Continuation The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 4

[zooterkin]

The numbers from the ZOE Covid Symptom study have been revised downwards, after reviewing how closely they were tracking the more accurate (but longer to prepare) ONS survey results. They've been correctly tracking the curve up and down, but since the UK government stopped giving out free lateral flow tests, the numbers of tests being reported has dropped so the numbers have become less reliable.

[rdwight]

Originally Posted by dann

It is so sad that I wish we had a crying dog!

The Atheists doesn't even read the numbers in the links he claims to have read! If he did, he might have noticed this:
See table 1, Deaths Among Individuals Aged 0 to 19 years:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2800816
Covid-19: 821 deaths
Influenza and pneumonia: 472 deaths

I understand but dislike the specific time frame they choose for covid-19. It included the 7 months with the highest death toll of the whole pandemic. Which can be good to illustrate the worst we have experienced but if averaged out through the entirety of the pandemic do covid deaths still outnumber average flu/pneumonia? Removing those 7 months and it is obviously lower on a yearly basis compared.

[Major Major]

There was an antivaxxer who proposed harassing others. She spoke of standing as close to them as possible and coughing on them.

I know this is a sensitive issue, but it seems to be a "punishment" for those who get vaccinated. Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Never heard of anyone getting Paxlovid here, or any other anti-virals. Not saying they never do, just not heard of it.

That's truly bizarre - Paxlovid's been on the market for over a year.

Originally Posted by Major Major

There was an antivaxxer who proposed harassing others. She spoke of standing as close to them as possible and coughing on them.

A punch in the mouth would seem the appropriate antidote.

Originally Posted by Major Major

I know this is a sensitive issue, but it seems to be a "punishment" for those who get vaccinated. Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

The only thing I've seen is idiot antivaxers refusing to go near vaccinated people because they shed something unknown and indescribable.

I should be able to give more insight shortly, because my father-in-law is about to croak and the other side of my wife's family are antivax lunatics who got arrested at the NZ Parliament protests.

I don't imagine the cops get called to fights at funerals very often.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

The Beeb noticed the Japan surge and has a pretty good analysis of their death rate here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64494095

One striking point I don't get is:

They should be everywhere - it's not like Japan can't afford them.

Thanks for that link.

Looking for more info, I found this:

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/n...kstories/2156/

Quote:

Medical institutions in Japan have started prescribing the first domestically-developed COVID-19 drug, Xocova, following emergency approval by the health ministry in late November.

The ministry says the oral medication, developed by pharmaceutical company Shionogi & Co., has been confirmed to be safe and is estimated to be effective for people aged 12 and older. It says Xocova can be used even by low-risk patients to alleviate mild cases of COVID. Tests show the drug can shorten symptoms by about 24 hours. A course of treatment involves taking one pill a day for five days, and patients should start within three days of the onset of symptoms.

Until now, Japanese hospitals and clinics have been relying on imported COVID drugs that are only recommended for people at risk of serious illness, partly due to a dearth of clinical testing on low-risk patients, but also because of limited stocks.

Japan is very cautious. Since the clinical testing on Paxlovid involved high-risk patients (I think one of the criteria for inclusion in the study was to be unvaccinated) their stance is to approve it, but only recommend its use for the same category of people in the clinical studies. I remember that Japan was slow to start vaccinating people here because they wanted to do extra studies in Japan before releasing it to the public.

[dann]

Originally Posted by rdwight

Originally Posted by dann

It is so sad that I wish we had a crying dog!

The Atheists doesn't even read the numbers in the links he claims to have read! If he did, he might have noticed this:
See table 1, Deaths Among Individuals Aged 0 to 19 years:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2800816
Covid-19: 821 deaths
Influenza and pneumonia: 472 deaths

I understand but dislike the specific time frame they choose for covid-19. It included the 7 months with the highest death toll of the whole pandemic. Which can be good to illustrate the worst we have experienced but if averaged out through the entirety of the pandemic do covid deaths still outnumber average flu/pneumonia? Removing those 7 months and it is obviously lower on a yearly basis compared.

Other numbers comparing flu and C-19 in other countries actually make C-19 look much worse!

