In this video, Dr. Roger Seheult of MedCram, provides the latest details on the newest Covid-19 subvariant circulating, Omicron BA.5 and how to boost your immune system. The CDC is showing an increase in the subvariant BA.5. As of early July, it represented the majority of infections in the U.S. The question that needs to be answered is, given we have seen multiple subvariants of Omicron that have come and gone, will BA.5 be similar or will it cause more morbidity and mortality?
COVID subvariants
The majority of the differences in the subvariants that have occurred are often found within the spike protein. As the mutations occur in the spike protein, the ability of the virus to infect either goes up or down. The antibodies that result from these infections are also different and may not be able to surmount an infection with a future different mutation. This response is normally part of the adaptive immune system.
South African Covid-19 infections
Currently, South Africa is giving us some insights into this. Due to the current spike protein variation in the BA.5 subvariant being so different from the original Omicron, this is having an effect on the adaptive immune system. In South Africa, many individuals have high antibody rates from prior infections and there is some amount of vaccine antibodies, but with the current subvariant BA.5, there has still been an increase in the number of cases. It appears, whether you get antibodies from the current available vaccines or from actual infections, the spike protein of BA.5 is different enough to allow escape to both types of immunity.
U.S. infections
In the U.S., case numbers are going up even though we are overall not capturing all positive cases due to home testing. Around the world, Omicron in general has seemed to be a less severe variant compared to prior variants with Alpha, Beta, Delta. However, there has been an increase in hospitalizations from Omicron around the world. One solution would be to get a vaccine booster with the BA.5 spike protein variation. Unfortunately, this will take several months and by the time it is available to the public, there will be a new subvariant around. Eric Topol states that although there is no right answer, to keep chasing each variant is a flawed approach. He is recommending a generation of vaccines that are universal i.e. sub-variant proof.
How to improve your innate immune system
Until then, what can be done? Dr. Seheult recommends working on improving your innate immune system. A strong innate system does not care what the subvariant is. We now know that there are risks to getting repeated infections with Covid-19. SARS-CoV-2 is capable of causing delayed interferon responses. Studies have found that individuals with the inability to mount an interferon response have poorer outcomes with SARS-CoV-2 infections. MedCram has looked at multiple ways to try and improve the innate immune system with hydrotherapy, heat baths, saunas, and cold exposure. These can be found in MedCram videos 46, 47, 132. Also sunlight exposure can also help with your immune system as well as vitamin D. This can be reviewed in the following MedCram video on light and on vitamin D. Now that we are still in summer, be sure to get your sun exposure and getting into healthy practices to improve your immune system by winter.
LINKS / REFERENCES:
Outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection (Research Square) | https://assets.researchsquare.com/fil…
What the BA.5 Subvariant Could Mean for the United States (NYT) | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2…
The BA.5 story (Ground Truths) | https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-…
All coronavirus updates are at MedCram.com (including more discussion on delta variant covid, COVID Delta, COVID children, natural immunity COVID 19, and more).
MedCram Update 46: https://youtu.be/EFRwnhfWXxo
MedCram Update 47: https://youtu.be/H1LHgyfPPQ8
MedCram Update 132: https://youtu.be/9OZZ6_M4OB0
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