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Tags Coronavirus , vaccination , vaccines

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Old 20th March 2023, 02:44 PM   #2881
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Originally Posted by Planigale View Post
Anyone admitted to hospital with flu meets criteria for anti-virals. For Covid-19 you would in general have to be symptomatic and 'vulnerable'.
Yes, I maybe wasn't clear, but was talking about Covid specifically.
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Old 21st March 2023, 02:15 PM   #2882
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The Cleveland Clinic study (12/22) that reviewed initial bi-valent vaccine efficacy over a 90 day period has been updated several times and now has 180 days of data. The new data includes periods where multiple variants went through providing additional effectiveness data. The main result is that the bi-valent vaccine is close to useless against XBB*.

Effectiveness of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Bivalent Vaccine
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....17.22283625v4
Quote:
Estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) was 29% (95% C.I., 21%-37%), 20% (95% C.I., 6%-31%), and 4% (95% C.I., -12%-18%), during the BA.4/5, BQ, and XBB dominant phases, respectively.
This decrease is consistent with antibody studies that show even lower neutralization for the latter variants. There may also be some impact from vaccine waning since 80% of the vaccinations were delivered in the initial 90 days of the study.

The rather odd correlation between number of previous vaccine doses and increased probability of infection remains. However, the study's subjects were relatively young and there were few seriously ill among them so, even if accurate, the study says nothing about illness severity and there are numerous studies that show vaccinations continue to provide significant protection against hospitalization/death.
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Old 21st March 2023, 02:59 PM   #2883
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
The Cleveland Clinic study (12/22) that reviewed initial bi-valent vaccine efficacy over a 90 day period has been updated several times and now has 180 days of data. The new data includes periods where multiple variants went through providing additional effectiveness data. The main result is that the bi-valent vaccine is close to useless against XBB*.
Given that being the dominant strain right now, it's not great news.

The good news is the continuing level of protection, which I'm guessing is part vaccine and part infection-gained antibodies.

It's almost reached the point where continual exposure will lead to less harm in the long term.
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Old 21st March 2023, 03:47 PM   #2884
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Given that being the dominant strain right now, it's not great news.

The good news is the continuing level of protection, which I'm guessing is part vaccine and part infection-gained antibodies.
Yeah. Even though the vaccine appears to do squat in terms of stopping infection, it's effective at reducing hospitalization/death.

The only variant that might have a chance at this point is one showing up in India. But it's prevalence is still low so it may be founder's effect. A lot of variants popped up but quickly faded.

XBB, as immune escape as it is against vaccines, is less so against prior infection of Omicron variants. And while it's dominant, it is decreasing in prevalence almost everywhere with nothing else clearly in sight. So we are in for at least several good months. This might be the evolutionary endemic end.
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Old 21st March 2023, 05:17 PM   #2885
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Yeah. Even though the vaccine appears to do squat in terms of stopping infection, it's effective at reducing hospitalization/death.
That's really the only thing that matters - we can't put the genie back in the bottle and it's going to be with us forever, along with the other coronaviruses we're susceptible to.

As long as it circulates and isn't killing many, I think we're as good as it gets.
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Old 28th March 2023, 09:41 AM   #2886
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Placental Tissue Destruction and Insufficiency From COVID-19 Causes Stillbirth and Neonatal Death From Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury: A Study of 68 Cases With SARS-CoV-2 Placentitis From 12 Countries

https://meridian.allenpress.com/aplm...-Insufficiency
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Old 30th March 2023, 06:10 AM   #2887
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
That's really the only thing that matters - we can't put the genie back in the bottle and it's going to be with us forever, along with the other coronaviruses we're susceptible to.

As long as it circulates and isn't killing many, I think we're as good as it gets.

There is no doubt that this is what The Atheist thinks, but his criteria for what is meant by many have been peculiar and shifting.

