so. They are doing this because Omicron is mild and highly contagious, and provides the protection of natural immunity.
Dr John Campbell has been one of my favourite sources of scientific information for the entire pandemic - he examines the latest data and studies from around the world and is very reserved in his conclusions; here is his video telling why they are doing this.
Some points from his video:
He says, “Denmark were the first country to remove restrictions, on February 1 (2022), realising that you can’t stop the spread of Omicron, especially BA2 and its subvariants, and the vast importance of naturally acquired immunity… not good for pharmaceutical company profits, but good for us… …we want natural immunity, we want longevity, we want safely induced immunity.”
The virus was no longer considered a threat on February 1. Dr Tyler Kraus said Let the new wave run through the population… with Omicron it is impossible to stop the infection even with severe restrictions. Dr Campbell is very pleased to see that a national medical leader has the sheer guts to reflect the accurate science.
Denmark is the first country to suspend Covid 19 Vaccination Programs, from the 15th of May. They may start again after summer. “I feel the sooner other countries follow this lead the better,” Dr Campbell says, “I think Denmark has got it right, they’re allowing natural infection, they’re protecting those that need to be protected, but they’re also saying, basically we’ve vaccinated enough for now.”
The Danish health authority rationale for suspending the vaccination program: the infection is under control, and they have high levels of vaccination in Denmark. Dr Campbell makes the point that there have been very high levels of infection and natural immunity as well.
Bolette Soborg, the Chief Physician of Denmark says: We plan to reopen the vaccination program in the autumn. This will be preceded by a thorough professional assessment of who and when to vaccinate and with which vaccines.
REFERENCES
Keeton, R., Tincho, M.B., Ngomti, A. et al. T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike cross-recognize Omicron. Nature 603, 488–492 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04460-3
Meng, B., Abdullahi, A., Ferreira, I.A.T.M. et al. Altered TMPRSS2 usage by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron impacts infectivity and fusogenicity. Nature 603, 706–714 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04474-x
Hanjun Zhao, Lu Lu, Zheng Peng, Lin-Lei Chen, Xinjin Meng, Chuyuan Zhang, Jonathan Daniel Ip, Wan-Mui Chan, Allen Wing-Ho Chu, Kwok-Hung Chan, Dong-Yan Jin, Honglin Chen, Kwok-Yung Yuen & Kelvin Kai-Wang To (2022) SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant shows less efficient replication and fusion activity when compared with Delta variant in TMPRSS2-expressed cells, Emerging Microbes & Infections, 11:1, 277-283, DOI: 10.1080/22221751.2021.2023329
https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-TMPRSS2.aspx
Gazit, Shlezinger, Perez, Lotan, Peretz, Ben-Tov, Cohen, Muhsen, Chodick, Patalon (preprint 2021) Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections. Medrxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415
http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/covid-vaccination-for-5-11-year-old-children/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#countries-deaths
https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-mask-plus-protocol/
Guenezan, Garcia, Strasters, et al. Povidone Iodine Mouthwash, Gargle, and Nasal Spray to Reduce Nasopharyngeal Viral Load in Patients With COVID-19 - A Randomized Clinical Trial JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2021;147(4):400-401 doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2020.5490
Chopra, Sivaraman, Radhakrishnan, Balakrishnan, Narayana. (2021) Can povidone iodine gargle/mouthrinse inactivate SARS-CoV-2 and decrease the risk of nosocomial and community transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic? An evidence-based update Pubmed Free PMC article. DOI: 10.1016/j.jdsr.2021.03.001
RESOURCES
John Campbell does a great job of looking at the studies as they are coming out. He was in favour of vaccination in the early days of COVID-19 and has a very balanced way of explaining things and looking at the evidence:
https://www.youtube.com/c/Campbellteaching/videos
Some more websites giving an alternative data-driven outlook on these issues:
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/
https://substack.com/profile/40661664-steve-kirsch
Nikolai Petrovsky is an Australian scientist at Flinders University who made the protein based vaccine (that avoids giving the whole Spike protein) that was used in Iran and had very few side effects. He is one of the foremost experts on vaccines and immunology in Australia:
https://twitter.com/vaxine_news
The FLCCC Doctors have worked out great protocols:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Robert F Kennedy is a great writer, who contributes a lot to Children’s Health Defense, which is a very good news and information site:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/
CHANGE LOG
16 Apr 2022 5:26 pm inserted photograph, changed ‘that’ to ‘and’ in sentence “used in Iran and had very few side effects”, and inserted in-line links for the two studies into Betadine’s effectiveness rather than full links in the article.
Also one major correction: inserted the chart showing deaths as well as cases and clarified that paragraph.
Updated the sub-headline from What does the research say? What do the doctors who treat it say? to The doctors who treated it and the studies say it's a mild illness.
29 April 2022 added the addendum about Denmark.