Covid19mathblog.com

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” CS Lewis
In todays climate there are two cliffs – one made for the right and one made for the left – and anyone else has lost their mind.

Two major topics I want to review. First the continued vaxx people angst against the unvaxx to the point it seems they relish each unvaxx death?! (just to be clear I vaccinated plus I still got covid so my decisions are based on my risk/reward – I do travel often so the reward of being allowed to enter private business who have a choice on what their risk/reward are – made it worthwhile for me plus my age) It would seem no one would be too devastated if the unvaxx died from their OWN poor decision BUT the big issue being promoted is that their choice impacts others. One impact is that an unvaxx would overwhelm our healthcare system – well this is not really consistent but coming from the current fear of the virus as for decades what has overwhelmed our system and we built for it – is our poor lifestyle choice – this is a hard truth per the obesity/heart/cancer stats. This lifestyle is having an effect with our covid numbers with most hospitalization and deaths are DIRECTLY tied to comorbidities which naturally is a function of age but the odds are dramatically improved by have just one comorbidity vs. 2. It is a hard truth that an obese person will have a much higher viral load and cause a drop in vaccine effectiveness (www.npr.org). If stuck in a poor ventilated room who would you rather be playing the covid roulette wheel – a healthy unvaccinated person or a multiple comorbidity person who has been vaccinated – both socializing equally – I would go with the healthy person as their immune system likely reducing the viral load via breathing less and as noted on NPR article the physical volume of virus space can be much lower in that individual. The push to vax all without merit for each individual lifestyle choice is disingenuous. Pushing to vax those that are unhealthy is potentially a reasonable society request – but for an ALL push is not balanced and an unfair removal for an individual choices that have been made. The push is so hard they even demand the naturally infected to vaccinate even though much data and common sense would indicate natural immunity is much more potent than vaccination immunity. Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections | medRxiv

“SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant (P<0.001) for symptomatic disease as well. When allowing the infection to occur at any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees had a 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease. SARS-CoV-2-naive vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that were previously infected.”

Commentary on the above study in Science – Having SARS-CoV-2 once confers much greater immunity than a vaccine—but no infection parties, please | Science | AAAS (sciencemag.org)

“The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.”

“The researchers also found that people who had SARS-CoV-2 previously and then received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine were more highly protected against reinfection than those who once had the virus and were still unvaccinated.”

“The research impresses Nussenzweig and other scientists who have reviewed a preprint of the results, posted yesterday on medRxiv. “It’s a textbook example of how natural immunity is really better than vaccination,” says Charlotte Thålin, a physician and immunology researcher at Danderyd Hospital and the Karolinska Institute who studies the immune responses to SARS-CoV-2. “To my knowledge, it’s the first time [this] has really been shown in the context of COVID-19.””

““We continue to underestimate the importance of natural infection immunity … especially when [infection] is recent,” says Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research. “And when you bolster that with one dose of vaccine, you take it to levels you can’t possibly match with any vaccine in the world right now.””

This brings another hypothetical if stuck in a poor ventilated room who would you rather be playing the covid roulette wheel – a healthy vaccinated person but never had covid or a healthy already infected and recovered form covid person but unvaccinated – both socializing equally – I would go with natural infection immunity person. IF we are going for the lowest covid chance – the passports should be healthy breakthrough person – show vaccine and infected PCR test and BMI number.

The next excuse for the vitriol to the unvaxx is the unvaxx are carriers of virus which can cause additional transmission and potential variant. A huge blame game without much proof other than measured viral load via PCR without any account for behavioral and environment. Variant development is likely a function of viral load. The variant with most impact likely needs to be in a place where the “simulation/monte carlo draw” of the virus permutation can fester and then also spread once finding a good permutation. If we look at the table of variants from WHO Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants (who.int) We can see variants are inevitable – it is the potent ones we need to worry about and how the potent ones are created. If we look at those potent variants they are coming from third world countries were the viral loads are not just a function of vaxx/unvaxx but the much lower hygiene standards – many still don’t have toilets and running water! The impact of vaccine is likely to be amplified in those countries vs. countries such as the US. IF the primary goal is to reduce the super variant formation probability– the best strategy is probably to vaccinate the third world country and upgrade their hygiene. It is a hard truth we have limited volume capacity in manufacturing vaccine – every additional vaccination we do here in the US is one less to the world (macro discussion not the current distribution design – obviously the current vaccine in a chiller in a US hospital can’t make it to the third world – if we target this approach the vaccines would not be in the hospital in the US). IF we have dosed the comorbidity people and continue to maintain our hygiene and treatment standards plus promote a healthy lifestyle it would be much more effective to reduce the likelihood of a super variant by supplying the rest of the world with vaccines. Any thought of booster needs to be balance with this bigger picture. The numbers already show the vaccines are doing what they are designed to do reduce hospitalization and death – unfortunately not infections. I stay with my estimate 40% breakthrough.

The next issue is the collateral damage we have placed to the youth as we continue to live our lives in fear and implementing policy to reduce the policy maker demographic impact ignoring the consequences placed on the youth demographic who have the least to gain as many don’t even have symptoms from covid-19. We are likely harming them. Before I start this discussion I have seen many espouse policy for the youth and many have NO kids! I have 5 kids and fully understand the issue with raising kids in this new society.