The Danish number of deaths from the flu season 2021-22: Flu: 261, C-19: 3,728
The Swedish number of deaths from week 50, 2022: Flu: 21, C-19: 245
However, those are the number of deaths in all age groups. I don't have the numbers for 0-19-year-olds.


ETA: A comparison of flu and C-19 deaths in New Zealand. From a post in this forum. In the same post: NZ flu & C-19 hospitalizations in 2022. (Also total, not children specifically.)

ETA: Notice also this:

Quote:

Although COVID-19 amplifies the impacts of other diseases (such as influenza and pneumonia), this study focuses on deaths that were directly caused by COVID-19, rather than those where COVID-19 was a contributing cause. Therefore, it is likely that these results understate the true burden of COVID-19 related deaths in this age group.
COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in children and young people in the US (University of Oxford, Jan 31, 2023)

[marting]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Japan is very cautious. Since the clinical testing on Paxlovid involved high-risk patients (I think one of the criteria for inclusion in the study was to be unvaccinated) their stance is to approve it, but only recommend its use for the same category of people in the clinical studies. I remember that Japan was slow to start vaccinating people here because they wanted to do extra studies in Japan before releasing it to the public.

Bob Wachter, Chair of UCSF's Medical, just did a Grand Rounds with White House Covid Coordinator Ashish Jha who was from UCSF. A big part of the discussion was the difficulty of getting Paxlovid more widely accepted. Too many docs are hesitant to prescribe since it's pretty useless 5 days post symptoms and things are usually "mild" during that initial phase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVl2KjXjyM

They touched on rebound fear. I was impressed that Ashish had the numbers correct on Paxlovid rebound that Eric Topol published. They were relatively low, under 20% but somewhat higher for pax patients than no-pax patients. The important thing is that severe disease is much lower for Pax.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Japan is very cautious. Since the clinical testing on Paxlovid involved high-risk patients (I think one of the criteria for inclusion in the study was to be unvaccinated) their stance is to approve it, but only recommend its use for the same category of people in the clinical studies. I remember that Japan was slow to start vaccinating people here because they wanted to do extra studies in Japan before releasing it to the public.

That's where the difficulty understanding comes in, because the deaths are almost all in high-risk people.

Either supplies are extremely limited, or there's the same resistance to taking it as seen in other countries.

I spoke to our local pharmacist about the drug interactions and he's adamant patients only need to stop taking their other drugs for the five days of the Paxlovid course. That seems to be the official line as well, and this guy has given plenty of it out, with no adverse reactions or covid deaths.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Major Major

There was an antivaxxer who proposed harassing others. She spoke of standing as close to them as possible and coughing on them.

I know this is a sensitive issue, but it seems to be a "punishment" for those who get vaccinated. Has anyone else seen this sort of behavior?

People masking up in Sweden were few and far between, but they claimed that some anti-maskers behaved the way you describe. Now that the antivaxxers have started fearing 'vaccine shedding', the solution may be to wear a "I'm vaccinated & shedding" badge!
(Then the antivaxxers can wear a "Don't shed on me!" badge*. As long as it makes the antivaxxers stay the hell away!)

But questions about the behavior of antivaxxers should probably be placed in the Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories thread.


*ETA: I can see that there's already a sweat shirt! I thought I was first to come up with the idea!
And there's even a spray! But that one encourages hugging!

[dann]

Quote:

Chris Hayes: "If I were advising President Joe Biden on his State of the Union address next Tuesday, I think I would tell him to talk about extending life in America. I would tell him he should announce a government task force, a blue-ribbon committee dedicated to this issue."
U.S. life expectancy is declining. Biden should act. (MSNBC on YouTube, Feb 4, 2023)

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

U.S. Life Expectancy by Race at 6:08

Quote:

As per the 2021 data, Americans are expected to live 76.4 years, down from a peak of 78.8 years in 2019.
It also shows the US continues to rank lowest among countries with large economies.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death, followed by cancer and Covid.
(...)
"The declines in life expectancy since 2019 are largely driven by the pandemic," the agency said in an August news release.
"Covid-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths, or 74%, of the decline from 2019 to 2020, and 50% of the decline from 2020 to 2021."
US life expectancy is at its lowest in 25 years (BBC, Dec 22, 2022)

