Covid19mathblog.com
Questioning the science should not be a wrong act – it only makes the science better.
The focus of fixing covid was on vaccination solution vs. treatment solution – and even more nuanced early treatment – prophylasix. Historically we have seen this before – the shades are very similar with a story line of drug coming out and a potential generic drug to reduce deaths being denied. AIDS treatment was withheld for quite sometime later proving to be effective – and once again Dr. Fauci was involved – waiting for perfect data plus mismeasuring risk of being proactive likely caused many unneeded deaths – https://www.poz.com/blog/the-long-road-to-pcp
“It’s a sad largely neglected history. Many lives were shortened before 1989 when interventions to prevent this type of pneumonia were finally recommended by government officials for people with AIDS.
Thankfully, with the widespread use of antiretroviral drugs, many people may not be too familiar with this opportunistic infection. It most certainly has not gone away, but in the 1980s Pneumocystis pneumonia was what most commonly killed people with AIDS.”
“Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP)”
“As early as 1977 it had been well established that PCP could be prevented by an inexpensive medication, yet official recommendations for the use of this and other interventions as prophylactic agents against PCP in people with AIDS did not appear until 1989.
This long delay is a strange episode in the history of medicine, although it is barely remembered today. But anyone who experienced the first decade of the epidemic in the US will remember the scourge that was PCP.
Attempts to bring this effective prophylactic measure to attention had been made by individuals in the gay community well before its formal introduction in 1989, most notably by Michael Callen, an early AIDS activist who has since died.”
“"It is particularly galling to me that 16,929 of the 30,534 unneccessary PCP deaths occurred since May of 1987, the date on which I and other AIDS activists met with Dr. Anthony Fauci (the closest person we have to an AIDS czar) to ask him – no, to beg him – to issue interim guidelines urging physicians to prophylax those patients deemed at high risk for PCP. He steadfastly refused to issue such guidelines. His reason? No data. As a result many more people died of PCP who didn’t have to".
Dr. Fauci wanted data from a clinical trial of Bactrim for PCP prophylaxis in AIDS before he would recommend its use. But people were dying of PCP at a terrifying rate; I and some other physicians could not wait for these recommendations. I was routinely prescribing Bactrim, or another drug, dapsone to patients I deemed to be at risk for PCP.”
“Another curious and indefensible objection to PCP prophylaxis was raised by Dr Samuel Broder who was then head of the National Cancer Institute. He felt it justifiable to discourage the use of PCP prophylaxis on the grounds that the introduction of AZT would make this practice redundant! This objection was raised in the complete absence of any evidence that AZT could prevent PCP in a significant and durable fashion, if at all.”
Historical facts and deaths as a result of decisions made seemed to be easily washed away to the point you can now be celebrity to many. Mistakes happen but it is only a temporary mistake if you can learn from it.
There are still many doctors who continue to believe that HCQ and IVM can be used as effective early treatment. Listening to Dr. Georg Fareed he doesn’t come off like snake oil salesman – in fact I don’t think he makes much if any money promoting such a solution compared to big pharma promoting vaccines. When the dust does settle do the people in charge expect that they will be vindicated or that society will have moved on like they did with AIDS. https://twitter.com/chrismartenson/status/1438601224597774336?s=19
If you don’t question science perhaps you don’t get clarity or be able to filter human bias to confirmation. Latest evidence is the statement made to pregnant ladies to get the shot and that its perfectly safe. The study conclusion was not as certain as it could be as noted by the following rationale response – but note it could be still safe but its NOT as conclusive. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2113516
“Shimabukuro et al. (June 17 issue)1 reported preliminary data on the safety of messenger RNA (mRNA) Covid-19 vaccines in pregnancy from the v-safe surveillance system and pregnancy registry. They reported that among 827 participants with a completed pregnancy, the pregnancy resulted in spontaneous abortion by week 20 in 104 (12.6%), and the authors indicated that this proportion was similar to that in the general population. This calculated metric is misleading and does not reflect the real risk of spontaneous abortion.
As stated in the article, among the 827 participants with a completed pregnancy, 700 received their first eligible vaccine dose in the third trimester. These participants should be excluded from the calculation because they had already passed week 20 when they received the vaccination. The risk of spontaneous abortion should be determined on the basis of the group of participants who received the vaccination before week 20 and were followed through week 20 or had an earlier pregnancy loss. Comparison with population-based rates of spontaneous abortion is complicated by the fact that women who are vaccinated at later times during early pregnancy have less time during which they are at risk for pregnancy loss; thus, a crude proportion is likely to underestimate the overall risk.”
Recent history of questioning science also came from the foolish waste of time debate of natural immunity vs. vaccination. Many vilified initially for noting natural immunity better – now the science has finally turned to accept the most COMMON sense thing – natural immunity is better than vaccination ASSUMING you survive from it without long covid.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-covid-natural-immunity/
The real issue of WHY they pushed this message besides some politics was not about science but LOGISTIC! And stating things potentially wrong was justified for the end result!