Quote:
despite 20.8% fewer COVID-19 deaths during March to December 2021 than during March to December 2020, YLL due to COVID-19 increased by 7.4% as the age distribution of decedents shifted downward (that is, to relatively younger persons); the median (interquartile range) age of COVID-19–involved deaths decreased from 78 years (68 to 87 years) to 69 years (59 to 80 years). Accordingly, YLL per COVID-19 death increased by 35.7% (Figure); YLL per death did not change by more than 2.2% for any other cause.
Shifting Mortality Dynamics in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic as Measured by Years of Life Lost (Annals of Internal Medicine, Letter, Jan 2023)
Table. Leading Causes of U.S. Death and Associated YLL, March to December in 2020 and 2021

It would be interesting to see the corresponding numbers for 2022. My first thought when I saw this was that vaccinations might have something to do with it. The author has also considered this:
Quote:
Further investigation should determine the extent to which this downward age shift in COVID-19 mortality is attributable to high early-pandemic COVID-19 death rates among older adults (for example, involving nursing homes and long-term care facilities), relatively higher vaccine coverage and adherence with nonpharmaceutical interventions among older versus younger adults later in the pandemic, age-related risk differences associated with coronavirus variant viruses, or other mechanisms.
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Old 30th March 2023, 06:37 AM   #2888
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The immune system is not a muscle. Vaccines help 'train' it without the adverse effects of infections:
Getting COVID-19 Could Weaken Your Immune System (Time, Mar 27, 2023)
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Old 30th March 2023, 12:13 PM   #2889
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Originally Posted by dann View Post
There is no doubt that this is what The Atheist thinks, but his criteria for what is meant by many have been peculiar and shifting.
More nonsense, but hey, I'll just let WHO speak to it.

Fantasy: OMG, young people are dying of covid!1!! Everyone wear a mask and panic!

Reality: WHO says,
Quote:
The low priority group includes healthy children and adolescents aged 6 months to 17 years. Primary and booster doses are safe and effective in children and adolescents. However, considering the low burden of disease, SAGE urges countries considering vaccination of this age group to base their decisions on contextual factors, such as the disease burden, cost effectiveness, and other health or programmatic priorities and opportunity costs.
I'm comfortable with "low burden".

As usual, I suspect your numbers are reflecting the unfortunate few younger people who have substantial comorbidities, or are immuno-compromised.

Given that a whopping 500* people are dying of covid worldwide each day, I certainly can't be arsed checking the numbers. I will note that you mention percentages, not actual numbers, and if two kids die this week and one last week, that's a whole 100% more!

*compare with other deaths per day totals:

Parkinson's Disease - 1000/day
Meningitis - 646/day

Dwarfed by diseases like diabetes - 4100/day, and 3200/day.

...and not a lot more than die in fires every day: 304.

I think we should definitely ban fire.

Originally Posted by dann View Post
Table. Leading Causes of U.S. Death and Associated YLL, March to December in 2020 and 2021

It would be interesting to see the corresponding numbers for 2022.
Nope, even 2022 has no relevance to what's happening now.

It amuses me you keep bringing up irrelevant data from early in the pandemic to make a case for what's happening in 2023, because it proves beyond doubt you are clutching at straws to keep the panic alive, for reasons best know to yourself.
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Old 30th March 2023, 01:20 PM   #2890
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Child (0-17) Deaths in Feb. 2023, USA from cdc.gov

Deaths involving Covid-19: 6
Deaths involving Influenza: 8
Deaths involving Pneumonia: 33

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c...ekly/index.htm
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Old 31st March 2023, 02:10 AM   #2891
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Child (0-17) Deaths in Feb. 2023, USA from cdc.gov

Deaths involving Covid-19: 6
Deaths involving Influenza: 8
Deaths involving Pneumonia: 33

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c...ekly/index.htm
Thanks mate, exactly as I thought.

Compare those numbers to kids killed in car crashes too, which is a steady 50 every month.
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Old 31st March 2023, 04:08 AM   #2892
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
It amuses me you keep bringing up irrelevant data from early in the pandemic to make a case for what's happening in 2023, because it proves beyond doubt you are clutching at straws to keep the panic alive, for reasons best know to yourself.
What panic ?
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Old 31st March 2023, 04:00 PM   #2893
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Originally Posted by Dr.Sid View Post
What panic ?
Fair point - I can only think of one person panicking about it, but he is active in the thread, so you should be able to figure who I meant.

