Will Dove  00:00 Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche holds a Ph.D. in virology. Years ago, he worked for several vaccine companies in R&D, and even worked for GAVI, Bill Gates’ so-called vaccine alliance. This was before Dr. Vanden Bossche realized that these organizations had anything but the best interests of the people at heart. But his past experience and scientific knowledge does give him a unique perspective on the use of vaccines.   Will Dove  00:26 In 2021, it was Dr. Vanden Bossche who warned that mass vaccination against COVID would guarantee that the vaccinated would never develop herd immunity. And in this he has been proven correct. The statistics clearly show that with each new variant, it is the vaccinated who fill the hospitals while the unvaxxed enjoy natural immunity, in most cases even to new variants.   Will Dove  00:50 But why? Why are the vaccinated more susceptible to infection? Why is it the bodies of the vaccinated that are continually producing new variants? Why do the vaxxed develop long COVID, and what really is long COVID? And if the vaccinated will never develop herd immunity, will this ever stop? And if it doesn’t, will the virus eventually mutate into something truly dangerous, at least for the vaccinated?   Will Dove  01:26 Dr. Vanden Bossche, welcome to the show.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  01:29 Thank you, Will. Thanks for having me.   Will Dove  01:32 I've really been looking forward to interviewing you. I've read a lot of your information that you've put out over the last few years. And some of it sounds very, very alarming. But I believe that forewarned is forearmed, that understanding why you have these theories can help people to really be much more confident of the future and to prepare for it.   Will Dove  01:55 We're going to get into that about the possibility of a breakthrough, new Coronavirus that could be extremely dangerous to the population. But before we get to that, I want to lay some groundwork. My viewers know that the vaccinated are far more likely to be infected and to die from Coronavirus than the unvaccinated or those who have natural immunity. What I would like you to explain from your expertise is why? Why do these mRNA COVID vaccines make people more susceptible to infection?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  02:29 Okay, okay, Will. Well, it makes them more - before I explain, it makes them more susceptible to bad consequences of the infection. Right? So, I mean, the virus is circulating, the virus is around so the unvaccinated can also be infected. Right? So, the question is, once you get infected, what is the immune system of the vaccinated, of somebody who is vaccinated do compared to somebody who's unvaccinated, that is what is going to make the difference.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  03:09 So, the difference is not the infection but the difference is the way the immune system is going to react to that infection. And so, to understand the difference between the way the immune system of the vaccinated person reacts, as compared to an unvaccinated person, we first have of course, to see what do the vaccines do. So, what happens with the vaccination is that when people get vaccinated, and when we talk about vaccination, it will be understood that we talked about COVID-19 vaccination. I'm not going to repeat every single time COVID-19. So, unless we specify very clearly that it is about another vaccination, when I talk about the vaccinees, vaccinated people, the vaccination, etc., it will be the COVID-19 vaccination.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  04:07 So, it all starts with vaccinating people during a pandemic. So, what does that mean? Well, first of all, I would like to make it clear to people that usually when we vaccinate, we do this before we encountered the virus. So, I'm always giving the example, if you travel, for example, to a foreign country where there is an infectious disease and that is endemic, for example, or even there is an epidemic and we have a vaccine that can protect against that. We will make sure that before we travel to that country, we get our full vaccination in place, so that by the time we arrived in that country, we are fully vaccinated and protected.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  05:00 So that is not what has happened during the pandemic, because we have started the vaccination during a time where the virus was already circulating, in other words, where people were already exposed to the virus. So now, what people fail to realize is that in order for your immune defense to be fully functional, you need, in fact, to wait till you have - in this case with regard to SARS-CoV-2, you have functional antibodies, or high titers of functional antibodies.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  05:41 It's not like you vaccinate, and then two hours after you have a high titer of fully functional antibodies. People have already realized that you usually need at least two shots - a bribing shot, and a booster shot. That is the case with many vaccines. So, you need to have at least two injections, two vaccinations. And then after the second vaccination, depending, of course, on the type of vaccine, etc., you need approximately one to two weeks till you have high concentrations of fully functional antibodies.