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While the rest of the scientific community have conveniently forgotten that their role is to question and explore without having a foregone conclusion in mind, one scientist has been at the forefront of questioning the origins of COVID-19, but her work has been largely ignored by the media and scientific community. Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, told the UK Parliament Science and Technology Select Committee this week that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was likely engineered, and likely originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. //
As Lord Ridley argued in the hearing at which Chan testified, the time for a real, thorough, and complete investigation, absent the participation of anyone related to the lab, has come. The United States needs to stand up to China, because if this virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the failure to properly identify that and address the safety concerns of the other viruses researched and stored at the lab could lead to another catastrophic outbreak tomorrow, and another the day after that, and another a day after that. The irony of a government entity funding research to prevent the next global outbreak, then accidentally creating a global outbreak, and then being trusted to handle not only the investigations of the origins of that virus but the response to that virus, certainly should not be lost. The question is, now that we are waking up to the reality of this, what are we going to do about it?
A preliminary study made public Wednesday studied blood samples in the lab from 30 people who had gotten two Moderna shots, and it found that the antibodies in their blood are at least about 50 times less effective at neutralizing the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Previous research had indicated the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is also less protective against omicron. //
But there was good news too. An additional 17 people in the study had received a Moderna booster. And the antibodies in their blood were highly effective at blocking the omicron variant — essentially about as effective as they are at blocking the delta variant, Montefiori says.
JERUSALEM, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Israeli researchers said on Saturday they found that a three-shot course of the Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine provided significant protection against the new Omicron variant.
The findings were similar to those presented by BioNTech and Pfizer earlier in the week, which were an early signal that booster shots could be key to protect against infection from the newly identified variant.
The study, carried out by Sheba Medical Center and the Health Ministry's Central Virology Laboratory, compared the blood of 20 people who had received two vaccine doses 5-6 months earlier to the same number of individuals who had received a booster a month before.
People inoculated against Covid-19 are just as likely to spread the delta variant of the virus to contacts in their household as those who haven’t had shots, according to new research.
In a yearlong study of 621 people in the U.K. with mild Covid-19, scientists found that their peak viral load was similar regardless of vaccination status, according to a paper published Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal. The analysis also found that 25% of vaccinated household contacts still contracted the disease from an index case, while 38% of those who hadn’t had shots became infected.
The results go some way toward explaining why the delta variant is so infectious even in nations with successful vaccine rollouts, and why the unvaccinated can’t assume they are protected because others have had shots. Those who were inoculated cleared the virus more quickly and had milder cases, while unvaccinated household members were more likely to suffer from severe disease and hospitalization. //
“Our findings show that vaccination alone is not enough to prevent people from being infected with the delta variant and spreading it in household settings,” said Ajit Lalvani, a professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College London who co-led the study. “The ongoing transmission we are seeing between vaccinated people makes it essential for unvaccinated people to get vaccinated to protect themselves.”
Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.
If someone tests negative, logically, they do not need to stay locked in a room for a week. Further, they would have tested negative prior to the flight as well, which means people would be quarantined after not one, but two negative tests. And for what, exactly?
That’s really the cardinal question here. Is the idea that such measures are going to put even the slightest dent in the community spread of current and future variants? Because if that’s the assumption, it’s a really bad one with no evidentiary backing. If we’ve learned anything over the last year, it’s that stopping the spread of COVID-19 is essentially impossible.
For example, Florida and Michigan have had wildly different COVID mitigation measures in place, yet both states saw big Delta variant spikes based on what is clearly a seasonal pattern. You certainly aren’t going to reduce spread by making the lives of international travelers, including US citizens, absolute hell for no reason. That’s especially true given spread on airliners continues to be largely non-existent due to the filtration systems in place.
