3rd Omicron Wave, Immune Tolerance Study, Turning Taiwan into Asias Ukraine and the Next Pandemic
Highly Vaccinated (94% with 1 dose and 75% boosted) Taiwan enters its 3rd Omicron Wave and 4th or even 5th COVID Wave (possible missed November- December 2020 wave). All waves beginning with the roll out of Vaccines in April 2021 which accounted for 99.9% of COVID deaths (15,120) since 2020, and bringing with it ~ 25,000 excess Non-Covid deaths(details can be found in my archives).
Meanwhile recent studies show repeated dosing causing Immune Tolerance due to IgG4 and increased rate of infections (dose dependent). Discussed below.
And if this does not bring joy to your heart we have a looming economic crisis as TSMC transitions to USMC and the damage to an industry making up 20% of GDP as US provocations including the recent Defense Act which will loan Taiwan money to buy their overpriced weapons and make them a debtor nation. This will also tempt China to use Military Force sooner rather than later.
In if thats not enough we have the Demons plotting the Next Pandemic (Catastrophic Contagion) with this one targeting the young.
So lets get to it
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Monday (Dec. 26) announced that Taiwan has begun to experience its third Omicron wave and predicted that it will peak at 30,000 daily cases by early February.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4762156
Since May we never had a week averaging fewer than 12,000 COVID cases a day (180,000 cases a day if US population size). They use mostly antigen tests here which are less likely to give a false positive and they exclude positives within 3 months of a previous infection
Boosters started end of December 2021 and cases began gradually climbing before exploding in week 16. The 2nd booster was approved in May during the 1st Omicron wave. And 2nd wave then began at end of August (week 34). In September the third booster (bivalent) was approved as the 2nd wave was picking up steam). In November the updated bivalent became available and now here we are with the third wave with a fourth booster for those who got the BA.1/2 bivalent in September
Taiwan did relax its outdoor mask mandate in December but 95% still wear them outside
Tell me again how these things are effective?
Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Bivalent Vaccine
This study found that the current bivalent vaccines were about 30% effective overall in protecting against infection with SARS-CoV-2, when the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 lineages were the predominant circulating strains.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.17.22283625v1
And what kind of antibodies are the good people of Taiwan generating? Hopefully not too many IgG4 abs
Class switch towards non-inflammatory, spike-specific IgG4 antibodies after repeated SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination
Shortly after the initial two mRNA vaccine doses, the IgG response mainly consists of the pro-inflammatory subclasses IgG1 and IgG3. Here, we report that several months after the second vaccination, SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies were increasingly composed of non-inflammatory IgG4, which were further boosted by a third mRNA vaccination and/or SARS-CoV-2 variant breakthrough infections. IgG4 antibodies among all spike-specific IgG antibodies rose on average from 0.04% shortly after the second vaccination to 19.27% late after the third vaccination.
This induction of IgG4 antibodies was not observed after homologous or heterologous SARS-CoV-2 vaccination with adenoviral vectors. Single-cell sequencing and flow cytometry revealed substantial frequencies of IgG4-switched B cells within the spike-binding memory B-cell population (median 14.4%; interquartile range (IQR) 6.7–18.1%) compared to the overall memory B-cell repertoire (median 1.3%; IQR 0.9–2.2%) after three immunizations.
Importantly, this class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and complement deposition.
It is currently not clear whether or to what extent the Comirnaty mRNA vaccination or the short interval of immunizations are responsible for the observed long-lasting GC reactions (12–14), but a prolonged presence of vaccine mRNA or antigen in the lymph node might be a potential explanation (12). Furthermore, a robust and persistent T follicular helper cell (TFH) response for up to six months after mRNA vaccination has been described in draining lymph nodes (17), which might be involved in the regulation of CSR by recurrent interactions of GC B cells with TFH cells. Of note, our study was restricted to vaccinees receiving the Comirnaty vaccine.
Independent of the underlying mechanism, the induction of antiviral IgG4 antibodies is a phenomenon infrequently described and raises important questions about its functional consequences. Neutralizing antibodies preventing the initial binding of the viral particle to its specific cellular receptor are considered to be the most protective measure against SARS-CoV2 infections (36). This competitive binding is mediated by the variable antigen-binding site and does not rely on the constant part of the Fc fragment. Indeed, in the present study we confirmed previous reports on improved avidity and neutralizing potential of vaccine-induced antibodies after the third vaccination (9–11). However, the large number of breakthrough infections caused by the Omicron variant indicates that current vaccination regimens do not confer sterilizing protection. Once infection is established, Fc-mediated effector functions become more relevant to clear viral infections.
So far, only few studies on the role of vaccine-induced IgG4 responses against infectious diseases are available. In the field of HIV vaccine development, repeated protein immunization in the trial VAX003 (49) led to higher levels of HIV gp120-specific IgG2 and IgG4, ..[while] vaccine-elicited IgG3 antibodies enhance effector functions as ADCC and ADCP, but vaccine-induced IgG4 inhibited those functions (52).
Brazilian study during the early phase of the pandemic correlated an early onset and high levels of anti-spike IgG4 antibodies with a more severe COVID-19 progression after SARS-CoV-2 infection, which might indicate a less effective antibody response (56).
Additionally, Della-Torre et al. reported on a significant association of high IgG4/IgG1 ratios with poor disease outcome (57)
However, in the case of a primary immune response, the causality is difficult to address, since it is also possible that a more severe infection leads to an IgG4 response and not vice versa.