Just to stress a fact that is so difficult to grasp for some people: If the people dying from/with/of Covid-19 were only or primarily the ones who were going to die next week anyway, i.e. people 'already wearing toe tags', then their deaths wouldn't affect life expectancy the way they do!
And yet, I don't doubt minimizers gonna minimize since they panic whenever measures in addition to vaccines to decrease the number of SARS-CoV-2-related deaths are mentioned, in spite of the fact that many of those measures are very unobtrusive.

Quote:

The U.S. is experiencing its sharpest decline in life expectancy in more than a century—since the eras of World War I and the Great Influenza.
(...)
In 2021, an American was expected to live 76.1 years—down 2.8 years from the 2014 peak of 78.9 years. This backslide has erased all life expectancy gains since 1996, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(...)
Deep-rooted inequities and structural racism are also contributing to Americans dying younger, as evidenced by the uneven racial and ethnic breakdown in life expectancy:
* Non-Hispanic Black Americans: 70.8 years—down four years during the pandemic.
* Indigenous Americans: 65.2 years—down 6.6 years during the pandemic.
Life Expectancy is Declining in the U.S. It Doesn’t Have to Be (Johns Hopkins, Dec 6, 2022)

Life expectancy, 2019 to 2021 CAN~USA~GBR~DEU~ITA~ESP~DNK~FRA (Our World in Data)

I think that Denmark has seen a decline in life expectancy in 2022. Almost all measures against the virus other than vaccines were abandoned on Feb 1, when we were told to 'learn to live with the virus'.

[Planigale]

Originally Posted by dann

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

U.S. Life Expectancy by Race at 6:08




Just to stress a fact that is so difficult to grasp for some people: If the people dying from/with/of Covid-19 were only or primarily the ones who were going to die next week anyway, i.e. people 'already wearing toe tags', then their deaths wouldn't affect life expectancy the way they do!
And yet, I don't doubt minimizers gonna minimize since they panic whenever measures in addition to vaccines to decrease the number of SARS-CoV-2-related deaths are mentioned, in spite of the fact that many of those measures are very unobtrusive.




Life expectancy, 2019 to 2021 CAN~USA~GBR~DEU~ITA~ESP~DNK~FRA (Our World in Data)

I think that Denmark has seen a decline in life expectancy in 2022. Almost all measures against the virus other than vaccines were abandoned on Feb 1, when we were told to 'learn to live with the virus'.

It is interesting to look at the GBR and German life expectancy. According to official figures Germany had far fewer covid deaths than the UK. Yet drop in life expectancy is identical. Britain's covid 19 deaths 216,160 and excess mortality 210,430 (312/100,000); Germany 164,700 covid deaths but excess mortality 240,570 (289/100,000). Superficially Germany did much better than the UK, but perhaps not as well as the covid 19 mortality figures would suggest. This shows the trouble with just jumping to conclusions mid pandemic that this or that countries policies were a failure or another's were much better.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker

[dann]

Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, USA:
Life expectancy, 2019 to 2021

Same countries, 2020-2021:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people

At the time, I was wondering about the difference between Germany and Denmark. Notice how similar the numbers are until November 2020. Many German Covid-19 deaths may have gone unnoticed in 2020 for this reason.
Cumulative COVID-19 tests per 1,000 people

Notice that both Denmark and the UK tested very much in the first two years of the pandemic. Germany appears to have tested very little, in particular when you consider the number of cases.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Planigale

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker

Estimated cumulative excess deaths per 100,000 people during COVID, from The Economist (on Twitter, Feb 5, 2023)

[novaphile]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Never heard of anyone getting Paxlovid here, or any other anti-virals. Not saying they never do, just not heard of it.

My brother was given covid anti-virals during his most recent stay in hospital.

(In with a broken ankle, caught covid while he was there.)

He responded very well with the treatment.

This is the second time that he's had covid and he is fully boosted.

With the treatment, this case of covid was only a 'sore throat'.