Another source of Worobey’s origins “investigation?” The WHO report. Yes, that WHO report that only briefly examined the potential of a lab leak. Yes, that same WHO report that contained only information provided by the Chinese Government, absent any independent investigation or acquiring of evidence. Yes, that WHO report which was partially written by Peter Daszak, funder of some of the gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And Yes, that same WHO report that even the WHO has labeled as unreliable. It is so bad that the WHO has scrapped that whole report in favor of conducting an entirely new investigation. This was known before Worobey even published this piece, yet Worobey included the report as a source to back up his findings. Nowhere in the study does he even acknowledge the WHO’s concerns with the veracity of the report, nor the acknowledged conflicts of interests for the data contained therein, including those of Peter Daszak. //
Worobey presents information as if it is the totality of possibility in these cases, thus eliminating other equally likely potentials in the process. If this market vendor isn’t the first case, which it appears it is not, then the wet market theory ends. There are no other cases known to have originated at the market before then. Ignoring the potential that the wet market was not the origination point, but was simply a super spreading event, denies the factual potential of other origins. This paper is simply a regurgitation of other previous information, just organized in a different way. Think, reorganizing deck chairs on the Titanic. Sure, the presentation is different, but it in no way changes the fact that the ship is going down.
I reached out to Worobey to ask additional questions about his study, but at the time of writing this, nearly a week and a half after my attempted contact, he did not respond to me. While it really shouldn’t matter though, I think everyone should also be aware of who funds Dr. Worobey’s research.
Worobey Acknowledgements, SOURCE: Science Magazine
Yes, that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The same one that was funding viral research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
While many children who do catch COVID have few to no symptoms, those with underlying health conditions may be at increased risk of severe illness. //
Taiwan has temporarily suspended giving second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years over concerns from the risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the outer lining of the heart), according to media reports. //
In Norway, which is not part of the EU, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for those aged 12 to 15. But health authorities have paused the rollout of second doses, partly due to a rare side effect linked to heart inflammation. //
Since the beginning of the pandemic, children represented 16.9 percent of all confirmed cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. In the week ending November 18, children made up 25.1 percent of reported cases. Children make up 22.2 percent of the US population.
How effective is immunity after Covid recovery relative to vaccination? An Israeli study by Gazit et al. found that the vaccinated have a 27 times higher risk of symptomatic infection than the Covid recovered. At the same time, the vaccinated were nine times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid. In contrast, a CDC study by Bozio et al. claims that the Covid recovered are five times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid than the vaccinated. Both studies cannot be right.
I have worked on vaccine epidemiology since I joined the Harvard faculty almost two decades ago as a biostatistician. I have never before seen such a large discrepancy between studies that are supposed to answer the same question. In this article, I carefully dissect both studies, describe how the analyses differ, and explain why the Israeli study is more reliable. //
The CDC study did not create a cohort of people to follow over time. Instead, they identified people hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms, and then they evaluated how many of them tested positive versus negative for Covid. Among the vaccinated, 5% tested positive, while it was 9% among the Covid recovered. What does this mean?
Though the authors do not mention it, they adopt a de facto case-control design. While not as strong as a cohort study, this is a well-established epidemiological design. //
In the CDC study on Covid immunity, the cases are those patients hospitalized for Covid disease, having both Covid-like symptoms and a positive test. That is appropriate. The controls should constitute a representative sample from the population from which the Covid patients came. Unfortunately, that is not the case since Covid-negative people with Covid-like symptoms, such as pneumonia, tend to be older and frailer with comorbidities. They are also more likely to be vaccinated. //
The problem is that the CDC study answers neither the direct question of whether vaccination or Covid recovery is better at decreasing the risk of subsequent Covid disease, nor whether the vaccine rollout successfully reached the frail. Instead, it asks which of these two has the greater effect size. It answers whether vaccination or Covid recovery is more related to Covid hospitalization or if it is more related to other respiratory type hospitalizations. //
Covariate adjustments will typically change the point estimates somewhat, but it is unusual to see a change as large as the one from 1.77 to 5.49 that was observed in the CDC study. How can this be explained? It must be because some covariates are very different between the cases and controls. There are at least two of them. While 78% of the vaccinated are older than 65, 55% of the Covid recovered are younger than 65. Even more concerning is the fact that 96% of the vaccinated were hospitalized during the summer months of June to August, while 69% of the Covid recovered were hospitalized in the winter and spring months from January to May. Such unbalanced covariates are usually best adjusted for using matching as in the Israeli study. //
Concerning the Covid recovered, there are two key public health issues. 1. Would the Covid recovered benefit from also being vaccinated? 2. Should there be vaccine passports and mandates that require them to be vaccinated in order to work and participate in society?