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  06:22 So, let's say I get injected, today I get my first injection, it will take at least three, four, or five weeks before I'm fully protected, or I will be sufficiently protected to deal with the virus in a way that I'm not going to get infected or I'm not going to get the disease. So, when you get exposed to the virus, at the point in time where your immune response is not yet fully mature, that's how we call this. The maturation is the process by which the antibodies are further developing, and will ultimately reach full functionality and also a sufficiently high concentration - that takes time.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  07:15 During that time, if you get exposed to the virus before you have reached that status, then of course, your immune defense is not complete. It's not fully functional. I'm not saying it's not functional at all, but it's not fully functional. So, in other words, it is suboptimal, right? So, what happens now, when you do mass vaccination, you will of course have many people who are sitting on suboptimal antibodies and who get exposed to the virus. And when that happens, there is something very specific that occurs and we call this viral immune escape. What is viral immune escape? Well, people have to know that when viruses replicate, there will always be also mutants that develop, so a virus replicates and they're all into replication.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  08:22 So, mistakes can be made. And some like Coronavirus, for example, they can correct some of these mistakes, because they have a corrective function. But nevertheless, mistakes will always happen. So that means when you have virus replication, automatically, you have some mutants, we call them variants that accidentally occur and you know, stochastically these mutants can have different characteristics compared to the original string.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  09:00 So now, some of these mutants, just by coincidence, or accidentally, will have properties that make them more resistant to the suboptimal immunity. So the suboptimal immunity that a vaccinee has already developed is of course, making the life of the virus more difficult. It's not going to eliminate the virus because it's suboptimal, but it's nevertheless going to make life of the virus more difficult.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  09:35 Now, it's not going to make the life more difficult of certain mutants, namely mutants that happen to have properties that are well suited to overcome that suboptimal immunity that people are putting on the virus. So, in other words, those guides will now, compared to their peers that have not these equalities mutations, they will have what we call a competitive advantage, they will have a fitness advantage. So, that means that in this hostile environment of suboptimal immunity, they will thrive better, than those who have not acquired those mutations. And therefore, those who have this competitive advantage will start to propagate and to replicate more frequently and better than the others. And that is the way they become dominant in the viral population.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  10:46 So, now, another thing which is important to understand, two things in fact, is if this is just going to happen in a few people, that will not make a difference, but if this is happening like in a certain percentage of the population, then it will make a difference, then it will put the virus under pressure. Why is this? Well, we know that viruses like Coronavirus, but also influenza virus, rotavirus, enterovirus, etc., they have to transmit from one host to another in order to survive.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  11:29 So, as you know, viruses can only survive in living cells in a living body. So, these viruses are generating acute infections, it's not like they are chronic. If you have a chronic infection like HIV, hepatitis B for example, the virus can replicate in your body and the infection can be repeated and this can go for a long time. Acute infections like Corona, they are going to be eliminated from your body, completely eliminated.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  12:07 So normally you get the infection, you get the disease, you cure it out, you recover, and you completely eliminate the virus. So, no virus anymore. So, that means that for this virus to survive, it needs to be able - before it gets killed during your recovery, it needs to be transmitted to another host, where it can repeat the same cycle of replication and then afterwards you recover and the virus gets eliminated. During that time, you will spread the virus and you will infect somebody else. And that is how a population can sustain the survival of viruses that cause acute infections, we call them in virology textbook, you call them acute self-limiting infections, self-limiting, because after a while the virus gets eliminated.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  13:12 So, why am I telling this? I'm telling this to make it very clear that if there is only like a few people, a certain amount percentage of the population that is sitting on these suboptimal antibodies, that is not going to make a difference. It is going to make a difference when the virus encounters the suboptimal immunity, it spreads and then it lands in another person who is also sitting on suboptimal antibodies. And then again spreads to another, a third person who also has this hostile environment.