I spend a lot of time out and about - factories, workplaces, concerts, shops - and nowhere do I see anyone other than Chinese mums and their kids wearing masks. But I would note that they were doing this before the pandemic.
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Old 1st April 2023, 03:15 AM   #2894
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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
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Old 1st April 2023, 03:38 AM   #2895
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Originally Posted by Puppycow View Post
YouTube
Like a lot of things about the pandemic, studies of what number of people are actually suffering from long covid, what their symptoms are, and what affect it's having on them, are sketchy.

For a start, the number of people with long covid is decreasing, almost halving in six months to Jan 2023: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/lon...est-data-show/

The data I have to go on is sick leave, and out of 1000 employees, we have zero cases of long covid, yet I'm confident almost every single one of that 1000 has had covid.

I think long covid is overstated and not as big a problem as some people tout it. Yes, I'm sure some people have it badly, and we see the odd case in the news, but they're very rare - about the same as ME/CFS, with which it shares a disturbing number of symptoms.

The rest of the world isn't about to go back to masking up because the odd person gets long covid.
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Old 1st April 2023, 05:25 AM   #2896
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
Like a lot of things about the pandemic, studies of what number of people are actually suffering from long covid, what their symptoms are, and what affect it's having on them, are sketchy.

For a start, the number of people with long covid is decreasing, almost halving in six months to Jan 2023: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/lon...est-data-show/

The data I have to go on is sick leave, and out of 1000 employees, we have zero cases of long covid, yet I'm confident almost every single one of that 1000 has had covid.

I think long covid is overstated and not as big a problem as some people tout it. Yes, I'm sure some people have it badly, and we see the odd case in the news, but they're very rare - about the same as ME/CFS, with which it shares a disturbing number of symptoms.

The rest of the world isn't about to go back to masking up because the odd person gets long covid.
Masking ? No. That's not good long term, and who knows if it even works against omicron. But vaccines ? Absolutely yes.
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Old 1st April 2023, 01:37 PM   #2897
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CIDRAP's Osterholm's party gets Covid-19

And then there's Michael Osterholm, wife, and guest at his 70th birthday. Celebrated with a dinner at the Osterholm's condo followed by a show. All with 5 shots each including 3 boosters. And all wearing N95's anywhere they felt at risk.

Osterholm, who does the CIDRAP Covid-19 update podcast, is one of those that remains exceptionally careful. He wears an N95 almost everywhere indoors when others are around. When getting together in small groups w/o masks, everyone first takes a rapid flow test. And he's avoided getting Covid-19 for over 3 years.

Until earlier in March.

Friday afternoon after dinner the three left Osterholm's condo to drive to a show. At the show, which was in a large room and lightly attended, all three used N95 respirators.

On Sunday afternoon all three had early symptoms of Covid-19 and tested positive in subsequent days. None of them have been counted as cases since self-administered rapid flow tests are not counted nor reported by health departments. Even when used to get a Paxlovid prescription as Osterholm did.

Osterholm speculates they were exposed in the elevator at his condo when they weren't wearing masks even though only the three were in the elevator and were in it half a minute.

Osterholm's discussion of this starts at 5:50 at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QglxOnYAS8Q
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Old 1st April 2023, 03:00 PM   #2898
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Originally Posted by Dr.Sid View Post
Masking ? No. That's not good long term, and who knows if it even works against omicron. But vaccines ? Absolutely yes.
I agree entirely. I don't even count unvaccinated people as people any more, except the unlucky few who can't have one.

Vaccinated people appear to have a much lower rate of long covid, but I'd really like to see some current research on the subject.

Originally Posted by marting View Post
On Sunday afternoon all three had early symptoms of Covid-19 and tested positive in subsequent days.
That's a classic example of what I've been saying - it's unavoidable.

And I'm just not seeing the harm in vaccinated people. My mother-in-law is in a geriatric wing of a hospital, so she and her fellow patients aren't very well. Not immediately life-threatening conditions, but crook enough to be in hospital. Out of the 20 patients in her ward, only one is under 80, and he's 79.