The CDC study did not address the first question, while the Israeli study showed a small but not statistically significant benefit in reducing symptomatic Covid disease. Future studies will hopefully shed more light on this issue.
Based on the solid evidence from the Israeli study, the Covid recovered have stronger and longer-lasting immunity against Covid disease than the vaccinated. Hence, there is no reason to prevent them from activities that are permitted to the vaccinated. In fact, it is discriminatory.
Many of the Covid recovered were exposed to the virus as essential workers during the height of the pandemic before vaccines were available. They kept the rest of society afloat, processing food, delivering goods, unloading ships, picking up garbage, policing the streets, maintaining the electricity network, putting out fires, and caring for the old and sick, to name a few.
They are now being fired and excluded despite having stronger immunity than the vaccinated work-from-home administrators that are firing them.
ID requirements appear to be less stringent to vote absentee in Georgia than to enter an indoor establishment in Los Angeles. //
One of the major objections that Biden and his allies have had to the Georgia law is its enhanced ID requirements for proving one’s eligibility to vote. Contrast this with how supportive the left is of ID requirements for proving that one is vaccinated against COVID-19 and thus is worthy to participate in normal American life. //
If you want to walk into a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, gym, movie theater, sports arena, museum, concert venue, mall, bowling alley, arcade, pool hall, hair salon, nail salon, or barbershop (all of these places, and others, are specifically listed) in the nation’s second-largest city, you will have to show proof of vaccination — plus an ID. But if you want to vote in Georgia, having to show an ID — and nothing else — is allegedly the second coming of Jim Crow.
This would be ludicrous even apart from the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, white people are 20 percent more likely, per capita, to be vaccinated than black people. In other words, Los Angeles has imposed a vaccine mandate that has a disproportionate racial impact, on top of an ID requirement that is stricter than the ostensibly “un-American” voter ID requirement in Georgia.
“This… Is CNN,”
People vaccinated against Covid-19 less likely to die from any cause, study finds
CDC
@CDCgov
New @CDCMMWR shows counties w/ school mask requirements had a smaller increase in pediatric #COVID19 case rates than counties w/o school mask requirements. #MaskUp in schools to help control the spread of COVID-19 in children and adolescents. http://bit.ly/MMWR92421c
2:55 PM · Sep 24, 2021 //
Notice the massaging being done to the language in this announcement. It doesn’t actually say schools with mask mandates show a smaller increase in pediatric COVID-19 case rates. Rather, it says “counties,” and we’ll get to why that is in a minute. Further, the CDC absconds from including in their graphic the actual, numerical difference being touted.
For posterity, here’s the link to the full study so you can see exactly what it actually covers.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7039e3.htm?s_cid=mm7039e3_w
In short, what we have is a “study” that didn’t even cover a period where children were in school — save for a week or so. The “study” is also based on a data set of counties that do not control for prior infection rates, testing capacity, etc. in order to conduct a valid comparison between areas that have school mask mandates and ones that don’t. And even still, they came up with a result that shows almost no difference in the real number of cases.
Lastly, just to put a fine point on all this, the CDC’s own study admits that it’s ecological and should not be used to assign causation in regards to masks and infection rates. They also admit a lack of control regarding several other key variables.
Rapid initiation of nasal saline irrigation: hospitalizations in COVID-19 patients randomized to alkalinization or povidone-iodine compared to a national dataset
Rush
@exRAF_Al
This is a seminal moment. The police hold power through illusion, they are only bestowed moral authority. Once it’s gone it’s gone - and it has gone, openly now. The issue now for Australian coppers is where do they go from here? #Australia #Melbourne //
What happens when the government has pushed normally law-abiding people much too far, completely abridging their basic freedoms? This is what happens, and it’s likely just the start. It’s likely to get even crazier there, as people let the government know that they’ve had enough.