He mentioned that he didn't even experience a temperature this time.

[dann]

In Denmark, Paxlovid is free for the patients, but so far the country has only bought 40,000 doses for a population of 5,8 million, i.e. practically nothing in comparison to the 20 million doses in the USA. In Denmark, the conditions required for getting Paxlovid are:
a. 80+ and vaccinated more than 6 months ago
b. 80+ and with one or more severe chronic diseases
c. 65-79 and unvaccinated
d. 65-79 with one or more severe chronic diseases and vaccinated more than 6 months ago
e. 50-64 with one or more severe chronic diseases and unvaccinated
f. Pregnant and in a risk group, for instance because of chronic diseases, and unvaccinated. Your MD decides if you are in a risk group.

Drug price group slashes suggested price for Pfizer COVID treatment by 80% (Reuters, Dec 20, 2022)

In low-income countries, almost nobody will be able to afford those prices.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by dann

In low-income countries, almost nobody will be able to afford those prices.

True, although I read that Pfizer charges different prices in different countries. It's hard to find actual numbers (I think they don't like revealing that information) but one estimate was $25/course. Compared to $530/course, which they charged the US government. That is apparently the manufacturing cost, roughly speaking. I don't doubt that a lot of money went into the research, and it's fair for them to make a profit, but it does seem a little bit excessive.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

...

I spoke to our local pharmacist about the drug interactions and he's adamant patients only need to stop taking their other drugs for the five days of the Paxlovid course. That seems to be the official line as well, and this guy has given plenty of it out, with no adverse reactions or covid deaths.

Which other drugs? Perhaps I missed the exchange here listing the drugs.

I stopped azathioprine (Imuran) abruptly and 4 days later I was in the hospital with respiratory failure.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Which other drugs? Perhaps I missed the exchange here listing the drugs.

I stopped azathioprine (Imuran) abruptly and 4 days later I was in the hospital with respiratory failure.

Here's a list of drugs that are safe to take with Paxlovid and another list of drugs that cannot be taken with it:

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelin...-interactions/

It isn't exhaustive though and I don't see your drug on either list.

ETA: here's a more comprehensive list:

https://seq.es/wp-content/uploads/20...a13jul2022.pdf

It appears that azathioprine is safe to take with Paxlovid.

[dann]

Even some otherwise 'provax' doctors:

Quote:

Contrary to what the “COVID-19 isn’t a threat to children” contingent says, COVID-19 is a leading cause of death among children. Yet “not antivax” doctors continue, either unknowingly or knowingly, recycle old antivax tropes to argue against vaccinating children against this disease.

As someone who has been following the antivaccine movement for over twenty years (and blogging about it for over 18 years), before the pandemic I never thought I would see my “provaccine” colleagues claim that children don’t need to be vaccinated against an infectious disease that kills at least as many children as measles did in the days before there was a vaccine. Indeed, that is basically the entire message behind the “Urgency of Normal” movement promoting a message during the Delta wave claiming that masks and COVID-19 mitigations in schools were not necessary because so few children die of the diseases, a state public health authority actively discouraging parents from vaccinating their children against COVID-19, and academics even recycling hoary old antivax tropes in a bioethics journal to argue against the need to vaccinate children against COVID-19.
(...)
What particularly surprised and disappointed me is the degree to which seemingly eminent academic physicians, while showing concern about reports of myocarditis after vaccination, seemingly shrug their shoulders about the disease, thinking it seemingly “natural and healthy” for children to die of a vaccine-preventable disease.
COVID-19 is a leading cause of death among children, but that doesn’t stop some of my colleagues from arguing against vaccinating them (Science-Based Medicine, Feb 6, 2023)

[dann]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Childhood vaccinations have fallen off a cliff in the past two years: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02051-w

We need to be working to getting those sorted out before we try to get kids having covid vaccines.

From the Science-Based Medicine article mentioned in post 2,779:

Quote:

at best, COVID-19 is roughly as deadly to children as measles was before the vaccine (and that’s even with a percentage of the population ages 0-19 having been vaccinated). More likely, COVID-19 is considerably more deadly to children than measles was in the 1950s, before the vaccine was developed.

