The Ominous Deportation Of Tennis Champion, Novak Djokovic, From Australia — COVID-19 Defeats Good Immunological Reasoning, Even In Immunology’s Mecca.
The deportation of Novak Djokovic, the recently COVID-19 recovered Tennis champion, by Australia is an ominous sign of critical scientific, ethical and legal failures in “Western” civilization — because Australia is the Mecca of Immunological science. So when even the Aussies do not have the scientific and ethical clarity to understand that a man who has recovered from a COVID-19 infection recently is well immune to reinfection and ought to be exempted from mandated vaccination, it is demonstration of the degree of self-imposed peril in “the West”.
Australia has a renowned and glorious history in Immunological science. In fact, I would go as far as to say that, if there is an Immunological “city on the hill”, it is/was Australia.
From the storied Walter and Eliza Hall Institute within which some of the pioneers of immunological science have risen. To the Garvan Institute now. To prominent Australian Nobel laureates and founding fathers of Immunological science like Sir Macfarlane Burnett, Jacques F.P. Miller, and Peter Doherty. To contemporary leaders of Immunological science like Jonathan Sprent, Christopher Goodnow and Jason Cyster. Australia, at least until recently, was the Mecca of Immunological thinking and science.
So, it is simply shocking to see that nation’s government behave in such an immunologically ill informed and authoritarian fashion, when it comes to its handling of COVID-19 immunity.
It is as though Australia has abandoned rational immunological thinking and its own glorious legacy of scientific contributions to that discipline entirely.
The recent deportation of Tennis champion, Novak Djokovic, from Australia for refusing a mandated vaccine he did not need, and could be harmed by, was shocking to me as an immunologist with tremendous respect for the storied Aussie institutions and immunologists.
Why? Because I know with definitive certainty that Mr. Djokovic, who recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection in December 2021, has quite powerful and robust acquired natural immunity to COVID-19 — equivalent, if not more powerful than that attained from full vaccination and boosters.
I daresay, Professors Peter Doherty, Jason Cyster, Christopher Goodnow and Jonathan Sprent — among the many immunology heroes of my days as a graduate student, post-doctoral fellow and faculty member in the Immunology Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania — all know that acquired natural immunity, especially when recent, is quite powerful at preventing re-infection. In other words, the recently COVID-19 recovered, Novak Djokovic, posed almost ZERO risk to himself or anyone in Australia — yet that liberal western democratic government condescended itself into terrible authoritarianism, irrationally and unethically excluding an international champion from one of Tennis’ most prestigious events. How deplorable!
Additionally, any immunologist worth his or her salt will know that the most unusual aspect of the global COVID-19 vaccine campaign is that the vaccine is being deployed on a mass scale in the midst of a pandemic outbreak, when many are already infected — either recently or at the time of their vaccination. This is a potentially dangerous characteristic of this indiscriminate public health effort, because not only does it expose many millions of already well immune persons to the risk of an unnecessary medical treatment, it also poses a serious risk of harm to recently infected or convalescent persons, in whom viral antigenic epitopes still persist, and in whom an unnecessary vaccination could induce a hyper-inflammatory response.
That prominent immunologists, but especially the contemporary Australian pioneers in Immunology, are either unaware of or silent about how our scientific discipline of Immunology is being corrupted and abused by governments around the world to impose draconian mass mandates — at risk of discrimination — upon millions of persons with acquired “natural” or “hybrid” immunity has been frankly disappointing and shocking to me. But I suppose all heroes have clay feet — and even careful thinkers can think carelessly sometimes.
Still, it is shocking to hear cricket from the giants of the world of Immunology on mandated vaccination of the already well immune and recently infected. But especially those from Australia, which truly is the birthplace of modern Immunology in many ways.
What a terrible sign of the our time — when neither science and reason, nor ethics and the western defense of individuality matter in the face of irrational fear and government edicts, any longer.
But let this truth be known as all immunologists of reason and integrity will know: Novak Djokovic, is more immune at present (in January of 2022, about one month after his COVID-19 infection) than many fully vaccinated and boosted persons . His irrational and unethical deportation fro Australia is a stain on the reputation of the many prominent Aussie immunologists and storied immunological institutes in that country.
In as much as Immunology, as a scientific discipline, ought to be a point of pride for Australians and their government, the deportation of Novak Djokovic should be a point of shame.
In the end, it is a fact that forced vaccination in millions of already well immune citizens of the western hemisphere (be it from vaccination, infection or both) is medically unnecessary and potentially harmful — especially to those who are recently infected. But even more importantly, the government override of the principles of immunological science and medical ethics, in order to achieve population level compliance come hell or high water, while the western heroes of Immunological science stay silent, spells disaster for the integrity of western civilizations and of self-governing democracies.
Shame on the Australian government for irrationally deporting Novak Djokovic. And woe onto those prominent expert Australians and Aussie institutions, who actually know better but have chosen not to speak up for the sake of political expediency or personal comfort. It is, indeed, easier not to rock the boat, and not to speak up, than it is to stand in the way of unethical authoritarian conduct by powerful democratic government gone astray. But that slope is slippery one and we are all sliding down it.
All it takes for a great evil to take hold, is for a few good men to remain silent and not speak their Truth.
WEHI, Garvan, Doherty, Goodnow, Cyster, Sprent….your silence as Aussie Immunologists of reason and science, as heroes of my younger self, is deafening!
Hooman Noorchashm MD, PhD
Winter 2022.