Via Kaiser Health News, a discouraging report by Lauren Weber and Anna Maria Barry-Jester: Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic. Excerpt:
Republican legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases.
A KHN review of hundreds of pieces of legislation found that, in all 50 states, legislators have proposed bills to curb such public health powers since the covid-19 pandemic began. While some governors vetoed bills that passed, at least 26 states pushed through laws that permanently weaken government authority to protect public health. In three additional states, an executive order, ballot initiative or state Supreme Court ruling limited long-held public health powers. More bills are pending in a handful of states whose legislatures are still in session.
Alasdair Munro
@apsmunro
·
Sep 16, 2021
The best data by far on #LongCovid is out from the ONS
For kids, the news is incredibly reassuring - parents minds should be put to rest
Rates of common symptoms after #COVID19 at 12 w for kids are extremely low (0% to 1.7%) compared to controls
Previous ONS statistics have been widely misused, and difficult to interpret due to unavailable methods
This is all put to bed now. Excellent, transparent comparisons with a suitable control group.
Importantly, it includes COVID cases which would be missed by NHS testing
One statistic stands out
At both 4 and 12 weeks, MORE children aged 2 - 11y in the control group were experiencing symptoms than in those who tested positive for #COVID19
Rates of continuous symptoms going on for 12w were also extremely low for kids aged 2 - 16y who had tested positive for #COVID19 (only around 1%)
This was generally low across the study (3% of COVID +ve vs 0.5% of controls) ///
Prediction: COVID will become the next Chickenpox -- get it when you are young to gain immunity will end the scourge
Update: One hospital has denied Dr. Jason McElyea’s claim that ivermectin overdoses are causing emergency room backlogs and delays in medical care in rural Oklahoma, and Rolling Stone has been unable to independently verify any such cases as of the time of this update.
The National Poison Data System states there were 459 reported cases of ivermectin overdose in the United States in August. Oklahoma-specific ivermectin overdose figures are not available, but the count is unlikely to be a significant factor in hospital bed availability in a state that, per the CDC, currently has a 7-day average of 1,528 Covid-19 hospitalizations. The doctor is affiliated with a medical staffing group that serves multiple hospitals in Oklahoma. Following widespread publication of his statements, one hospital that the doctor’s group serves, NHS Sequoyah, said its ER has not treated any ivermectin overdoses and that it has not had to turn away anyone seeking care. This and other hospitals that the doctor’s group serves did not respond to requests for comment and the doctor has not responded to requests for further comment. We will update if we receive more information. //
The rise in people using ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug usually reserved for deworming horses or livestock, as a treatment or preventative for Covid-19 has emergency rooms “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting” access to health facilities, an emergency room doctor in Oklahoma said.
This week, Dr. Jason McElyea told KFOR the overdoses are causing backlogs in rural hospitals, leaving both beds and ambulance services scarce.
“The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated,” McElyea said.
“All of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don’t have any, that’s it,” said McElyea. “If there’s no ambulance to take the call, there’s no ambulance to come to the call.” ///
Poison Control Centers Are Fielding A Surge Of Ivermectin Overdose Calls : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
According to the National Poison Data System (NPDS), which collects information from the nation's 55 poison control centers, there was a 245% jump in reported exposure cases from July to August — from 133 to 459. //
The NPDS says 1,143 ivermectin exposure cases were reported between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. That marks an increase of 163% over the same period last year. [700 cases previous year] //
In Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of vaccination against the coronavirus, the state Department of Health issued an alert about the surge in calls to poison control in August. The department said that at least 70% of recent calls to the state poison control center were related to people who ingested a version of the drug meant for livestock. ///
70% of the 2% of calls about ivermectin, not 70% of all the calls. https://sfgate.com/news/amp/Health-Dept-Stop-taking-livestock-medicine-to-16405982.php
Yesterday, I wrote on a viral claim involving ivermectin, spread by blue checkmarks across the left, that asserted an Oklahoma hospital was so overwhelmed with overdoses from the animal variant that they were turning away gun-shot victims. That turned out to be so false that the hospital changed its internet homepage with a correction of the disinformation, noting that they did not have a single patient admitted currently that had overdosed on ivermectin.
