This week the Lancet published a remarkable study with the wordy title, “Safety, tolerability, viral kinetics, and immune correlates of protection in healthy, seropositive UK adults inoculated with SARS-CoV-2: a single-centre, open-label, phase 1 controlled human infection study.” In short, the researchers tried to infect people with covid — and failed.

The so-called “challenge study” extended over several years, recruiting healthy volunteers who were quarantined and then intentionally exposed to covid. Some volunteers were vaccinated and some were not. The researchers tried to give them covid several times, right up the nose, but kept failing, so they kept increasing the dosage. The last dosage they tried was ten thousand times higher than the first dose. But no dosages worked.

Even more vexing, about 40% of the study volunteers went on to catch covid later, out in the world. The scientists’ conclusion was that prior immunity and vaccination is really excellent protection against existing variants. Maybe. But my conclusion is that covid PCR tests can detect a ham sandwich. At minimum, setting aside the issue of whether covid actually exists or whether people are just testing positive after catching a cold, this study shows the enduring value of natural immunity, which the CDC’s experts pooh-poohed and called a conspiracy theory.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/the-dam-breaks-saturday-may-4-2024?

AND

Safety, tolerability, viral kinetics, and immune correlates of protection in healthy, seropositive UK adults inoculated with SARS-CoV-2: a single-centre, open-label, phase 1 controlled human infection study

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247%2824%2900025-9/fulltext?