The German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann first coined the term “spiral of silence” in 1974 to refer to a phenomenon that we see often today: people's willingness to speak freely depends upon their unconscious perceptions of how popular their opinions are. People who think their opinion is not shared by anyone else are more likely to remain quiet; their silence itself increases the impression that no one else thinks as they do; this increases their feelings of isolation and artificially inflates the confidence of those with the majority opinion—Luke Burgis
Why a Vaccine-Induced Recovery is an Illusion; Herd Immunity? Spiking Cases in Vaccinated Populations of Seychelles, Mongolia and the UK.
From the Inquirer (June 18): “Malacañang believes that Filipinos will be able to celebrate Christmas without masks with ongoing efforts to vaccinate a significant portion of the population against COVID-19, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said on Thursday. The government is aiming for population protection or containment of coronavirus infections to protect against surges and allow further reopening of the economy, he added. Nicanor Austriaco, a molecular biologist, priest and Octa Research fellow, backed the administration’s move to prioritize vaccination in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus 8 areas, which include the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Cavite, Batangas, Laguna and Rizal, in addition to Metro Cebu and Metro Davao. …Herd immunity, which means vaccinating 70 to 80 percent, could be reached in the same area in November, he said.“And this is a realistic and attainable goal for all of us. So we have to imagine as a country a no-mask Christmas,” he added.”
From the Inquirer (June 15): President Rodrigo Duterte’s economic team on Tuesday (June 15) expressed confidence that the economy will rebound starting the second quarter with mass vaccination in full swing and government spending, especially on infrastructure, remaining strong.
The excerpts above embody the theme of the mainstream’s narrative: vaccine equals recovery.
But there are many factors operating behind the supposed positive benefits from the vaccine to the economy.
1. The Ratchet Effect.
Figure 1
In my opinion, why would the incumbent relinquish the political capital or advantages they established from the lockdown socialism, masquerading as health protocols, going into the national elections of 2022?
Apart from national elections, why would the incumbent surrender its newfound capability to dictate on socio-economic activities of the citizenry? Economist Robert Higgs called this the ratchet effect. Governments use the crisis to expand its size and scope extensively, then when the crisis ebbs, uses the "altered political and ideological sensibilities" of the public to still retain significant political control.
There is no better example than the exploding share of public spending to GDP, which produced a record fiscal deficit, financed by the historic expansion of public debt and the BSP’s balance sheet. System leverage hit 106% of the GDP in 2020!
Add to these the imposition of byzantine rules and regulations that raises the cost of business operations that should strangulate SMEs. Taxes are about to rise post-elections.
In short, the pre-pandemic era is a goner. Or, like it or not, a new normal will govern the post-pandemic socio-political-economic climate.
2. A Fragile Pre-Pandemic Economy
Figure 2
The idea that a vaccine-induced reopening will fire up all the economic cylinders fundamentally ignores signs of mounting weakness and fragility the economy has exhibited before the pandemic.
Even data from the authorities manifest the development of such malaise.
Some examples.
Since peaking in 2016, per capita household continued to slow, which has dragged the per capita GDP lower.
Since 2013, the drain in the bank’s liquidity became entrenched. Both bank liquidity metrics, liquid-to-deposits and cash-to-deposits, were in downtrends. Hence, the BSP began to prune bank reserves in 2018. Burgeoning bank credit delinquency, which started to move up in 2015, played a key role. The waterfall in bank lending commenced in the 2H of 2018.
In fact, the Philippine treasury market inverted at the end of the 1Q of 2019, which validated the liquidity dilemma that forced the BSP to embark on a rate slashing spree, aside from cuts in the reserve requirement ratio. The inverted yield curve signaled a forthcoming recession.
That is to say, problems in the banking sector became pronounced in 2018.
Again, all these occurred before the pandemic.
Have current developments improved significantly to negate the factors that brought these forces upon the economy? And have the improvements been structural?
If the answer is no, then a rude awakening awaits the mainstream.
3. The Vaccine’s Herd Immunity? Spiking Cases in Vaccinated Populations of Seychelles, Mongolia and the UK.
As noted in the news excerpt, to attain a herd immunity, authorities hope that its vaccination campaign would reach at least 70% of the population.
'Herd immunity', also known as 'population immunity', according to the World Health Organization, is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection. WHO supports achieving 'herd immunity' through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through any segment of the population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths.
Thus, vaccinations are supposed to stop the spread of COVID-19, which thereby reduces death.
But here’s the thing.
What if the present crop of (mostly gene modification technologies) vaccines are inadequate to stop the ever-mutating virus?
As of June 17-18, the following comprises a list of nations with the most share of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Vaccine and country profile data below are from Our World In Data.
Figure 3
Seychelles and Mongolia are two of the most vaccinated nations in the world. Ironically, instead of herd immunity, the widespread use of vaccines have not prevented the surge in COVID-19 cases.
According to Wikipedia, Seychelles, an archipelagic island country consisting of 115 islands, is located in the Indian Ocean at the eastern edge of the Somali Sea.
With only a population of about 98,000, it is one of the highest nominal per capita GDP of any African nation and classified as a high-income economy.
From CNBC, a month back or in May 13: “The Seychelles is causing concern for world health experts after a rise of Covid-19 cases among fully vaccinated individuals. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it would review coronavirus data from the Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, after the health ministry said more than a third of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in the week to May 8 had been fully vaccinated. The Seychelles is viewed as having conducted a very successful vaccination rollout so far; it can boast having the highest share of people vaccinated against Covid-19 anywhere in the world, above Israel and the U.K.”