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  13:55 So, if in that environment, you will have now immune pressure that is not sufficient to kill the virus, that makes it life difficult. Then mutants will be selected, but they can only be selected if they are going to encounter the same suboptimal situation in a sufficiently large part of the population. If that happens in only like 2% or 5% of the population, these pressures will not be sufficient to give these mutants a competitive advantage compared to their peers.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  14:38 But if their environment, if the environment of the virus is like predominantly suboptimal, because many people for example are in that situation, then the respirations we call this immune selection pressure - a pressure that is exerted by the population and that will lead to the selection of those mutants that happen to have by accident or accidentally properties that are able to overcome this suboptimal immunity of a large part of the population.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  15:22 So now second thing, what are the properties of these mutants that provided with this fitness advantage? Well, we know that the vaccine is inducing antibodies that are primarily directed against spike protein, right? Spike protein. And so, spike protein is the protein of the virus of SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus in general that is responsible for the infectiousness of the virus. So, what does that mean? Spike is responsible for viral entry into the host cell. So, thanks to this spike protein, the virus can enter into the cell and that process of entering into the cell is what we call the infectivity or the infectiousness of the virus.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  16:19 So now that means that when we are dealing with suboptimal immunity, what it translates to practically is in fact that these people, a large part of the population is sitting on antibodies against spike that are suboptimal. So that means that these antibodies are going to put pressure on the infectiousness of the virus, because the antibodies are directed against spike, and spike is responsible for the infectiousness. So that means that the mutants that are going to be selected in this population are going to be mutants’ variants that are more infectious.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  17:09 And remember, if there is one common denominators in all these changes that we had from Alpha to Beta, from Beta to Gamma, from Gamma to Delta, from Delta to Omicron, the common denominator was that every single time the circulating virus became more infectious, as a result of this pressure exerted - exerted, in fact, by the population. So, what that means is that people who are vaccinated, they will mount antibodies that cannot prevent the virus from escaping that immunity.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  17:59 And so if you have this, more infectious variants that escape from this neutralizing antibodies, that means that they can, despite the fact that people have antibodies and that they have been vaccinated, this new, more infectious variants have the capability to break, to root, the immunity of this vaccinated person. That is what we call the vaccine breakthrough infections that we have seen primarily.   Will Dove  18:35 I want to get onto that in a minute, but before we move on, I want to make sure that I'm understanding what you've explained so far, and see if I can summarize this for our viewers. You've explained that because they started this vaccination program while the pandemic was going on. We had a large number of people who got the injections. And while the injections were doing their work, and we'll ignore for now the many arms of the mRNA vaccines, we'll skip over that for now.   Will Dove  19:02 While it was supposedly building that immunity, which would take, as you said, three to four weeks, they get infected. Now they've got the virus at work in their body. And the conflict between the vaccines actions and their body attempting to build natural immunity is creating, as what you said, these suboptimal immunities. And because there are so many people who have been injected, these escaped variants that would not probably infect someone who had natural immunity, because it's broad spectrum, and it's going to recognize that, it can get past the suboptimal immunity of those who have been injected.   Will Dove  19:43 And because we've got some 5 billion people who had been injected, now we have a problem. Because where these viruses, these variants would simply have been stopped by the natural immunity of a herd immune population, instead we've got some 75%, 80% of people out there and jump from person to person to person, and it can spread through them.   Will Dove  20:07 So, the next question that I would have, and by the way Geert, you've given me about three of them with what you've already said, but let's move on to the first of them. You said that these variants, that these breakthrough variants, they tend to focus on infectiousness because of the spike protein, and that's how it infects the cell. And we saw that through as you said, through the various variants until we got up to Omicron, which was highly infectious, but it wasn't very virulent. And so that would be my next question. Are we at danger of developing something that is virulent where instead of just being infectious, it's also very, very dangerous, at least to the vaccinated?