Yet back then doctors and scientists considered measles, its status as a “normal childhood illness” notwithstanding, to be a deadly threat that warranted a vaccine—and rightly so! We shouldn’t tolerate 500 children dying every year and something like 1-3 per 1,000 suffering severe neurological sequelae, and in the 1960s we didn’t. The measles vaccine resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of cases of measles per year. In contrast, today a distressing number of physicians just shrug their shoulders metaphorically at an equal or higher level of carnage due to an infectious disease, and trot out the same old antivax arguments used for measles based on COVID-19 supposedly being “not a threat” to children in order to argue against pandemic mitigations in schools or vaccine mandates.
(...)
If you use arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19 that are in form identical to the arguments that antivaxxers used to use before the pandemic to argue against vaccinating children against measles, pertussis, and the like, namely that the disease isn’t a threat to the children, while ignoring that the disease kills hundreds of children a year, what should I call you? You’ve lost the right to get all indignant if I call you an antivaxxer. If the name fits…
COVID-19 is a leading cause of death among children, but that doesn’t stop some of my colleagues from arguing against vaccinating them (Science-Based Medicine, Feb 6, 2023)

[Skeptic Ginger]

There are still doctors who say kids don't need a flu vaccination despite the evidence they do. Oddly they have no issue with varicella vaccine recommendations.

Unsupported beliefs about flu vaccine are difficult to extinguish. Unsupported beliefs about COVID vaccine will in all likelihood follow the same path.

[marting]

Quote:

at best, COVID-19 is roughly as deadly to children as measles was before the vaccine (and that’s even with a percentage of the population ages 0-19 having been vaccinated). More likely, COVID-19 is considerably more deadly to children than measles was in the 1950s, before the vaccine was developed.

This is not true. If infected, measles is considerably more lethal in children than Covid-19. Comparing mortality numbers for an endemic disease (measles pre vax) and a novel coronavirus where the majority of children were infected within 2 years is comparing apples and oranges.

IFR in unvaxxed kids with no prior exposure is .1% for measles. IFR for unvaxxed covid-19 for kids is under .01%.


I usually agree with him but this is crap.

[dann]

From PubMed:

Quote:

In the early decades of the 20th century, thousands of fatal measles infections were reported each year. During the 1950s an annual average of greater than 500,000 cases of measles and nearly 500 deaths due to measles were reported in the United States. Surveys indicated that 95% of the population had been infected with measles by the age of 15 years. The introduction of measles vaccine and its widespread use, which began in 1963, has had a major impact on the occurrence of measles in the United States. Reported numbers of cases, deaths due to measles, and complications of measles (e.g., encephalitis) have declined dramatically.
Impact of measles in the United States (Rev Infect Dis. 1983 May-Jun;5(3):439-44. doi: 10.1093/clinids/5.3.439.)

Quote:

in the study period, August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022, there were 821 CYP deaths reported for which the underlying cause was COVID-19 (1.0 per 100 000), meaning COVID-19 ranked as the eighth leading cause of death (Table 1)
Assessment of COVID-19 as the Underlying Cause of Death Among Children and Young People Aged 0 to 19 Years in the US (JAMA Network, Jan 30, 2023)

[marting]

Originally Posted by dann

From PubMed:

Agree with PubMed numbers but it's still obvious that back before vax, a measles infection killed more kids than a covid-19 infection today. It's the difference between an endemic infection that's been around forever and a novel, highly infectious virus that initially runs rampant.

If covid-19 had exactly the same IFR as measles, it would have killed far more kids in the last few years than measles did during the same time period pre-vax adjusted for population differences.

[marting]

Quite a bit lower for the vaxxed according to this study:
https://www.cureus.com/articles/1278...p-fractures#!/

Quote:

Results
Thirty-day postoperative mortality was higher in the unvaccinated group at 13.2% than in the vaccinated group at 5.3%. A similar increase in 90-day mortality was also observed in the unvaccinated group at 24.8% when compared to 14.7% in the vaccinated group(p<0.001).