““It appears from the literature that natural infection provides immunity, but that immunity is seemingly not as strong and may not be as long lasting as that provided by the vaccine,” Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health tells The BMJ.”
““It’s a lot easier to put a shot in their arm,” says Sommer. “To do a PCR test or to do an antibody test and then to process it and then to get the information to them and then to let them think about it — it’s a lot easier to just give them the damn vaccine.” In public health, “the primary objective is to protect as many people as you can,” he says. “It’s called collective insurance, and I think it’s irresponsible from a public health perspective to let people pick and choose what they want to do.””
Lots of debate that BMI is not conclusive all the time – not all fat is created equal – which is true. Your waist fat is certainly a sign of the bad fat – visceral fat. More information on visceral fat https://www.healthline.com/health/visceral-fat#diagnosis
“The only way to definitively diagnose visceral fat is with a CT or MRI scan. However, these are expensive and time-consuming procedures.
Instead, healthcare providers will typically use general guidelines to evaluate your visceral fat and the health risks it poses to your body.
According to research, about 10 percentTrusted Source of all body fat is visceral fat. If you calculate your total body fat and then take 10 percent of it, you can estimate the amount of visceral fat.
An easy way to determine if you may be at risk for related health problems is to measure your waist.
According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, if you’re a woman and your waist measures 35 inches or larger, you’re at risk for health problems from visceral fat.
Men are at risk for health problems when their waist measures 40 inches or larger.”
Visceral fat ratio to total adipose tissue was studied in terms of covid-19 morbidity – and once again the message is clear – GET HEALTHY YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT! – https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-880193/v1
“A total of 15 cases (28.3% of the whole study subjects) progressed to severe stages. The incidence of developing severe COVID-19 increased significantly with VAT/TAT (HR per 1% increase = 1.040 (95% CI 1.008–1.074), P = 0.01). After adjustment for potential confounders, the positive association of VAT/TAT with COVID-19 aggravation remained significant (multivariable-adjusted HR = 1.055 (95% CI 1.000–1.112) per 1% increase, P = 0.049). The predictive ability of VAT/TAT for COVID-19 becoming severe was significantly better than that of BMI (AUC of 0.73 for VAT/TAT and 0.50 for BMI; P = 0.0495 for the difference).
Conclusions
A higher ratio of VAT/TAT was an independent risk factor for disease progression among COVID-19 patients. VAT/TAT was superior to BMI in predicting COVID-19 morbidity. COVID-19 patients with high VAT/TAT levels should be carefully observed as high-risk individuals for morbidity and mortality.”
Long covid stats coming in – not as prevalent as suggested ~3% – once again be healthy and you cut your odds in half from suffering long covid https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/technicalarticleupdatedestimatesoftheprevalenceofpostacutesymptomsamongpeoplewithcoronaviruscovid19intheuk
Scary shocking statements https://www.wesh.com/article/federal-takeover-monoclonal-antibody-dose/37627240#
“Moving forward, the federal government will be the one in charge of distributing monoclonal antibody doses.
The treatment is used to help people who contract COVID-19 to survive the virus.
Before this change, states and hospitals could purchase the doses on their own.
DeSantis says shifting control to the federal government not only complicates the process of getting doses to patients, but says it also cuts the number of doses Florida can even get.
"More than 50% of the monoclonal antibodies that had been used in Florida were going to be reduced,” DeSantis said.
The White House says the change is necessary to make sure states all across the country get access to the drug.”
What does this last line mean – how will it be allocated – what is the equality measure? IS it being unfair now? IS there a shortage now? IF one state wants to buy more than another state because of demand they cannot anymore?
Clearly the data has always noted comorbidity as an issue – we typically relate it to physical comorbidity. Interesting this study is focused on Down Syndrome and Parkinson – is it because of social activity aspect? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/18/people-with-chronic-conditions-among-most-at-risk-from-covid-even-after-jabs
“The research found that people with Down’s syndrome had a roughly 13-fold increased risk of death from Covid-19 compared with the general population, even after vaccination, while those with dementia and Parkinson’s disease had a twofold increase. Some of the increase in risk is thought to be down to exposure due to people having contact with carers, for instance.”
As noted many times we continue to see the children stats show up on the press – but no clarity if the hospitalization a function of covid or that covid test taken and they show positive. IF it is comingled with RSV my bet it was RSV that caused the hospitalization. This is the prime issue. The situation of a year quarantine with extra dosage of hand sanitizer not likely a good combo for coming back to a “normal” society – but we cannot forever stay quarantine.
https://fit.thequint.com/amp/story/coronavirus/covid-in-children-in-china
US continues to lead death and confirmation
World state view of selected countries – multivariable issue with health clearly the big driver
FL is literally 66% immune assuming 2 dosage plus those confirmed! FL could soon be the safest place to be? For comparison VT at 62% + 5% confirmed = 67%
CA counties have one of the highest vaccinated rates but they are seeing a confirmation uptick – Glenn county leads all of US 3.3% but with 56% vaccinated rate.