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  20:50 Yeah, well, they say said now, they’re taking a big leap, Will. But yes, the answer is yes. But you know, for me an answer with yes or no is not meaningful, unless there is a solid explanation behind, right? Why it is yes, or why it is no? So for a second, let's concentrate again, because we are going to come to that answer finally, but let's come just for a second to your first question, which is the difference in the reaction of the immune system of a vaccinated person versus an unvaccinated person.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  21:42 Because even people who were unvaccinated and got infected, they mounted an immune response, natural immunity, as you were saying, but they also mounted antibodies, neutralizing antibodies, right? So when they were confronted with more infectious variants that were selected, primarily through the pressure of the highly vaccinated population. These antibodies were also on the suboptimal, because they could not lower recognize the new variant that was circulating.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  22:32 So initially, very much so, the unvaccinated and the vaccinated were in the same court with regards to their immunity or their immune response to these new variants. So, let me clarify, first of all, Will, the thing that we very often forget is that those countries that proceeded with mass vaccination, were also to a large extent, the countries that were implementing or that had been implementing very stringent infection prevention measures, right?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  23:18 So, if you are a virus that causes acute self-limiting viral infection, so that means you have to rely on transmission from one person to another. And now all of a sudden that population comes with lockdowns, with social distancing, with masks, etc., all these physical barriers to the transmission, even if they are permeable. And the first to say that, you know, the masks are not fully protecting the social are not fully protecting, etc. But there is very clearly a physical barrier that makes the transmission more difficult, it will not prevent the transmission.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  24:04 And the second is when the best vaccinations start in the one that I've just explained to you, where a lot of people you know, when you got your first shot, you were not guaranteed. So, you could just take part in a normal societal life, but you were exposed to the virus while not having full-fledged immunity. So that, as well, has promoted the propagation of more infectious variants. So, these two components.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  24:38 Now, the unvaccinated, they were also confronted with this immune escape variants, they are living in this very same population. So that means that some people had developed an infection. With Wuhan, for example, developed antibodies. And guess what? A few weeks, a month, two months thereafter, they were all of a sudden confronted with the beta variants. There neutralizing antibodies were not efficient either against beta because they were directed against Wuhan, right?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  25:19 Despite the fact that it was naturally fiction, these antibodies had the same targets as the vaccinal antibodies. Namely, they were targeted at the spike protein of the Wuhan virus. So that means that also, of course, the unvaccinated, they also became ill, right? Not all of them, of course, but to some extent. So, then the question is at what point did we get this divergence between the immune response of the unvaccinated versus the immune response of the vaccinated?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  26:04 I would love to see studies where unvaccinated people right now are tested through PCR or antigen testing, etc., to verify shedding because I'm sure that the vast majority of the unvaccinated are having sterilizing immunity and no load-shedding the virus despite the fact that they are exposed, but that is not tested anymore. So, what makes the difference, Will? And what is crucial is that if you are vaccinated, if you are fully vaccinated, at least two shots, you will develop high titers of antibodies, right? High titers of antibodies, and that is what our health authorities love to see - high titers of antibodies.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  27:04 And by the way, I'll tell you something, in immunology, the more is never the better, right? It's about the quality. It's not about the quantity, because what happens, and I will make the parallel with the unvaccinated immediately so that you begin to understand how the immune response or the immune system of the vaccinee starts after a while to respond in a different way compared to that of the unvaccinated person. So vaccinated people who are sitting have very high antibody titers, and that is not all of them. I'm always telling that when I talk about the vaccinated, it's not every vaccinated, it's those people who have gotten at least two shots have high titers of antibodies.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  27:57 So now, as we discussed already, when these antibodies are no longer recognizing the circulating immune escape variant, you have a vaccine breakthrough infection, that is where we landed so far. So now what happens if you have a vaccine breakthrough infection in the presence of a high titers of antibodies? What is going to happen is immune refocusing. What is an immune refocusing? Well, immune refocusing is the following phenomenon. You have a vaccine breakthrough infection, because the antibodies directed against the Wuhan can no longer neutralize that virus, especially if the discrepancy between the vaccinal antigen and the circulating variant is substantial.