In our study, antibody-mediated phagocytic activity and complement deposition were reduced in sera after the third immunization, in parallel to higher proportions of anti-spike IgG4 antibodies. However, how these changes affect subsequent virus infections remains unclear. Since Fc-mediated effector function could be critical for viral clearance, an increase in IgG4 subclasses might result in longer viral persistence in case of infection. However, it is also conceivable that non-inflammatory Fc-mediated effector functions reduce immunopathology while virus is still being neutralized via high-avidity antibody variable regions. In a cohort of vaccinees with breakthrough infections, we did not obtain any evidence for an alteration of disease severity, which was mild in almost all of our cases.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I have noticed an uptick in CFR here in Taiwan a month after the 2nd and 3rd booster campaigns began, which would then fall . Example. Early May 2021 - 0.13% CFR, June 2021 - 0.2% CFR. September 2021 - 0.13% CFR, October 2021 - 0.17%. I calculate it based on CDC daily reports but there is a bit of a lag as it takes up to 4-6 weeks for some to die and be reported so I cant tell you what Decembers CFR is (working on early November now)
Of course as I have discussed before, there is significant numbers of Non-Covid Excess Deaths in Taiwan. It could be that the fluctuation in CFR is related to lesser or greater cases of undercounting of CIVID deaths. Its impossible to say.
And as mentioned now a fourth booster as the 3rd Omicron wave begins
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) requires at least three months between BA.1 and BA.4/BA.5 boosters, and because the BA. 1 jabs were first administered on Sept. 24, the first recipients of the BA. 1 booster can get the bivalent BA.4/BA.5 jab starting on Dec. 24.
There have been 1.799 million people vaccinated against the Omicron BA.1 subvariant in Taiwan to date, meaning they will be eligible for the BA.4/BA.5 booster in the coming weeks, CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) told reporters Friday.
Taiwan began the rollout of the Moderna vaccine against BA.1 on Sept. 24, and the one against BA.4 and BA.5 on Nov. 18. Taiwan still has 920,000 doses of the BA.1 version and 2.21 million doses of the BA.4/BA.5 version in inventory, the CECC said.
CECC data showed that as of Dec. 22, 94 percent of Taiwan's population had received at least one dose and 88.8 percent had gotten at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 75 percent had received a booster.
According to the CECC, 18.9 percent of the population had received a second booster, though among people aged 65 or older that percentage was 43.7 percent.
https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202212230016
Fortunately, Taiwan people don’t seem to be rushing to get these new boosters (less than 10% got the BA.1 bivalent jab), but maybe they can make the new wave scary enough to increase uptake. China is relaxing their travel restrictions while folks are claiming 250 million cases in China in December…..
[Leaked straight from a CIA Hong Kong Desk]
…..and Taiwan is not planning to increase restrictions on those coming from China with the Lunar New Year Holidays looming. Perfect Storm
Meanwhile
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday accused the government of “ruining” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) by “gifting” it to the US due to pressure from Washington, adding that the move would hollow out Taiwan’s economy.
“It is the KMT that cultivated TSMC and turned it into a leader of the semiconductor industry, but now the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government is giving it away. TSMC will surely become ‘USMC’ in the future,” KMT caucus convener Tseng Ming-chung (曾銘宗) told a news conference at the legislature.
It [TSMC] is an important leader of the nation’s economy, and has supply chain and industry clusters in Taiwan, as well as a vital role in the global economy,” he said.
“TSMC is now building a plant in Arizona with initial investment of US$12 billion. The 4-nanometer chip facility is due to start production in 2024. It is also planning a 3-nanometer plant with US$40 billion investment,” he added.
“Meanwhile, its main competitor, Intel, also has a plant in Arizona for 4-nanometer and 3-nanometer chips, only an hour’s drive away from TSMC’s plant,” Tseng said. “Industry executives and experts have said Intel would be the winner by taking new technology from TSMC and improving its production yield rate,” he said.
“Intel offers salaries three to five times higher those offered by TSMC... It is tantamount to TSMC training engineers and technicians for Intel,” he added.
“We demand that the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) provide the support needed to come up with concrete policies to keep the ‘Silicon Shield’ in Taiwan,” Tseng said.
KMT Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) said the domestic semiconductor industry accounts for about 20 percent of Taiwan’s GDP and about one-third of the nation’s exports.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2022/12/28/2003791557
Conscription is to be restored to one year for all men born after Jan. 1, 2005, starting in 2024, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday as part of an updated national defense plan.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2022/12/28/2003791545
This was her first press conference in almost 2 years. Notice how they are only conscripting men. Also, if anyone thinks Taiwan has a chance if China decides to invade they are clearly not thinking right. Short of having a nuclear deterrent there is nothing which could stop China if they decided to do this. And with TSMC soon to be safely in US hands , the US has less reason to not provoke China to a degree that makes such a decision more likely. In the meantime they will loan Taiwan money to buy their overpriced weapons which will also prove useless in the final outcome.
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202212240002
Following the passing of the Defense Act promising loans to Taiwan to purchase more weapons, China reacts.
So besides a War with China and a Devastated Economy, what else do we have to look for?
The exercise simulated a series of WHO emergency health advisory board meetings addressing a fictional pandemic set in the near future. Participants grappled with how to respond to an epidemic located in one part of the world that then spread rapidly, becoming a pandemic with a higher fatality rate than COVID-19 and disproportionately affecting children and young people.
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/exercises/2022-catastrophic-contagion/index.html
Something tells me we wont be having elections in 2024 (Taiwan or US). Hope I am wrong.
Happy New Year?