If you know that natural immunization is better than the vaccine AND that the results of being infected when young and healthy is very limited it would clearly argue that the vaccine should go to the world not our healthy youth. Of course our youths are likely to get sick now – they have been quarantined for 2 years with heavy dosage of hand sanitizers and Clorox bleach. The immune system is a muscle – use it or lose it and we did a disservice to them by isolating them for so long. However in general most youth still will not have any issue fighting off covid-19 https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-zealand-children-falling-ill-in-high-numbers-due-to-covid-immunity-debt

“The size and seriousness of New Zealand’s outbreak is likely being fed by what some paediatric doctors have called an “immunity debt” – where people don’t develop immunity to other viruses suppressed by Covid lockdowns, causing cases to explode down the line.”

Could there could be a silver-lining with covid – perhaps covid actually boost our immunity? Look at Sweden data which they don’t have mask mandates and have normal schooling over the last 2 years- Luftvägspatogener Prov analyserade av Karolinska Universitetslaboratoriet till och med vecka 28 2019

I have had a disdain for the NY Times but I am open to eventually anyone coming to some rationale and not always on a political agenda. I very much agree school kids are not alright. – Opinion | The School Kids Are Not Alright – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

“An analysis by N.W.E.A., a nonprofit that provides academic assessments, for example, found that Latino third graders scored 17 percentile points lower in math in the spring of 2021, compared to the typical achievements of Latino third graders in the spring of 2019. The decline was 15 percentile points for Black students and 14 percentile points for Native American students, compared with similar students in the past.”

“A sobering report by the consulting firm McKinsey sounds a similar alarm. Among other things, it notes that the pandemic has widened existing opportunity and achievement gaps and made high schoolers more likely to drop out. As the authors say: “The fallout from the pandemic threatens to depress this generation’s prospects and constrict their opportunities far into adulthood. The ripple effects may undermine their chances of attending college and ultimately finding a fulfilling job that enables them to support a family.” Unless steps are taken to fill the pandemic learning gap, the authors say, these people will earn less over their lifetimes. The impact on the U.S. economy could range from $128 billion to $188 billion every year as the cohort enters the work force.”

“Children’s advocates at the United Nations got it right last month when they admonished governments around the globe for reacting to the pandemic by ending in-person schooling for long periods instead of using mitigation strategies to contain infection. This communiqué, issued by UNESCO and UNICEF, noted that the shutdown placed children at risk of developmental setbacks from which many of them might never recover, pointed out that primary and secondary schools are not among the main drivers of the pandemic and called for governments to resume in-person instruction as quickly as possible.”

They like to focus on the disadvantaged in the article but the plain fact it impacted ALL our youth regardless of society placement. We cannot/should not continue what we know as a hard truth that online learning is limited and is not as beneficial as onsite for most. The youth need the physical interaction with their fellow students and teachers. We are 2 years into it and we need to come to consensus to make public buildings with HVAC system designed to reduce viral load by pulling more fresh air at a cost for more power demand and some infrastructure cost. We can easily measure this through CO2 level indication. In Taiwan they have limits of 1000ppm. This should have been in the infrastructure bill. We need to weigh the impact of the youth more – we need to understand and mitigate our risk and get back to life.

A follow up to Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) discussed on 7/30/21 showing that potentially vaccines can actually cause infection – Covid 7/30/21 | COVID 19 Information Page (covid19mathblog.com) – we now have a study released focused on this issue with covid-19 and ADE – once again it doesn’t mean vaccines are not doing what they are supposed to do which is to reduce death and hospitalization likely via boosting the immune system – but we shouldn’t freak out if we see more confirmed cases if ADE is real. Perhaps indicates that the immunocompromised shouldn’t take the old vaccine? – Infection-enhancing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies recognize both the original Wuhan/D614G strain and Delta variants. A potential risk for mass vaccination? – Journal of Infection

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Infection-enhancing antibodies have been detected in symptomatic Covid-19.

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Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is a potential concern for vaccines.

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Enhancing antibodies recognize both the Wuhan strain and delta variants.

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ADE of delta variants is a potential risk for current vaccines.

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Vaccine formulations lacking ADE epitope are suggested.”

The US tops the chart in confirmation and deaths. We sit at over 66% confirmed/or fully vaccinated. Fatality rate sits at 1.6%.

This spike is not unforeseen – see below the top 3 states. This happened last year. The big difference is the deaths are lower and the confirmations are higher – which is driven by a multiple issues: variant, less lockdown, more vaccinated, ADE? The worse part for covid is during cold season – it’s a cold/flu virus! – we need to focus on health now. The summer spike is a function of people going inside and running a closed loop HVAC system. North states see less of this as they are more prone to less HVAC plus open windows etc….

As noted the leaders FL, TX , and CA in both death and confirmation

If we look at a per capita view we still cannot say unvaxx is causing high confirmations. The South certainly showing issues – but its all about the staying indoors and poor HVAC setup.

The death numbers in FL are slightly suspect given they are not tied to a county. Note we don’t have TX county vacc per capita.