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  28:52 For example, in the case of Omicron, remember Omicron 30 or 32 mutations in the spiked protein alone was, you know, the vaccinees or the vaccinal antibodies could no longer neuter. So, you have a vaccine breakthrough infection. But once the virus has broken through the vaccine induced immunity, it can still be bound by a high titer of these antibodies. This binding will not result in neutralization. Normally, the binding of antibodies to the virus results in neutralization of the virus and the virus is eliminated.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  29:37 When you have vaccine breakthrough infection, these high titers of antibodies, as I was just saying that are no longer neutralizing will still be able to bind to the virus. And what they will do is that by binding to the virus, they will mask those parts of spike protein that has been responsible for inducing the neutralizing antibodies.   Will Dove  30:07 Right. So, let me see if I can sum that up in English for our viewers. If I'm understanding you correctly, what's happening here is we have antibodies that are neutralizing and antibodies that are non-neutralizing. And what's happening with these suboptimal antibodies within the vaccinated population is that you've got the antibodies are masking that area of the spike protein that's responsible for making it infectious. And so, what we ended up with is escape variants that have found their way around that masking.   Will Dove  30:47 So of course, when that variant reaches someone else, especially somebody who has suboptimal antibodies, but possibly even somebody who's got natural immunity, it can march right past that adaptive immune response, because the part that's going to infect the cell has evolved in a way that dodges the antibody that would destroy or kill that virus. Is that essentially, correct?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  30:47 Yeah, well, it's a little bit complex, let me finish that, I will explain it in a way that it should really be fully understandable for people even with very little knowledge of immunology. So, once you have the new - that is something you have to bear in mind, immune refocusing occurs after vaccine breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated, in other words, sitting on the high titers of anti-spiked antibodies that do no longer neutralize.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  31:20 So, the immune system is now primarily, because it doesn't see the other epitopes or the other domains anymore, it now can focus on these domains that are normally subdominant. The antibodies, the new antibodies have not the same functional capacity as the original antibodies in terms of the neutralizing effect. But these new antibodies, they will, of course, recognize the new variants, because they are directed against the subdominant domains of that new variant. It's the new variant that has caused a breakthrough infection.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  32:48 So, the new variant has caused a breakthrough infection, and the new antibodies are directed against the subdominant domains of that very new variant. So that is the reason why people who got vaccine breakthrough infections, they were originally very well protected against new variants, and not only the variants that cost the vaccine breakthrough infection, but even other variants. So why is this?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  33:26 Well, the subdominant domains that are less immunogenic, why are they less immunogenic? They are less immunogenic, so less immunogenic means that they are usually not eliciting a strong immune response. And that is because these regions of spike are of vital importance to the virus. If the immune system would easily recognize them, and would focus on them right away. It's not what immune system is doing. It's focusing on the receptor binding domain. Because if the immune system would focus on these domains right away, this would have detrimental consequences for the virus because these are vitally important domains. Because they are vitally important, they are shared amongst all the SARS-CoV-2 variants, that they are conserved, and because they are vitally important. So that means if you induce antibodies against those domains, automatically, you will prevent the infection not just of one variant, but of a whole series of variants.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  34:43 Now, these antibodies, as you heard me saying, have not had this full-fledged neutralizing capacity, they can inhibit the infection, but they will lose this capacity very rapidly. Now you are right now sitting on antibodies, again that are suboptimal in the presence of circulating virus. Why you had mass vaccination? Because of the mass vaccination, you had a large proportion of people sitting on suboptimal antibodies that were encountering the virus. As a result of that, you were seeing propagation of new variants that were more infectious. These variants now cost mass vaccine breakthrough infections. And these mass vaccine breakthrough infections caused suboptimal immunity in a large part of the population due to your refocusing?