Recently, I noticed on X that Stephan Pöhlmann, who regularly comments on the currently circulating variants and apparently follows my work—while seemingly paying little attention to what I actually write—posed the following questions:
How should public health respond, if at all, to SARS-CoV-2 variants disproportionately affecting children? To what extent does immunity from COVID-19 protect against emerging coronaviruses, including MERS-CoV? What is the zoonotic and pathogenic potential of animal coronaviruses such as PDCoV and SADS-CoV, and what countermeasures are needed? Can we develop broadly active antiviral drugs against coronaviruses? Likely yes. Can we develop broadly protective coronavirus vaccines? A major scientific challenge - not yet in sight, but an important goal. More general and perhaps the most important question: how can societies fully recover from the impact of the pandemic?"..
I answered them in a surprisingly moderate manner, which is probably not what most people have come to expect from me. Perhaps that will encourage Pöhlmann and others to take a closer look at my arguments and give them some serious thought.
One can always hope. After all, hope springs eternal.
https://x.com/snpoehlm/status/2071219019080696107?s=12
If you want to answer these questions consistently with the framework you've developed in your Substacks, I would avoid presenting your conclusions as established facts and instead formulate them as implications of your interpretation of the immune escape pandemic.
Something along the following lines:
How should public health respond, if at all, to SARS-CoV-2 variants disproportionately affecting children?
Before recommending additional interventions, public health authorities should first establish whether children are genuinely more susceptible to a particular variant or whether they merely represent one of the few demographic groups that have largely escaped the immune conditioning experienced by heavily vaccinated adult populations.
From my perspective, the current tendency to interpret higher infection rates in children as evidence of "child-adapted variants" risks confusing cause and effect. Young children rely heavily on broadly reactive innate immune mechanisms and natural antibodies. They therefore occupy a different immunological landscape than adults repeatedly exposed to vaccine-induced and breakthrough infection-driven adaptive immune stimulation.
The key question is not whether a variant infects more children, but why. If children are simply serving as a window into what a less immune-conditioned host response looks like, then vaccination strategies designed to mimic adult immune profiles may prove counterproductive rather than protective.
To what extent does immunity from COVID-19 protect against emerging coronaviruses, including MERS-CoV?
This depends entirely on what one means by "immunity."
Antibody-mediated cross-protection between highly divergent coronaviruses is generally limited. However, broader innate immune mechanisms and certain cellular immune responses may provide varying degrees of heterologous protection.
My concern is that excessive focus on highly antigen-specific immune responses can obscure the critical role played by broadly reactive innate and cellular defenses. These are often the first and most important barriers against newly emerging pathogens.
The assumption that repeated exposure to SARS-CoV-2 or repeated vaccination necessarily broadens protection against future coronaviruses remains largely unproven.
Indeed, one of the central questions raised by the immune escape pandemic is whether repeated immune focusing on a continuously evolving target may actually reduce the flexibility of future responses rather than enhance it.
What is the zoonotic and pathogenic potential of animal coronaviruses such as PDCoV and SADS-CoV, and what countermeasures are needed?
The greatest mistake would be to assess these viruses solely through the lens of their current pathogenicity in humans.
History repeatedly demonstrates that the most important question is not how dangerous a virus is today, but how it may evolve after entering a susceptible host population.
Countermeasures should therefore focus less on reactive vaccine development and more on:
The lesson of SARS-CoV-2 is that the interaction between pathogen evolution and host immunity may ultimately be more important than the intrinsic characteristics of the virus at the moment of spillover.
Can we develop broadly active antiviral drugs against coronaviruses?
Probably yes.
Unlike vaccines that depend on recognition of specific antigens, antiviral drugs can target highly conserved aspects of viral replication.
Broadly active antivirals may therefore prove less vulnerable to immune escape-driven evolutionary dynamics.
However, large-scale antiviral deployment should be approached carefully. Any intervention capable of exerting strong selective pressure on viral populations can potentially drive adaptation if used improperly.
The challenge is to suppress viral replication sufficiently while minimizing the risk of selecting resistant variants.
Can we develop broadly protective coronavirus vaccines?
This remains one of the greatest scientific challenges.
The difficulty is that coronaviruses possess extraordinary evolutionary flexibility, particularly under strong immune pressure.
From my perspective, the key question is not whether broadly protective vaccines can be developed, but whether they can induce the type of immunity required to interrupt transmission without simultaneously generating selective pressures that promote further adaptation.
Future vaccine strategies may need to place far greater emphasis on:
rather than relying predominantly on narrowly focused neutralizing antibody responses.
At present, such a solution remains largely aspirational.
Perhaps the most important question: How can societies fully recover from the impact of the pandemic?
True recovery begins with intellectual honesty.
Societies cannot fully recover if fundamental questions remain unexamined.
Recovery does not require universal agreement. It requires open scientific debate, critical reassessment of assumptions, and willingness to learn from mistakes.
In my view, one of the most damaging consequences of the pandemic has been the widespread belief that complex biological phenomena can be managed through simplistic narratives and linear thinking.
Whether one agrees with my analysis or not, the pandemic has demonstrated the dangers of scientific groupthink, disciplinary silos, and suppression of dissenting perspectives.
The ultimate recovery may therefore be less about SARS-CoV-2 itself and more about rebuilding a culture that values scientific curiosity over scientific certainty, multidimensional analysis over reductionism, and open debate over consensus-driven dogma.
Only then can societies become truly resilient against the next global crisis—whatever form it may take.
Geert Vanden Bossche received his DVM from the University of Ghent, Belgium, and his PhD degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim, Germany. He held adjunct faculty appointments at universities in Belgium and Germany. After his career in Academia, Geert joined several vaccine companies (GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals) to serve various roles in vaccine R&D as well as in late vaccine development.
Geert then moved on to join the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle (USA) as Senior Program Officer; he then worked with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva as Senior Ebola Program Manager. At GAVI he tracked efforts to develop an Ebola vaccine. He also represented GAVI in fora with other partners, including WHO, to review progress on the fight against Ebola and to build plans for global pandemic preparedness.
Back in 2015, Geert scrutinized and questioned the safety of the Ebola vaccine that was used in ring vaccination trials conducted by WHO in Guinea. His critical scientific analysis and report on the data published by WHO in the Lancet in 2015 was sent to all international health and regulatory authorities involved in the Ebola vaccination program. After working for GAVI, Geert joined the German Center for Infection Research in Cologne as Head of the Vaccine Development Office. He is at present primarily serving as a Biotech / Vaccine consultant while also conducting his own research on Natural Killer cell-based vaccines.
Email: info@voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org
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