Interesting. One of the things about Covid-19 is that it may well result in increased mortality from non-covid causes after recovery. This would also go a long way to explaining "excess deaths" that is all the rage amongst anti-vaxxers.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by marting

One of the things about Covid-19 is that it may well result in increased mortality from non-covid causes after recovery.

That's the elephant in the room at this stage, and given the way it attacks organs, it wouldn't be any surprise if that's how it goes.

I'll be interested to see a comparison of 12-moth death rate comparison of people infected broken people who took Paxlovid and those who didn't. Since Paxlovid stops the virus replicating, it should avoid the additional mortality, I think.

We might be missing an opportunity to reduce harm by keeping Paxlovid to only people at high risk at the acute stage.

[dann]

Originally Posted by marting

Agree with PubMed numbers but it's still obvious that back before vax, a measles infection killed more kids than a covid-19 infection today. It's the difference between an endemic infection that's been around forever and a novel, highly infectious virus that initially runs rampant.

If covid-19 had exactly the same IFR as measles, it would have killed far more kids in the last few years than measles did during the same time period pre-vax adjusted for population differences.

Which is why children should also have been vaccinated and the "novel, highly infectious virus" shouldn't have been allowed to run "rampant".

[marting]

Originally Posted by dann

Which is why children should also have been vaccinated and the "novel, highly infectious virus" shouldn't have been allowed to run "rampant".

Well sure! Actually, I was surprised with how quickly the vaxxines were developed and rolled out. Health care workers and old elderly first, then decreasing age groups. This allowed more safety and effectiveness data to be collected. In turn this allowed the risk/benefit to more clearly favor lower age groups as the lower IFR requires much larger numbers to validate. That wasn't there in the initial trials but accumulated in the 6 months after vax introduction.

I just get annoyed when someone (Gorski), who generally puts out thoughtful stuff, states crap comparing measles and covid-19 in kids. Hard to believe he didn't know this.

[marting]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

That's the elephant in the room at this stage, and given the way it attacks organs, it wouldn't be any surprise if that's how it goes.

I'm increasingly of the belief that prior covid-19 infection is causing these higher rates of excess deaths. Looking at how these have changed over time they seem most related to the cumulative numbers of infections. If so, then covid-19 is having a larger impact than generally believed.

What is needed is a breakdown of excess deaths excluding accidents, overdoses, and suicides. Each death should include death cert. cause, age, history of known covid infection(s) and dates of vaccinations if any. This could be used to see correlations with variants extant at the time and perhaps get some sense of how long the effects last. The vax info would add a great deal of info to refute anti-vaxxers who are doing victory dances after reading some recent studies and grossly misinterpreting them.

[novaphile]

Originally Posted by marting

I'm increasingly of the belief that prior covid-19 infection is causing these higher rates of excess deaths. Looking at how these have changed over time they seem most related to the cumulative numbers of infections. If so, then covid-19 is having a larger impact than generally believed.

What is needed is a breakdown of excess deaths excluding accidents, overdoses, and suicides. Each death should include death cert. cause, age, history of known covid infection(s) and dates of vaccinations if any. This could be used to see correlations with variants extant at the time and perhaps get some sense of how long the effects last. The vax info would add a great deal of info to refute anti-vaxxers who are doing victory dances after reading some recent studies and grossly misinterpreting them.

I'm not sure that you should just put a line through suicides.

I've spoken to a couple of people who are reporting cognitive impairment post covid and who are struggling with depression for the first time in their lives.

So maybe post covid suicides would need a closer look.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by marting

I'm increasingly of the belief that prior covid-19 infection is causing these higher rates of excess deaths. Looking at how these have changed over time they seem most related to the cumulative numbers of infections. If so, then covid-19 is having a larger impact than generally believed.

That's what I was getting at upthread - if each consecutive infection takes a month off your life, and people are catching it twice a year, that's going to get ugly really fast.

Originally Posted by marting

What is needed is a breakdown of excess deaths excluding accidents, overdoses, and suicides. Each death should include death cert. cause, age, history of known covid infection(s) and dates of vaccinations if any. This could be used to see correlations with variants extant at the time and perhaps get some sense of how long the effects last.