Every single one of them caught covid last month and none of them required a transfer to ICU and none died.

The one thing that concerns me at this stage is insufficient use of Paxlovid due to cost.
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Old 1st April 2023, 05:24 PM   #2899
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
I agree entirely. I don't even count unvaccinated people as people any more, except the unlucky few who can't have one.

Vaccinated people appear to have a much lower rate of long covid, but I'd really like to see some current research on the subject.



That's a classic example of what I've been saying - it's unavoidable.

And I'm just not seeing the harm in vaccinated people. My mother-in-law is in a geriatric wing of a hospital, so she and her fellow patients aren't very well. Not immediately life-threatening conditions, but crook enough to be in hospital. Out of the 20 patients in her ward, only one is under 80, and he's 79.

Every single one of them caught covid last month and none of them required a transfer to ICU and none died.

The one thing that concerns me at this stage is insufficient use of Paxlovid due to cost.
Does anyone know how effective Paxlovid is?

Does it make mild illness go away more quickly or prevent mild illness becoming serious?

Is there any data that suggests it reduces mortality?

I am just wondering because I have not heard of anyone getting it in Japan. Literally nobody I know has taken it.
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Old 1st April 2023, 05:36 PM   #2900
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
That's a classic example of what I've been saying - it's unavoidable.
Yeah. Good example though of how infectious XBB.1.5 is. There isn't a lot of reseach out re XBBs but what there is indicates vaccines do squat in terms of preventing infections. That said, XBB prevalence has been decreasing in the States. Only one possible explanation. Most people have already had Omicron and it provides some infection immunity.. Seems prior Omicron infection wanes slower than vaccination but vaccination seems to provide additional protection against hospitalization/death. About 2x reduction here in San Diego. Down from ~10x through Delta. Good thing the bugger isn't as virulent as the early strains.
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Old 1st April 2023, 05:43 PM   #2901
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Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
Does anyone know how effective Paxlovid is?
https://www.scienceboard.net/index.a...is&ItemID=5241

Quote:
They performed an observational study using data from 28,000 patients provided by the UCHealth system, Colorado's largest statewide health system. They examined the data of patients with one or more risk factors for severe disease, hospitalization, or death, and who either did or did not receive Paxlovid. They found that Paxlovid's use significantly reduced hospitalization and death rates, effectively preventing hospitalization among almost all outpatient subgroups who qualified for the drug's use under the government's emergency use authorization (EUA).
Key thing with Paxlovid is it is only effective during the initial infection when things are relatively mild. Giving it to patients after they have become severely ill is not effective. So here it's only used for patients that are at high risk. Elderly, etc.
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Old 1st April 2023, 07:33 PM   #2902
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
https://www.scienceboard.net/index.a...is&ItemID=5241



Key thing with Paxlovid is it is only effective during the initial infection when things are relatively mild. Giving it to patients after they have become severely ill is not effective. So here it's only used for patients that are at high risk. Elderly, etc.
Great! That’s what I’m looking for. Okay, so it is not worth giving to low-risk groups or those who have been sick for a few days.
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Old 1st April 2023, 07:45 PM   #2903
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Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
Great! That’s what I’m looking for. Okay, so it is not worth giving to low-risk groups or those who have been sick for a few days.
Effectiveness is in the early stage <= 5 days after first symptoms. Severe disease, low spOx and such typically occurs after a lot of tissue damage in the second week and it is of no benefit then. At that point steroids are somewhat effective. Some docs here give steroids initially and that likely does more harm than good. First Pax in the first stage, then steroids in the second stage if disease progresses.
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Old 1st April 2023, 11:40 PM   #2904
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Effectiveness is in the early stage <= 5 days after first symptoms. Severe disease, low spOx and such typically occurs after a lot of tissue damage in the second week and it is of no benefit then. At that point steroids are somewhat effective. Some docs here give steroids initially and that likely does more harm than good. First Pax in the first stage, then steroids in the second stage if disease progresses.
In the trials the benefit of steroids is in those with an oxygen requirement. I am aware of no evidence to justify early use. Whereas as you say Paxlovid's benefits are in those at high risk of severe disease, when given early.
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Old 2nd April 2023, 08:01 AM   #2905
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Originally Posted by Planigale View Post
In the trials the benefit of steroids is in those with an oxygen requirement. I am aware of no evidence to justify early use. Whereas as you say Paxlovid's benefits are in those at high risk of severe disease, when given early.
Yep. Because there isn't any. But that hasn't stopped some docs from giving it in the initial stage which seems very unwise given how steroids supress immune response and the early stage is where you need it.
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Old 2nd April 2023, 03:47 PM   #2906
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An interesting piece of info came out the other day, regarding covid infections in NZ - while XBB has increased its share of infections and become the dominant strain, the total number of infections has remained unchanged.