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  35:59 So, the mass vaccination ultimately translates in large scale or mass vaccine breakthrough infections translates into large scale, you know, prevalence of suboptimal, broadly functional antibodies, and they will now, again, stimulate more immune escape in the vaccinated people. That is not the case in the unvaccinated, why not? And here comes the point. In the unvaccinated, when you have a natural infection, that is how the unvaccinated like why they removed immunity, right? By getting infected.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  36:47 Whereas the vaccinated, they started many of the vaccinees unfortunately, their first encounter with spike protein was through the vaccine, not through natural infection, especially in all the elderly people, those who got vaccinated first, right? So, their immune system, you know, there is two arms of the immune system, people can read this in every textbook, there is the innate immunity - innate and adaptive.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  37:20 These vaccines or all of these vaccines, whether this mRNA technology or whatever, all the COVID-19 vaccines are no replicating vaccines. They do because they are non-replicating, they are not living viruses, they do not train the cellular component of the innate immune system. So, I repeat, when you have non-replicating vaccines, those can readily stimulate the adaptive immune response, but they will not stimulate a cellular arm of the innate immune response, the cellular arm for people who are interested or cells like natural killer cells, macrophages, dendritic cells, etc.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  38:10 So, when you are experiencing like an unvaccinated person, natural infection, natural infection is a living virus, right? It will stimulate your innate immunity also the cellular arm. And if that is not sufficient, the virus will break through that innate immunity. And to the extent that it breaks through that innate immunity, it will solicit the adaptive immunity. So, we call the innate immunity, the first line of immune defense and these are the infantry at the borders of the country.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  38:54 If they are strong, they can stop the enemy from penetrating into the country. And then you don't need the special forces. You know, you don't need the B-cells, you don't need the T-cells. It's only to the extent that the enemy can penetrate that you need the special forces. So, in many people, in many unvaccinated people, tends to the elimination of a big part of the viral nodes through innate immunity, the adaptive immune responses, special forces were barely triggers. So, most of these people only developed low titers of antibodies.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  39:42 So now the mechanism that I explained for immune refocusing can only work if the titers of the antibodies are very high. Because if the virus infects, it breaks for example, through the innate immunity, and it can also break, a new variant can break of course, also through the adaptive immunity. As I was saying, if you got infected with Wuhan, and your innate immunity was not strong enough, you developed antibodies against Wuhan. And if later on, you were confronted with a Delta variant, for example, that delta variant would break through your immunity, it was not a vaccine induced immunity, but infection induced immunity.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  40:36 The difference is, when that happens with a vaccinee, after the breakthrough infection, this virus that has broken through the immunity will be facing high concentrations of antibodies that can no longer neutralize, that because of their high concentration, they can still bind, mask, the immunodominant epitopes and cause immune refocusing. In the unvaccinated, even if the virus breaks through, there is always this first line of immune defense that is strong enough to take out a big part of the viral load and the antibodies that have developed, the quantities, the titers, will be lowered.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  41:28 So even though the virus will also break through their immunity and infection induced immunity, the antibodies will not be able to bind to that virus anymore because their concentration is too low. And you don't have the immune refocusing. So, what happens is that in the meantime, the unvaccinated, when this process gets repeated, every single time, they get confronted with a more infectious variant, their innate immune system will get better and better trained.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  42:11 That is like this weight lifter, who starts with 20 kilograms. And you know, then the next variant is not 20 kilograms, it's 30 kilograms, it has been selected to become more and more infectious in a population. Now you will have to lift these 30 kilograms, and then comes 140 kilograms. And so, the unvaccinated have, to some extent, also, of course, been suffering, that they became ill or moderately ill. If you train, you know, I mean, no gain without pain, right? But after a while, Will, they train their innate immunity so strongly that they could skip their adaptive. Well, they didn't skip it. But the virus didn't break through their innate immunity anymore, because it was so strongly trained.