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Could Merck's COVID Pill Create New, More Evasive COVID-19 Variants?
PJ Media ^ | 01/04/2023 | Stacey Lennox

Posted on 01/04/2023 8:26:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The names of the COVID-19 variants are getting longer. The current version is omicron-XBB.1.5, and it is credited with a spike in hospitalizations during late December in New York City that is now moving throughout the Northeast. Coincidentally, this is the country’s most highly vaccinated and boosted region.

According to an analysis by Eric Topol, executive vice president of the Research Department of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Institute, XBB.1.5 has mutations that lead to immune escape and possesses a distinct growth advantage against the previous dominant omicron variant, BQ.1. More great news includes a study published in Cell that shows all of the currently available monoclonal antibodies, including Evusheld, are rendered useless by the BQ and XBB lineages. Evusheld was used in immunocompromised patients to prevent infection.

The paper also notes that researchers have no idea why the new variants skirt the current immune response:

Lastly, we found that the spikes of BQ and XBB subvariants have similar binding affinities to hACE2 as the spikes of their predecessors (Figure 5), suggesting that the recently observed growth advantage for these novel subvariants is likely due to some other factors. Foremost may be their extreme antibody evasion properties, especially considering the extensive herd immunity built up in the population over the last three years from infections and vaccinations.

The pandemic response is not going well. Three years in, we still have a rapidly evolving virus that defeats everything we throw at it. There is also an increasing body of research indicating that repeated mRNA vaccines may not help and could even hurt. A recent Wall Street Journal article posits that vaccines may be causing continued variant development.

(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: chinavirusvariant; covid; covidpill; merck; pill; variants
For many of us, these are headlines from 2021, when dissident doctors like Dr. Peter McCullough warned about the dangers of vaccinating into a wave of the illness. In a presentation to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons in October 2021, he said, “By pushing mass vaccination, governments have created evolutionary pressures on SARS-CoV-2, and people warned us about this. Gia Vanderburgh, Michael Yeadon, Dr. Luke Montie, they warned us about this. “Don’t do this, don’t vaccinate into a pandemic, because we have a high prevalence of virus.”

The fear at that time was that continued vaccination could create more deadly variants. To date, that has not happened. Mass vaccination may contribute to new variant formation, but patients over 70 still drive hospitalizations, and deaths are not rising exponentially with hospitalizations. Some say we’ve been lucky, and the risk is not gone.

And a new finding about Merck’s antiviral molnupiravir may add to concerns about more virulent variants all over again. Molnupiravir impairs the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to replicate. It accomplishes this by forcing mutations throughout the virus’s genome. You read that correctly — the drug to cure COVID forces COVID to mutate.

Theoretically, in healthy people, this should not be a problem. Their immune system clears the damaged cells and viruses through phagocytic functions. These occur when cells like macrophages ingest the impaired cell or foreign substance and destroy it. However, a new preprint study shows that in patients with compromised immune systems, like the elderly and chronically ill, mutated cells can persist and continue to change:


1 posted on 01/04/2023 8:26:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

“The pandemic response is not going well. Three years in, we still have a rapidly evolving virus that defeats everything we throw at it.”

We are doing just fine here in Florida.


2 posted on 01/04/2023 8:32:07 AM PST by TexasGator (!!!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Ya ?

Well that’s what happens when you shift your gain of function bio weapons manufacturing plants from wuhan into the bodies of millions with jabs.


3 posted on 01/04/2023 8:34:54 AM PST by cuz1961 (USCGR Veteran )
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To: SeekAndFind

Eric Topol (cited in the piece) has been one of the worst offenders in terms of supporting and advancing arguments for authoritarian overreach from the beginning. And he’s a shameless partisan, though he continues to hide behind the tattered fig leaf of academic neutrality.

The media must have realized at some point that he had just pushed too far into partisan political territory and stopped covering him, but over the past couple of weeks, he’s popped up again.

Maybe the (Chinese) Covid virus will again be politically valuable for the Democrat party now that the Republicans have taken control of the house?


4 posted on 01/04/2023 8:38:44 AM PST by absalom01 (You should do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, and you should never wish to do less.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Molnupiravir is mutagenic to the virus and could very well be mutagenic to healthy cells in the body, increasing the risk of cancer. It has also been shown to cause muscle an cartilage damage with very little benefit to those who are unvaccinated.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/11/02/harming-those-who-receive-it-the-dangers-of-molnupiravir-part-2/?sh=34700fd61490


5 posted on 01/04/2023 8:51:21 AM PST by jimwatx
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To: SeekAndFind

Still not interested.


6 posted on 01/04/2023 8:54:01 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: rktman

Same. I do a couple crazy things.

1. Eat healthy (buy from the perimeter of the grocery store)
2. Lift/sprint/swim/walk/yoga
3. Get ample sleep
4. Meditate
5. Supplement
6. Not worry


7 posted on 01/04/2023 9:05:06 AM PST by EEGator
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To: SeekAndFind

Probably the intended purpose of it.


8 posted on 01/04/2023 9:57:05 AM PST by TexasM1A
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To: SeekAndFind; metmom; 2ndreconmarine; Fitzcarraldo; Covenantor; Mother Abigail; EBH; Dog Gone; ...
Infectious Disease ping - Could government mandatory vaccinations have created the increase of covid variants ?
More information in the article

(From the article): .."Dr. Peter McCullough warned about the dangers of vaccinating into a wave of the illness.
In a presentation to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons in October 2021, he said, “By pushing mass vaccination,
governments have created evolutionary pressures on SARS-CoV-2, and people warned us about this.
Gia Vanderburgh, Michael Yeadon, Dr. Luke Montie, they warned us about this.
“Don’t do this, don’t vaccinate into a pandemic, because we have a high prevalence of virus.”

“According to an analysis by Eric Topol, executive vice president of the Research Department of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Institute, XBB.1.5 has mutations that lead to immune escape and possesses a distinct growth advantage against the previous dominant omicron variant, BQ.1.
More great news includes a study published in Cell that shows all of the currently available monoclonal antibodies, including Evusheld,
are rendered useless by the BQ and XBB lineages. (Emphasis Mine)
Evusheld was used in immunocompromised patients to prevent infection.
The paper also notes that researchers have no idea why the new variants skirt the current immune response: ..”

"The pandemic response is not going well. Three years in, we still have a rapidly evolving virus that defeats everything we throw at it.
There is also an increasing body of research indicating that repeated mRNA vaccines may not help and could even hurt.
A recent Wall Street Journal article posits that vaccines may be causing continued variant development. “

9 posted on 01/04/2023 12:12:49 PM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

Imwould expect it too.

They have the goose that lays the golden egg in this virus.

No way they are not going to milk it for all it’s worth and grab as much money, power, and control from it.


10 posted on 01/04/2023 1:57:05 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith…)
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