It also seems to have taken XBB a long time to gain dominance.

I think we can therefore say that while XBB might be the most infectious, its advantage is nowhere near as distinct as previous variants had.
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Old 2nd April 2023, 04:19 PM   #2907
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Yep. Because there isn't any. But that hasn't stopped some docs from giving it in the initial stage which seems very unwise given how steroids supress immune response and the early stage is where you need it.
That touches on one of the things that seriously needs fixing - communication of what's going on.

Our government removed Molnupiravir from the list of treatment options, then didn't bother telling doctors or pharmacists. Given it had been heavily advertised on TV, doctors were being asked to prescribe and still were until the mess was highlighted in the media.
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Old 2nd April 2023, 11:55 PM   #2908
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Originally Posted by angrysoba View Post
Does anyone know how effective Paxlovid is?

Does it make mild illness go away more quickly or prevent mild illness becoming serious?

Is there any data that suggests it reduces mortality?

I am just wondering because I have not heard of anyone getting it in Japan. Literally nobody I know has taken it.
It reduces hospital admissions by 50% in those at high risk of severe disease when taken within 5 days of onset of symptoms. Deaths in the study were few so mortality as a separate outcome was not documented.

Quote:
Overall, 180 351 eligible patients were included; of these, only 4737 (2.6%) were treated with Paxlovid, and 135 482 (75.1%) had adequate COVID-19 vaccination status. Both Paxlovid and adequate COVID-19 vaccination status were associated with significant decrease in the rate of severe COVID-19 or mortality with adjusted HRs of 0.54 (95% confidence interval [CI], .39–.75) and 0.20 (95% CI, .17–.22), respectively. Paxlovid appears to be more effective in older patients, immunosuppressed patients, and patients with underlying neurological or cardiovascular disease (interaction P < .05 for all). No significant interaction was detected between Paxlovid treatment and COVID-19 vaccination status.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/76/3/e342/6599020
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Old 3rd April 2023, 12:54 PM   #2909
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Originally Posted by Planigale View Post
It reduces hospital admissions by 50% in those at high risk of severe disease when taken within 5 days of onset of symptoms. Deaths in the study were few so mortality as a separate outcome was not documented.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/76/3/e342/6599020
Yep, and vax reduced severe disease 80%. Even better, Pax and Vax reductions were additive so the Pax reduction is seen on top of the Vax reduction.

Thanks for the link!
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Old 7th April 2023, 08:52 PM   #2910
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TWIV interviews Mohsan Saeed about the GoF episode

An in depth discussion about research to determine the degree to which the Omicron mutations in the spike protein were the cause of the relatively milder disease. This was done by creating a chimera with the Omicron spike.

Here's the Nature paper:
Spike and nsp6 are key determinants of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 attenuation
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05697-2

Most of the lower virulence was due to the spike but not all. Really nice discussion. Learned a lot including details of where Omicron disease differs from the Wuhan original.

TWiV 997: Inside Omicron with Mohsan Saeed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eciWFYH3wiI

Back in Oct this created an intense, badly reported, media (and congressional) storm. While most of the video discusses exactly what experiments were done and with what approvals, for those not familar with the hubub, Mohsan goes through it starting at about 1:14:00 in the video.