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  43:09 So, despite this whole evolution, and this sequence of more and more infectious variants in highly vaccinated populations, the unvaccinated didn't rely on their adaptive immunity, because if they had to do so, like the vaccinees, they would have fallen short of protection, because the adaptive immunity is always against the Wuhan. So that means that the course of this pandemic with more and more infectious variants, the vaccinated had to rely more and more on their adaptive immune system that was constantly put on the wrong track, not recognizing the new variants that started to circulate.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  44:04 Whereas as the immune escape pandemic progress with more and more infectious variants, this gave an opportunity to the unvaccinated to train their cell based innate immune system better and better. And so now you end up with a situation where the unvaccinated can no longer, because of the vaccine breakthrough infections, can no longer train their innate immune system, whereas that is exactly what the unvaccinated are doing. So, I hope I had clearly said that the vaccinees, they rely on their adaptive immune system. The vaccinees can no longer train their innate immune system because the vaccine breakthrough infections accelerate the infection to an extent that is not enough time left for the innate immune system to be trained.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  45:04 Whereas with the unvaccinated, they train their innate immune system more, more and more. They all know that they have almost like no breakthrough infections anymore. And they do no longer rely on their adaptive immunity. So that means that for the unvaccinated, they don't care which variant is circulating, because innate immunity has a broad spectrum it protects regardless of the variants. So, it can protect against all variants.   Will Dove  45:41 So, what we get within that person who develops a natural immunity is a neutralizing antibody. Antibody that actually kills the virus, and now trains the adaptive immune system to recognize that structure, when it hits the body, again, even if it's a little bit different, say a variant. And so, you have these neutralizing antibodies that are going to protect that person. But because of the injections and the damage that it does to the immune system, and as you said, your suboptimal antibodies, they do have an immune response, but it's a non-neutralizing immune response.   Will Dove  46:19 But because of the way it's interacting with this non-neutralizing immune response, now you get the escape variants that are working their way around that which will then skip to other people. And because the entire system within the vaccinated is dependent upon the adaptive immune system, not the innate immune system that the non-vaccinated have, and you may reference to original antigenic sin, which is the tendency of an immune response to focus on the variable part of the antibody, versus the non-variable part or the conserved part, I think is a term you used.   Will Dove  47:01 Because it's going to focus on that variable part. Well, that's what you've done, you've trained it to only recognize that variable and that variable is going to change. So, where you've got the people who developed natural immunity, and they have this broad spectrum, neutralizing immune response with the vaccinated, you've programmed them to only recognize that variable. And when those variable changes, well, of course, it's going to escape, is that kind of essentially that?   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  47:37 The broad spectrum of the immune response mounted by the unvaccinated is clearly coming from the innate immune system. And that is only possible because the adaptive immune system in large part of the population is barely solicited. That is why I'm always saying Omicron was not a blessing, it was a scourge, it was a point of no return, because Omicron costs in highly vaccinated populations a large-scale vaccine breakthrough infection.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  48:31 So, when you say large-scale vaccine breakthrough infections, it means a large-scale immune refocusing, it means a large-scale induction of new antibodies, it means large-scale pressure of people sitting on these new antibodies and exerting suboptimal pressure on the virus, right. So, you have to do the cycle of adaptive immunity all the time. That is specific. And the innate is left aside, you sideline it. The unvaccinated, you will not sideline it and because they do not sideline it, they can train it better and better, because the variants circulating in that highly vaccinated population is becoming more and more infectious. So, the way it goes from 30 to 40 kilos, to 50 kilos, etc.   Will Dove  49:27 And I think we have to, once again just give a brief explanation of what you mean by the immune refocusing, that is an immune response that is ineffective. You're getting a response, but...   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  49:38 It is effective but not in the lower term. If you mount antibodies through the vaccine or even through infection, these antibodies will last for a long time. They have also very good immunologic memory, right? These new antibodies are mounted against the regions that are not normally recognized by the immune system. And that is good, because the regions, these regions are conserved because they are vitally important, the immune system should ideally not recognize them.