Figure 4
According to the Our World in Data, as of June 18th, 68.2% of the population of Seychelles has been vaccinated. Ideally, almost the number required for 'herd immunity'! The vaccines used have mostly been Oxford/AstraZeneca and Sinopharm/Beijing.
Interestingly, the Seychelles COVID-19 dilemma has almost been in a media vacuum since May.
The big question is: WHY?
Next, we move to a much larger population: Mongolia.
Mongolia, known for the nomadic empires of the Genghis Khan in the 13th and 14th centuries, is a landlocked country in East Asia, sandwiched between Russia to the North and China to the South with a population of more than 3.35 million, according to the Wikipedia.
According to the Our World in Data, as of June 17th, 51.4% or over half of the population of Mongolia has been vaccinated. The vaccines used have mostly been Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Sinopharm/Beijing, and Sputnik V.
ULAN BATOR, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia registered 14 more COVID-19 deaths over the past 24 hours, the record daily count since the start of the pandemic, bringing the national death toll to 439, the health ministry said Saturday. Meanwhile, Mongolia recorded 2,635 new COVID-19 cases in the past day, bringing the national tally to 91,151, the ministry said. The Asian country launched a national vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in late February, with the aim of covering at least 60 percent of its population of 3.3 million. A total of 1,903,859 Mongolians have so far received their first dose, and 1,684,287 people have been fully vaccinated, according to the ministry.
Now to a developed economy.
United Kingdom’s government declared that “Most coronavirus rules will remain in place…for another four weeks after the planned 21 June unlocking, government sources have told the BBC.” (June 15)
The reason is the spread of the ‘Delta variant’.
From the BBC (June 11): These suggest that the Delta variant is roughly 60% more spreadable than the Alpha, or Kent, variant. Analysis of hospital admission rates suggests people infected by the Delta variant are twice as likely to end up in hospital than those with Alpha. The numbers are still small, however. Out of 33,000 cases analysed by PHE and confirmed to be the Delta variant since February, 223 have been admitted to hospital - most were unvaccinated or had only had only dose, and 20 people were fully vaccinated. And of 42 deaths in people with Delta variant infections, 23 were unvaccinated and seven had received only one dose. The other 12 had received two doses more than two weeks before.
With 45.5% as of June 17th, the United Kingdom is one of the nations with vaccination rates covering the highest share of the population. Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Pfizer/BioNTech comprised most of the vaccines used.
Figure 5
Though these are preliminary, the initial reports/data provided by the BBC tell us a stunning story from the delta variant. Yes, the unvaccinated or single-dose vaccinated people accounted for most or 91% of the hospitalized, but they incurred only a case fatality rate (CFR) of 14.78% compared to the fully vaccinated with 60%!
The vaccinated are more vulnerable to the Delta variant???
Incredible.
And here’s more.
From Philstar/Interaksyon (June 20): More than 350 doctors and medical workers have caught COVID-19 in Indonesia despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been hospitalized, officials said, as concerns grow about the efficacy of some vaccines against more infectious variants. Most of the workers were asymptomatic and self-isolating at home, said Badai Ismoyo, head of the health office in the district of Kudus in central Java, but dozens were in hospital with high fevers and declining oxygen saturation levels. Kudus, which has about 5,000 healthcare workers, is battling an outbreak believed to be driven by the more transmissible Delta variant which has pushed up its bed occupancy rates above 90%.
Some may say that these may represent an infinitesimal share of the total health workers vaccinated. But this is a red herring. A small share can lead to a spike as in the case of Seychelles and Mongolia.
And how are the spiking cases in Seychelles, Mongolia, UK and Indonesian health workers related to these?
From Yahoo/Reuters (June 15): AstraZeneca said on Tuesday a late-stage trial failed to provide evidence that its COVID-19 antibody therapy protected people who had contact with an infected person from the disease, a small setback in its efforts to find alternatives to vaccines. The study assessed whether the therapy, a cocktail of two types of antibodies, could prevent adults who had been exposed to the virus in the past eight days from developing COVID-19 symptoms.
From Yahoo Finance UK, June 13: The Oxford-AstraZeneca (AZN.L) coronavirus vaccine was put under more pressure this weekend as the leading EU drugs regulator recommended that countries should avoid giving it to people over the age of 60.
From Reuters (June 16): German biotech CureVac NV (5CV.DE) said on Wednesday its COVID-19 vaccine was only 47% effective in a late-stage trial, missing the study’s main goal and throwing in doubt the potential delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to the European Union. The disappointing efficacy of the shot known as CVnCoV emerged from an interim analysis based on 134 COVID-19 cases in the study with about 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America. The stakes for CureVac and prospective buyers of its vaccine in Europe had risen after age limits were imposed on the use of the Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) vaccines due to a link to extremely rare but potentially fatal clotting disorders.
Are the Seychelles and Mongolian cases an anomaly? Or as in the case of the UK, are these trends about to emerge globally?
Coronaviruses naturally mutate. If so, how effective are vaccines against the original and mutant strains? And how lasting are its antibodies? More importantly, do coronaviruses build resistance against vaccines? Or do vaccines also cause or spur mutations in coronaviruses? What are the intertemporal side effects (adverse events) of these vaccines?
In any case, COVID-19 and vaccines are like a cat-and-mouse dynamic. It would seem like the current crop of vaccines chase the old strains while new strains emerge, rendering previous vaccines less potent and permeable to new infections or reinfections. A vicious cycle emerges.
Operating under these conditions, which should trigger the incumbent’s path-dependent policy response of imposing rigorous social/political/economic repression in the name of health, how will a vaccine-induced recovery ever occur?