Here's one of the more extreme examples:

Fauci-Funded Scientist Engineers New COVID-19, Deadlier Than Omicron, In Boston Lab
https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/18/c...on-university/

factcheck.org
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/10/sc...id-19-strains/
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Old 5th May 2023, 12:43 PM   #2911
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WHO has removed emergency status and made some very amusing comments about the pandemic, and others to come.

Originally Posted by Tedross
“Lives were lost that should not have been. We must promise ourselves and our children and grandchildren that we will never make those mistakes again.”
Good sense of humour, that man. Not only will we make the same mistakes, next time things will be far worse, because countries will be less likely to react with stringent measures, people will take fewer precautions, and the next virus will probably be more virulent.

With the emergency phase now over I thought I'd look at the numbers to see if the attempted panic over "kraken", "arcturus" and all the other names conspiracists are using has had any affect.

Not a sign of trouble, as numbers continue to decline to a current state of ~300 deaths a day worldwide, lower than the numbers dying from hepatitis or being burnt alive.

Won't stop some people panicking, no doubt.

I'll be interested to see where we go with vaccines from here on. I'm picking an annual shot will be recommended and sensible.
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Old 6th May 2023, 11:28 AM   #2912
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Cytokinopathy with aberrant cytotoxic lymphocytes and profibrotic myeloid response in SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine–associated myocarditis
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adh3455

Interesting paper in Science. I wasn't previously aware that Myo/Periocardidtis cases were so close to vaccination with most well under a week.

Quote:
Our clinical cohort consists of 23 patients with vaccine-associated myocarditis and/or pericarditis. The cohort was predominately male (87%) with an average age of 16.9 ± 2.2 years (ranging from 13 to 21 years), in congruence with prior epidemiological reports (24). Patients had largely noncontributory past medical histories and were generally healthy before vaccination. Most patients had symptom onset 1 to 4 days after the second dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (Fig. 1A and tables S1 and S2).

Jeez. The following error (0.3% instead of the actual: 0.03%) just jumped out at me. What the hell is going on with their editing/peer review? The following is from their introduction:

Quote:
A study of vaccine-associated myopericarditis incidence from our own health care network (Yale New Haven Hospital) between January and May 2021 identified eight cases from 24,673 individuals aged 16 to 25 (0.3%) given two doses of mRNA vaccine.
Their data set dates back 2 years. Why did this paper take so long to be published. There is a real need to be doing the longitudinal studies they recommend to solidify the vaccine risk/benefit for male youths to deal with anti-vax bs. Those should have been started almost 2 years ago.
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Old 6th May 2023, 04:21 PM   #2913
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Originally Posted by marting View Post
Jeez. The following error (0.3% instead of the actual: 0.03%) just jumped out at me. What the hell is going on with their editing/peer review? The following is from their introduction:
That's unforgivable. A factor of 10 times - they may as well just hand **** to antivaxers.
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Old 6th May 2023, 05:19 PM   #2914
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
That's unforgivable. A factor of 10 times - they may as well just hand **** to antivaxers.
What bugs me is that presumably everyone reviewing the paper has the background to know that 0.3% is insanely high for something that's diagnosed when presenting at a hospital or emergency room. Maybe the reviewers just skipped over the numbers and went to their area of their specialty in the paper.

At least they provided the numerator and denominator so folks could do their own, 6th grade arithmetic.
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Old 8th May 2023, 02:45 AM   #2915
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Reality Check

The Atheist is not a big fan of documentation. Not even when he quotes WHO's Director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, does he link to a site with the quotation, and he is even less inclined to present links (or references to any kind of source) when he claims to "look at the numbers".
There is an obvious reason for that:

Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
WHO has removed emergency status and made some very amusing comments about the pandemic, and others to come.

Originally Posted by Tedros
“Lives were lost that should not have been. We must promise ourselves and our children and grandchildren that we will never make those mistakes again.”
Good sense of humour, that man. Not only will we make the same mistakes, next time things will be far worse, because countries will be less likely to react with stringent measures, people will take fewer precautions, and the next virus will probably be more virulent.