Well, it's now over two years we've been lamenting the lack of direct statistical studies, so I'm not holding my breath on seeing those data.

Originally Posted by marting

The vax info would add a great deal of info to refute anti-vaxxers who are doing victory dances after reading some recent studies and grossly misinterpreting them.

Those people are sick and no facts will sway them, but the odd person sitting on the fence might listen.

[marting]

New CDC MMWR report with a lot of detail on vaccine waning and efffectiveness changes over both time and variant type. Also broken down by age group. Uses data from about half the USA population from their reporting states. Now includes initial, and very positive, results from the bi-valent vaccine.


COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated Persons Aged ≥12 Years by Receipt of Bivalent Booster Doses and Time Since Vaccination — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, October 3, 2021–December 24, 2022

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/...mm7206a3-H.pdf

Quote:

During the early BA.4/BA.5 period, declines in relative mortality rates were observed at 6–8 (RR = 4.6), 9–11 (4.5), and ≥12 (2.5) months after receiving a monovalent booster. In contrast, bivalent boosters received during the preceding 2 weeks–2 months improved protection against death (RR = 15.2) during the late BA.4/BA.5 period. In both analyses, when compared with unvaccinated persons, persons who had received bivalent boosters were provided additional protection against death over monovalent doses or monovalent boosters. Restored protection was highest in older adults.

[dann]

You can get a good impression of the differences between the unvaccinated, the monovalent vaccinated and the bivalent boosted from the two graphs on page 149 of Age-standardized incidence (cases per 100,000) and Age-standardized mortality (deaths per 100,000) from October 2021 to December 2022 in people ≥12 years.

There is also a short summary on page 151 with recommendations:

Quote:

Summary
What is already known about this topic?
COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness decreased with waning of vaccine-derived immunity and emerging Omicron sublineages. An updated (bivalent) booster dose enhances protection against infection and medically attended illness, but protection against death has not been evaluated.
What is added by this report?
Bivalent booster recipients in 24 U.S. jurisdictions had slightly higher protection against infection and significantly higher protection against death than was observed for monovalent booster recipients or unvaccinated persons, especially among older adults.
What are the implications for public health practice?
Bivalent COVID-19 booster doses protected against infection and death during BA.4/BA.5 circulation. All eligible persons should get 1 bivalent booster dose ≥2 months after their COVID-19 primary series or last monovalent booster dose.

COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Among Unvaccinated and Vaccinated Persons Aged ≥12 Years by Receipt of Bivalent Booster Doses and Time Since Vaccination — 24 U.S. Jurisdictions, October 3, 2021–December 24, 2022 (CDC)

Are you reading this, Sherkeu?

[dann]

Quote:

Dr. Gorski and Dr. Novella join director/editor/producer Tjardus Greidanus, whose documentary Virulent: The Vaccine War examines the rise of the antivaccine movement before and after the pandemic.

It finally happened. Our fearless founding editor Dr. Steve Novella joined me and director/editor/producer Tjardus Greidanus, whose documentary Virulent: The Vaccine War for a virtual Q&A. The discussion was wide-ranging and all about the antivaccine movement. Check it out either at this link or on this embedded version.

Virulent: The Vaccine War – Q&A with Drs. Steven Novella & David Gorski (Science-Based Medicine, Feb 9, 2023 - 1:05:53)

They also spend a lot of the time talking about conspiracy theories in general.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by marting

Now includes initial, and very positive, results from the bi-valent vaccine.

Excellent!

They're going to be available here in March/April and we'll all be getting one.

[dann]

Quote:

Though Drs. Hoeg, Makary, and Koka will never inform their audience of this, some children have needed amputations or lung transplants after their bout with COVID. Others have had strokes. The virus has killed hundreds of teenagers, and teenage athletes have died of COVID after the vaccine was available to them. No children are known to have died from the vaccine, which has proven effective at limiting COVID’s greatest harms, including death. Say what you will about vaccine-myocarditis, it shouldn’t be controversial to state that it is less severe than death. Yet, this is a very controversial opinion amongst doctors.
“Among patients aged 12-39 years with no predisposing comorbidities, the relative risk of heart failure or death was markedly higher for myocarditis associated with covid-19 disease than for myocarditis associated with vaccination.” (Science-Based Medicine, Feb 10, 2023)
Doctors used *that result* to claim the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus.

