Covid19mathblog.com

Is the response to covid really about your personal health – or is it more a protectionism response? In the very beginning we knew it was not going to be good for the US given our obesity issue. Study done May 19th 2020 – https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(20)30477-8/fulltext

“Several of these obesity-related morbidities are associated with greater risk for death with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 penetrates human cells through direct binding with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptors on the cell surface. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 expression in adipose tissue is higher than that in lung tissue, which means that adipose tissue may be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Obese patients also have worse outcomes with COVID-19 infection, including respiratory failure, need for mechanical ventilation, and higher mortality. Clinicians need to be more aggressive when treating obese, especially severely obese, patients with COVID-19 infection.”

What was done to address this? Quarantine….close gyms but leave liquor store open?

The sad truth for alcohol is its not good for your immune system particularly for something like covid https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4590612/

“Clinicians have long observed an association between excessive alcohol consumption and adverse immune-related health effects such as susceptibility to pneumonia. In recent decades, this association has been expanded to a greater likelihood of acute respiratory stress syndromes (ARDS), sepsis, alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and certain cancers; a higher incidence of postoperative complications; and slower and less complete recovery from infection and physical trauma, including poor wound healing.”

Covid-19 response has only resulted in more alcohol sales https://www.statista.com/statistics/805026/beer-wine-and-liquor-store-sales-us-by-month/:

Then of course this year we have the big push for vaccine – still the message of getting healthy is very remote. Nor any response to address the fact that this vaccine may not solve the issue as unlike classical vaccine this vaccine is not good at preventing infection and transmission. ALSO it is fact the vaccine is not as effective in the obese. We administered vaccine content uniformly vs. by weight (e.g. more vaccine for higher weight). There seems something wrong with this. The vaccine has done a good job in reducing hospitalization and deaths but that seems like a far benchmark now given vaccine in US has reached over 55% which is a much higher percent when considering the youth is not vaccinated yet we continue to observe current restrictions and vaccine mandates. The remaining people unvax are the easy fall group for our continue issues with covid. However the data is not conclusive it is a result of them vs the poor health in the US and the waning vaccine effectiveness.

Covid testing is now unfairly being administered to show a particular outcome. Staff in the TX medical system are told not to test for covid vaccinated patients coming in but test non vaccinated. Patients coming into the facility for non-covid issues are balanced to one sided results when covid does show up. At the very least it should be random asymptomatic testing. The data which is all we have to make decisions is not being consistent now from this perspective.

Is there a political element in all this? Hard to tell – data stats are leaning to more republican deaths per they are less likely to be vaccinated. However the shift in political results less apparent because of our electoral system. Likely more important to understand what is happening in swing counties vs. swing states. The overall percent of deaths within a county predominant in one party not likely going to change. If we look at the swing counties that in 2020 was 45-50% Dem – more republican and the 50-55% Dem we can surmise if we might see a swing. Since the beginning of covid the swing counties are 85.7K deaths in more democrat counties vs. 50K in republican leaning counties.

For the last 3 months you could probably apply most of the deaths to Republicans IF you believe the stats they are more likely not to be vaccinated – however this is small compared to before vaccine – 6.7K deaths in more democratic counties vs. 5K in counties more republican. Unfortunately FL stop reporting county deaths – not sure why – but orders have been asked to reinstate county deaths.

Daily pills coming! Forget getting a booster each 6 month – go daily – https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/daily-pill-treat-covid-could-be-just-months-away-scientists-n1279938

“At least three promising antivirals for Covid are being tested in clinical trials, with results expected as soon as late fall or winter, said Carl Dieffenbach, director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is overseeing antiviral development.”

“The top contender is a medication from Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics called molnupiravir, Dieffenbach said. That is the product being tested in the Kellys’ Seattle trial. Two others are a candidate from Pfizer, known as PF-07321332, and AT-527, an antiviral produced by Roche and Atea Pharmaceuticals.

They work by interfering with the virus’s ability to replicate in human cells. In the case of molnupiravir, the enzyme that copies the viral genetic material is forced to make so many mistakes that the virus can’t reproduce. That, in turn, reduces a patient’s viral load, shortening infection time and preventing the kind of dangerous immune response that can cause serious illness or death. So far, only one antiviral drug, remdesivir, has been approved to treat Covid. But it is given intravenously to patients ill enough to be hospitalized, and it isn’t intended for early, widespread use. By contrast, the top contenders under study can be packaged as pills.”

Speaking of remdesivir they were able to fund a study to prove EARLY treatment – hmmm IVM cant seem to do a study because it likely cost millions of dollars and no one is going to profit from that…Too bad none of these studies look to pit HCQ or IVM as potential options to prove inefficacy.… https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/22/remdesivir-reduces-covid-hospitalizations-when-given-early-in-study/?utm_campaign=rss

“Gilead’s Covid-19 drug remdesivir appeared to reduce hospitalizations by 87% in high-risk patients diagnosed early in the disease in a new study, the company said Wednesday.

The new results, which were issued in a press release, could help shore up the perception that the medicine is effective. They also could boost hopes for the use of oral antiviral drugs being developed by drug companies including Pfizer and Merck to treat people in the early stages of Covid-19.”

More conspiracy data – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10014895/amp/Ex-Chinese-Communist-Party-insider-Wei-Jingsheng-speaks-Wuhan-theory-relating-Covid-19.html?

US continues to lead death and confirmation – yet doing well in vaccination per capita given demographics.

Good news US in downslope of covid as expected.

Typical state leaders

FL confirmation looks to have peaked unfortunately not deaths

CA deaths have been lower than last year.

TX looks to have peaked in confirmation – not deaths.

A very low vaccinated county leads the 7 day confirmation however at the same time a 99.9% county is in the top 10 for confirmation spread. Perhaps vaccination helps the spread but that’s not the big driver. We need to modify ventilation and improve health if we want to really see an impact.