With the emergency phase now over I thought I'd look at the numbers to see if the attempted panic over "kraken", "arcturus" and all the other names conspiracists are using has had any affect.

Not a sign of trouble, as numbers continue to decline to a current state of ~300 deaths a day worldwide, lower than the numbers dying from hepatitis or being burnt alive.

Won't stop some people panicking, no doubt.

I'll be interested to see where we go with vaccines from here on. I'm picking an annual shot will be recommended and sensible.

I guess it counts as a kind of progress that The Atheist seems to have finally figured out that it is not a good idea to use road deaths for comparisons in his continuous attempts to downplay the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on human lives and health.
Now he resorts to "being burnt alive," so I guess it's time for another one of those The Atheist Reality Checks that are always necessary when he makes up numbers and predictions:

Quote:
According to the latest WHO data published in 2020 Fires Deaths in New Zealand reached 17 or 0.06% of total deaths.
NEW ZEALAND: FIRES (WORLDHEALTHRANKINGS*)

How about the NZ death toll from COVID-19, then?
2020: 25
2021: 26
2022: 2,280
2023, so far: 405, and Winther Is Coming ...
2020 and 2021 were the two years when New Zealand achieved ZeroCovid, and even then the death toll from COVID-19 was slightly higher than the death toll from fires.

Originally Posted by WORLDHEALTHRANKINGS
According to the latest WHO data published in 2020 Hepatitis B Deaths in New Zealand reached 14 or 0.05% of total deaths.
According to the latest WHO data published in 2020 Hepatitis C Deaths in New Zealand reached 30 or 0.11% of total deaths.

Let us see what else WHO's Tedros had to tell us:

Quote:
Almost 7 million deaths have been reported to WHO, but we know the toll is several times higher – at least 20 million.
(...)
Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern.** I have accepted that advice.

It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.

However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat.

Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about.

As we speak, thousands of people around the world are fighting for their lives in intensive care units.

And millions more continue to live with the debilitating effects of post-COVID-19 condition
.

This virus is here to stay. It is still killing, and it’s still changing. The risk remains of new variants emerging that cause new surges in cases and deaths.

The worst thing any country could do now is to use this news as a reason to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about.
WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing – 5 May 2023 (WHO, May 5, 2023)

Sending a message that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about, of course, is exactly what The Atheist has been doing for a very long time already, which makes it obvious who's panicking.

* I don't know how reliable WORLDHEALTHRANKINGS is, but its number for NZ road deaths seems to be correct.


** ETA: I can see one reason to "declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern." A few countries have actually managed to almost put an end to the virus and its damage to health and lives: Singapore and Cuba (there may be more that I am not aware of). And it's not at all a secret how they managed to do it: by taking it seriously and do what was required to fight it.
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"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx

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Old 8th May 2023, 05:17 AM   #2916
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Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
... lower than the numbers dying from hepatitis ...

Quote:
Professor Baker said the global status change made sense at this stage, but it did not impact whether Covid-19 was still a pandemic.
Covid-19 was still New Zealand's number one killer when it came to infectious disease and people should make sure they were vaccinated and take sensible precautions, he said.
WHO Covid-19 status change makes no practical difference to management of cases- Baker (RNZ.co.nz, May 7, 2023)
But maybe hepatitis is not considered to be an infectious disease in New Zealand ...

When I look at the number of COVID-19 deaths in the world and in the USA this year, Jan 1 to May 3, I notice something strange:
World: 6.72 million --> 6.92 million, i.e. approximately 200,000
USA: 1.08 million --> 1.12 million, i.e. approximately 40,000

Population:
World: 7.888 billion
USA: 0.332 billion

In the USA the population has had access to the vaccines, but in many other parts of the world, people haven't, so I don't think that there is reason to assume that disproportionally many more people have died from the virus in the USA than in the rest of the world. As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus put it: "Almost 7 million deaths have been reported to WHO, but we know the toll is several times higher – at least 20 million."