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  50:20 So, if nevertheless, the antibodies are elicited, these antibodies have weaker capacity, they cannot really neutralize, they can just inhibit the infection, but they are going to decline pretty rapidly in large parts of the population. So, within no time, large parts of the population will be sitting again in suboptimal antibodies, this time not directly induced by the vaccine, but induced by the immune refocusing as a result of large-scale vaccine breakthrough infections.   Will Dove  50:58 Right. So now, I think I can take one of your analogies. And I think I get this now. So, stick with me for just a second because you talked about the weight lifter. And let's say they start with 20 kilos, and they go to 30, and 40, and 50. And that's what's happening in those people who have developed natural immunity, every time they get hit with a new variant, the body says, okay, well, I've already been able to handle the 20 kilos, I've had that. Now, there's some differences here. So, I'm going to add that to my immune responses. And now we're up to 30, and then get to another variant. And you might not get sick, but your body still recognizes an infection.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  51:37 But even, let's say, you lift these 20 kilograms, and now all of a sudden, you have this variant of 40 kilograms. That's the big difference, right? That's a big difference. You may get ill, but nevertheless, your innate immune system is going to take out a major part of the viral load, so that your adaptive immune system will not be stimulated very, very strongly. That is the reason why people who develop natural immunity even if they got sick, their antibodies in healthy people are lower than in people who got vaccinated. That is important, because even though you have natural immunity, and nevertheless experienced a breakthrough infection, you will not experience immune refocusing.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  52:42 And therefore, you will not be susceptible to, let's say, this cycle of more and more vaccine breakthrough infections, and therefore, you can train better and better your cell based innate immune system. So that is the cell based innate immune system. The only challenge is not that the different variants. It doesn't care about the antigenic oscillation of the variants; it can deal with all these folks. The only thing that is challenging for the innate immune system is the level of infectiousness. The level of infectiousness. That is why if it encounters a more infectious variants, regardless of the antigenic oscillation, it will hurt, but that will result in better training, so to say, right?   Will Dove  53:35 So, where I wanted to go with this was when we talk now about the vaccinated, and you're talking about the immune refocusing, and let's go back to the analogy of lifting the weights, what's happening is their body is trying to get stronger, but the immune refocusing, every time it does that, it resets them back to the 20 kilos. They never get stronger than the 20 kilos. So, when they get hit with a variant, the person who has natural immunity, and has been building it up and getting stronger, and let's say, and to keep our analogy going, let's say we've got this person up to 50 kilos, and sure they get hit with a new variant and you said what matters is the infectiousness of it.   Will Dove  54:14 So let's say this one has an infectiousness of, to use our analogy 35 kilos, that person's going to be fine, their innate immune system is going to deal with it. But now you've got the injected person who through this immune refocusing is continually having their immune system reset to 20 kilos, they get hit or something to 35, they're going to get sick.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  54:35 Well, so it's even more complex. So, what you're saying is correct with regard to their innate immune system.   Will Dove  54:44 I realize I'm being extremely basic.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  54:49 I don't know, that's up to you how you translate it in more simple terms, but they are also protected. They are protected, thanks to their adaptive immune response, to the new antibodies, these new antibodies are going to protect them. But because at the level of the population, you will have within no time you get high frequency of the vaccine breakthrough infections, the mass vaccine breakthrough infection, you will have a large part of the population that will be sitting on suboptimal titers of these new antibodies that protects the vaccinees, that protect against disease.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  55:40 And because of the suboptimal pressure, they drive new immune escape variants against which they will not be protected and that will again induce immune refocusing. So, they get protected a little bit and then they get hit by another variant as a result of suboptimal protection in a large part of the population. So, the public pressure, immune pressure can only be exerted by a large part of the population. For the reasons I explained the virus needs a large part of the population because it needs to go from one individual to the other.   Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche  56:27 So that is the complexity, so for the vaccinated, every single time you have a vaccine breakthrough infection, you can get ill to some extent, but you will be protected for some time, for some time. But then again, the next one is going to hit you and you can again be protected. But every single time the parts of the virus that are targeted are different because you could say, okay, I don't care, every single time I get vaccine breakthrough infection, I can be ill to some extent, but I'm again protected.