But as I said when I opened this article, we are apparently going to keep doing this. Another ivermectin hoax has now been exposed, this time over a widely spread claim that Mississippi’s poison control was deluged with ivermectin overdoses representing 70% of total calls.
https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/15400.pdf //
Amy
@AmyA1A
The AP reported that 70% of recent calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center were from people who had ingested ivermectin to try to treat COVID-19.
The correction acknowledges that it was actually only 2%.
https://sfgate.com/news/amp/Health-Dept-Stop-taking-livestock-medicine-to-16405982.php?__twitter_impression=true
9:53 PM · Sep 5, 2021
Here’s the full correction per the Associated Press which was pushed out to SF Gate.
In an article published Aug. 23, 2021, about people taking livestock medicine to try to treat coronavirus, The Associated Press erroneously reported based on information provided by the Mississippi Department of Health that 70% of recent calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center were from people who had ingested ivermectin to try to treat COVID-19. State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said Wednesday the number of calls to poison control about ivermectin was about 2%. He said of the calls that were about ivermectin, 70% were by people who had ingested the veterinary version of the medicine.
So instead of it being 70% of calls being about ivermectin, the actual number was…2%. And of that 2%, 70% of those calls were about the animal variant. In other words, instead of talking about possibly hundreds or thousands of animal variant ivermectin overdose calls, the number is actually infinitesimal, representing only 1.4% of calls.
Weeks ago, when cases and hospitalizations began to rise, I suggested (because of this thing called “data”) that COVID-19 hospitalizations went up because the bar for hospitalizations went down. Simply put, the numbers went up because hospitals lowered their standards for which COVID patients should be hospitalized. The study that The Atlantic published? It suggests that very thing.
So what has taken us so long to get to this point? Well, again, the problem falls on the CDC, NIH, and NIAID, who have not standardized data collection nationally for this pandemic. //
To this day, the CDC does not collect nationalized data for several factors which would help us better analyze how to approach this pandemic, including breakthrough cases and hospitalization case severity. That means that someone admitted to the hospital out of an abundance (and sometimes an overkill) of caution, is counted as the same hospitalization as someone with a much more severe case. To those making decisions at the top, a hospitalization, is a hospitalization, is a hospitalization. //
The federal government requires hospitals to report every patient who tests positive for COVID, yet the overall tallies of COVID hospitalizations, made available on various state and federal dashboards and widely reported on by the media, do not differentiate based on severity of illness. Some patients need extensive medical intervention, such as getting intubated. Others require supplemental oxygen or administration of the steroid dexamethasone. But there are many COVID patients in the hospital with fairly mild symptoms, too, who have been admitted for further observation on account of their comorbidities, or because they reported feeling short of breath. Another portion of the patients in this tally are in the hospital for something unrelated to COVID, and discovered that they were infected only because they were tested upon admission. How many patients fall into each category has been a topic of much speculation. //
Which was the primary motivation for the study, conducted by the VA Boston Healthcare System. The doctors who performed the study took it upon themselves to provide a line, which after a patient meets a certain amount of criteria, could classify them as a severe case. According to the study, (which has not as of yet been peer-reviewed), once patients had to be placed on supplemental oxygen to survive, they could be considered a moderate-to-severe case. What the study found was very interesting. Hospitalized patients, who required supplemental oxygen fell from 64% to 52%. That means that either alternative treatments were more effective, or (and as I have been saying for months) hospitals began admitting patients with less severe symptoms. To further confirm the point, the study found that up until January 2021, 36% of patients who were admitted to the hospital had mild or asymptomatic cases. That number rose to 48% by the end of June 2021.
So why would hospitals do this? The Atlantic article fails to question this, only to find ways that the study may be flawed by offering various caveats. Presumably, and very likely, this has to do with the fact that COVID hospitalizations are reimbursed at a higher rate than would say, your typical health insurance plan.