Read the article to find out how antivax doctors manage to make it seem as if vaxxing is more harmful than COVID-19!

[marting]

Good news re China. S. Korea has seen a drop in infections from China's visitors.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...11-2023-02-10/

Quote:

Kim Sung-ho, South Korea's vice interior minister in charge of disaster and safety management, said the government had decided to restart the visa issuance after the number of infections among Chinese arrivals dropped significantly, and new strains of the virus have not emerged.

[marting]

Medcram did a deap dive into excess deaths. See the graphs age breakdown starting at 2:00. Did a good job showing that vaccines were not associated with excess deaths in an overall sense but, and I really like this, he discussed what new evidence would change his current opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZI7dwldSR0

A few things stand out from the graphs. Excess deaths in the age group of 0-14 y/o were quite low and the graphs are very noisy since death rates in that cohort are really small and don't group with either waves of covid or vaccines.

An interesting detail is the drop to negative percentages after the large waves in ages 85+. This is consistent with TA's hypothesis that covid was taking out people near the end of their life. Seems reasonable at that age group where many have comorbitities and likely significant exposure due to having treatments associated with them. However, for the whole population the effect is much smaller so most covid deaths are not accelerated deaths that would have occured w/o covid.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by marting

Medcram did a deap dive into excess deaths. See the graphs age breakdown starting at 2:00. Did a good job showing that vaccines were not associated with excess deaths in an overall sense but, and I really like this, he discussed what new evidence would change his current opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZI7dwldSR0

A few things stand out from the graphs. Excess deaths in the age group of 0-14 y/o were quite low and the graphs are very noisy since death rates in that cohort are really small and don't group with either waves of covid or vaccines.

An interesting detail is the drop to negative percentages after the large waves in ages 85+. This is consistent with TA's hypothesis that covid was taking out people near the end of their life. Seems reasonable at that age group where many have comorbitities and likely significant exposure due to having treatments associated with them. However, for the whole population the effect is much smaller so most covid deaths are not accelerated deaths that would have occured w/o covid.

That's an excellent video. I will have to watch more from their series.

Thanks for sharing. That's what I like about this forum: crowdsourcing so many intelligent citations I might not have otherwise seen.


Couple of quick takeaways: the COVID vaccine is not causing excess deaths and it's more than just vitamin D in high sunshine months that is positively affecting our immune systems.

[marting]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Couple of quick takeaways: the COVID vaccine is not causing excess deaths and it's more than just vitamin D in high sunshine months that is positively affecting our immune systems.

Yep. He also has an interesting video speculating that near IR penetrates tissue and that exposure to sunlight's IR component increases intracellular melatonin which differs from the distribution from the pineal gland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW_EtdPWmKM

He reports on a study that uses a vest with 940nm ir LEDs:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...11134422002342

Cardiopulmonary and hematological effects of infrared LED photobiomodulation in the treatment of SARS-COV2

Quote:

Phototherapy used a vest with an array of 300 LEDs (940 nm) mounted on a 36 cm × 58 cm area and positioned in the patient's anterior thoracic and abdominal regions. The total power was 6 W, with 15 min irradiation time.

Interesting paper. It had one fairly obvious problem. The blinding. Here's a quote from the protocol in the full paper:

Quote:

The control group undertook the same protocol as the LED group, but they used the infrared LED vest with the LEDs turned off. Blinding was obtained because infrared radiation is not perceived by the human eye and patients from both groups wore the vest for the same time (15 min).

The IR power totaled 6 watts but the efficiency isn't 100%. So around 20-30 watts of total thermal power was in the vest against the patient's skin when the LEDs were on v 0 when off. That's going to be quite noticable to any patient. Especially after 15 minutes. And the warmth may well be a factor, not just the IR component.

What they should have done is have a parallel set of resisters designed to produce the same amount of net energy with a switch to select the LEDs or resistors and used that for the control group. Just a major error IMO.