Covid19mathblog.com

A study came out Nature in regards to Vitamin D https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24053-4 The most glaring statement from the study –

“When we extrapolate our results for vitamin D3 supplementation to the entire US population in 2020, there would have been approximately 4 million fewer COVID-19 cases and 116,000 deaths avoided.”

Vitamin D has been discussed numerous times on the blog showing many studies previously – dating all the way back to June 2020 https://covid19mathblog.com/2020/06/covid-6-20-20/ – it was noted the risk (limited) reward (large) benefits would produce a high Sharpe ratio therefore advisable to take it –

“…in summary of all the reading and analysis so far Vitamin C & D, Zinc, Exercise 30-1hour a day, Eat whole preferably vegan, and do Yoga – and you will be good from Covid PLUS improve on many other facets of your life!”

So much excuses were made that health takes time – yet during this time there was no vaccine yet. Then when the vaccine came out the message to take vaccine was so loud that it limited benefit of health discussed. And here we are going on 3 yrs – likely take 3-6 months of commitment and consistency for most to be healthier and additional benefits beyond covid would be obtained.

Very early on it was suggested to make vitamin D free which is significantly cheaper than vaccines, accessible, and offers other benefits (e.g. strong bones)- https://covid19mathblog.com/2020/11/covid-11-13-20/

“Vitamin D should be free for the public. Likely more effective than unenforceable laws/restrictions.”

Speaking about the cost of the vaccine – new vax deal w Pfizer – The old deal gave Pfizer $19.50 a dose. They’re now paying > $30. Pfizer raised price by over 50%. – https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/how-much-could-covid-19-vaccines-cost-the-u-s-after-commercialization/

Mandates for youth particularly in college does not produce significant cost benefit. Individual health and lifestyle should be incorporated and a general consultation with a doctor is how the vaccine should be administered. This study tries to quantify cost benefits and comes to the similar conclusions. https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/12/05/jme-2022-108449

“Our estimate shows that university COVID-19 vaccine mandates are likely to cause net expected harms to young healthy adults—for each hospitalisation averted we estimate approximately 18.5 SAEs and 1430–4626 disruptions of daily activities—that is not outweighed by a proportionate public health benefit. Serious COVID-19 vaccine-associated harms are not adequately compensated for by current US vaccine injury systems. As such, these severe infringements of individual liberty and human rights are ethically unjustifiable.”

Confirmations continue to grow significantly in Czechia, Japan, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand. US still leading in deaths but seems like a reporting issue relative to other countries and/or just showing the state of our health. The fatality rate is now over 1%!

Likely we will not see the ramp up like last year – with much of it because people home test and so it doesn’t get into the DB unless people report result. A very important point to recall there is not much perspective on all these confirmations as we don’t test and document for common colds or even flu as much as we have done for covid.

China has been spiking in confirmations but deaths are very low (data suspect).

The two states who had the most restrictive policy leads the confirmations – CA & NY. FL lead in deaths followed by NY and CA.

So far for the US relative to last two years numbers are down for death and confirmation. It has been warm but here is the cold shot. Confirmations likely will star rising like the last two years.

Unfortunately still not getting back to normal death levels seen in the red line.