I would say, at the very least.
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"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Old 8th May 2023, 11:43 AM   #2917
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Originally Posted by dann View Post
The Atheist is not a big fan of documentation.
Yet again, I find it hilarious that you have to resort to falsifying data to try to make my post look incorrect.

I specifically used figures for deaths by fire and and hepatitis for the entire world, and linked to those numbers, which are clearly higher than covid deaths.

Only the most dishonest poster would try to link my post to numbers from NZ.

And yet that's exactly what happened.
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Old 9th May 2023, 11:03 AM   #2918
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The Atheist's post had no figures, no numbers and no link, and yet I'm the one who is supposed to "resort to falsifying data" and be "the most dishonest poster."
The Atheist really, really hates NZ facts!
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"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx
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Old 10th May 2023, 11:12 PM   #2919
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It would be really unfortunate if the moderators deleted the numbers and links in The Atheist's posts when he specifically uses those numbers and also links to them. It would make him look like a liar and a fraud if they did, so I hope that's not the case.

Originally Posted by The Atheist View Post
I specifically used figures for deaths by fire and and hepatitis for the entire world, and linked to those numbers, which are clearly higher than covid deaths.

And since The Atheist, for whatever reason, finds it dishonest of me to confront him with New Zealand's numbers, I found some numbers from another country whose statistics are fairly reliable, I think. After all, The Atheist is a Kiwi and I'm not, so maybe he knows something about NZ statistics that I don't.

Quote:
In 2021, 1,353,500 fires resulted in 3,800 civilian deaths and 14,700 injuries.
Fire-related Fatalities and Injuries (National Safety Council: Injury Facts)

In the same year, there were 464,288 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, i.e. 122 times more C-19 deaths than fire deaths! (This year, so far, it's approximately 50,000 confirmed C-19 deaths, so already 13 times more C-19 deaths in the first four months than the number of fire deaths in all of 2021.)

But those were only the civilian fire-related fatalities. COVID-19 was also more fatal to firefighters than actual fires in 2021:

Quote:
In addition, there were 70 non-COVID-19 on-duty firefighter deaths and 78 firefighter deaths resulted from COVID-19 in 2021.

Not much more fatal, but still.
If only there was some kind of protective gear that could be issued to firefighters as well as to civilians to prevent them from dying of COVID-19, some kind of personal protective equipment (PPE), preferably something that wouldn't inconvenience them too much in their daily lives when they go shopping, go to a movie theater or have to use the subway.
Maybe some day researchers will come up with something ...

I am not as certain about the numbers for hepatitis deaths, but this is what I have found for 2020:
Hepatitis A: 179
Hepatitis B: 1,752
Hepatitis C: 14,863
I haven't found any numbers for deaths related to hepatitis D & E.

But there was this:
Quote:
The findings in this report should be interpreted with caution. The number of viral hepatitis cases reported to CDC in 2020 may be lower than in years before the COVID-19 pandemic began. This decrease may be related to fewer people seeking healthcare and being tested for viral hepatitis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/statis...ance/index.htm
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"Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx

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Old 11th May 2023, 01:21 AM   #2920
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Calm the **** down

Originally Posted by marting View Post
What bugs me is that presumably everyone reviewing the paper has the background to know that 0.3% is insanely high for something that's diagnosed when presenting at a hospital or emergency room. Maybe the reviewers just skipped over the numbers and went to their area of their specialty in the paper.

At least they provided the numerator and denominator so folks could do their own, 6th grade arithmetic.
Decimal point errors are easy to make and easy for readers or reviewers to overlook, especially when the number, expressed as a percentage, is less than 1. People have trouble interpreting these numbers and would have to think carefully about what 0.3% or 0.03% actually mean. Everybody knows that 3% means 3 per 100, but one has to stop and think that 0.3% means 3 per 1000 and 0.03% means 3 per 10,000.

I recently made the mistake myself, but in the opposite direction, understating something-or-other by a factor of 10 for a conference presentation, but luckily catching the error before publishing the result. No one at the conference questioned the number even though it was implausibly small.

Last edited by jt512; 11th May 2023 at 01:43 AM.
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