Here's what Canadian viral immunologist and vaccine researcher Dr. Byram Bridle told Ingraham about the claim that we're in a pandemic of the unvaxxed, and that the unvaccinated are hotbeds for dangerous variants:
"Absolutely, it's untrue to be calling this a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it's certainly untrue ... that the unvaccinated are somehow driving the emergence of the novel variants. This goes against every scientific principle that we understand.
The reality is, the nature of the vaccines we are using right now, and the way we're rolling them out, are going to be applying selective pressure to this virus to promote the emergence of new variants. Again, this is based on sound principles.
We have to look no further than ... the emergence of antibiotic resistance ... The principle is this: If you have a biological entity that is prone to mutation — and the SARS-CoV-2, like all coronaviruses is prone to mutation — and you apply a narrowly focused selective pressure that is nonlethal, and you do this over a long period of time, this is the recipe for driving the emergence of novel variants.
This is exactly what we're doing. Our vaccines are focused on a single protein of the virus, so the virus only has to alter one protein, and the vaccines don't come close to providing sterilizing immunity.
People who are vaccinated still get infected, it only seems particularly good at blunting the disease, and what that tells you therefore is that these vaccines in the vast majority of people are applying a nonlethal pressure, narrowly focused on one protein, and the vaccine rollout is occurring over a long period of time. That's the recipe for driving variants."
Natural Immunity Offers Far Superior Protection
Bridle also explains why natural immunity offers robust protection against all variants, whereas vaccine-induced immunity can't. When you acquire the infection naturally, your body develops antibodies against ALL of the viral proteins whereas the COVID shots only trigger antibodies against one, namely the spike protein.
As mentioned above, when you have antibodies against just one of the viral proteins, the virus only needs to mutate that one protein in order to evade your immune system. When you have natural immunity, on the other hand, your antibodies will recognize all parts of the virus, so even if the spike protein is mutated, your body will recognize other parts of the virus and mount an attack against those.
That SARS-CoV-2 works the same way other viruses do was shown in a Nature Reviews Immunology study7 by Alessandro Sette and Shane Crotty, published in October 2020. The study, "Cross-Reactive Memory T Cells and Herd Immunity to SARS-CoV-2" argued that naturally-acquired immunity against SARS-CoV-2 is potent, long-lasting and very broad in scope, as you develop both antibodies and T cells that target multiple components of the virus and not just one.
If we are to depend on vaccine-induced immunity, as public health officials are urging us to do, we'll end up on a never-ending booster treadmill. Boosters will absolutely be necessary, as the shot offers such narrow protection against a single protein of the virus. Already, data around the world show vaccine-induced protection is waning rapidly in the face of new variants, and Moderna has publicly stated that the need for additional boosters is expected.8
