Covid19mathblog.com

Winter is coming and its likely bringing its coronavirus gang. As noted the physics of the virus needs to be taken into account – https://covid19mathblog.com/2021/10/covid-10-3-21/ Coincidently the vaccine rolled out as the weather improved across most of the country – perhaps giving too much credit to the vaccine. The South states saw an increase last few months as it got hot and people stayed inside with HVAC units internally sub 60F – this likely gave too much credit to Delta plus credit to pounce on the anti-vax South. All this time we could have found the root of transmission and fixed the issue – HVAC. Now we are getting cold and we are seeing signs it’s the weather and human behavior that matters. Hopefully 100% wrong but not good to base things on hope vs. data.

Washington very vaccinated yet record confirmation and record death even comparing to 2020.

Even within the State of Washington you can see crediting the vaccine to reduce transmission is not there. I have been noting this for a long time but perhaps I don’t offer enough credentials to interpret medical data – here is a recent Harvard study noting the same conclusion – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

“At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days (Fig. 1). In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.”

“In summary, even as efforts should be made to encourage populations to get vaccinated it should be done so with humility and respect. Stigmatizing populations can do more harm than good. Importantly, other non-pharmacological prevention efforts (e.g., the importance of basic public health hygiene with regards to maintaining safe distance or handwashing, promoting better frequent and cheaper forms of testing) needs to be renewed in order to strike the balance of learning to live with COVID-19 in the same manner we continue to live a 100 years later with various seasonal alterations of the 1918 Influenza virus.”

At least in Washington the vaccination seems to be helping at the extreme but perhaps that’s the human behavior at play the most vaccinated are the most germophobic?

Also seeing this in Oregon

Oregon county data also shows extreme bifurcation but in the middle its all over the place. Likely human behavior more important than vaccination for TRANSMISSION – please don’t infer anything else on this discussion.

Interesting to note the country that does have CO2 ppm standards in buildings actually now have more deaths from vaccine than covid – https://medicaltrend.org/2021/10/10/taiwan-death-from-covid-19-vaccination-exceeds-death-from-covid-19/

“Taiwan death from COVID-19 vaccination exceeds death from COVID-19. Taiwan’s death toll from COVID-19 vaccination exceeds death toll from COVID-19 for the first time.

(Observer Network News) On October 7th, the death toll after vaccination in Taiwan reached 852, while the death toll after the COVID-19 was diagnosed was 844. The number of deaths after vaccination exceeded the number of confirmed deaths for the first time.”

Interesting Taiwan Covid fatality rate actually climbed as they vaccinated.

This is less to do in the US given Astra vaccine study – but if related in anyway proves the vaccine does not reduce viral load as once thought and that asymptomatic likely leads to further transmission – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537021004235

“Breakthrough Delta variant infections following Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccination may cause asymptomatic or mild disease, but are associated with high viral loads, prolonged PCR positivity and low levels of vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies. Epidemiological and sequence data suggested ongoing transmission had occurred between fully vaccinated individuals.”

Vietnam had the summer spike too but fatality rate lower than last year

Summary of all the natural immunity studies just in case common sense wasn’t going to work: https://covidreason.substack.com/p/your-natural-immunity-cheat-sheet?r=7ikwa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=

https://brownstone.org/articles/natural-immunity-and-covid-19-twenty-nine-scientific-studies-to-share-with-employers-health-officials-and-politicians/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Note Russia at only 31% vaccinated rate.

FL and TX stay on top for the US for deaths – but CA and OH moving up in confirmation ….winter is coming….

The shift in confirmation moving north.

Covid19mathblog.com

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” CS Lewis

“It take nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone.” Hans Hansen

Did you ever ask yourself how did so many people in society let things progress so bad – e.g. Nazi Germany camps Jews, US slavery/segregation, WWII Japanese encampments, US Eugenics Program, etc….? Obviously they state the intentions to being good for society – its not like they could say something else and get away with it? In the grand scheme of things this vaccine mandate certainly is not to those scale of issues – but it certainly starts to erode at ones personal freedom under the premise its good for society. IF the data was clear cut that it was good for the society – certainly it would be a lot more persuasive. I have tried to show multiple times just using data not emotions it is not the case – there are some good points and some bad points – its NOT CLEAR – so it should not erode our personal freedoms.

IF you think the following are mutually exclusive the narrative has likely gotten you: Pro-Science, Pro-Questioning Science, Pro Treatment, Pro Find the Source of the Virus, Pro Ventilation, Pro IVM, Pro-Data, Pro-Freedom, Pro-Persuasion with accountability, Pro Reviewing Sites/Information You don’t generally agree with, Pro-Vaccine to Elder and Comorbidity, Pro Selected Vaccination of Personal Choice for Younger and Healthy Adults and Children, Pro-endemic, Pro Healthy Lifestyle

Our government and the controlling science body – certainly have done a brilliant job on the messaging – many smart people who I follow for their independent thoughts on market and economic principles have joined in on the unvaxx vitriol bandwagon. Major press releases with egregious errors are allowed to fester as long as it pushes the right message – then a correction perhaps will be announced in the back bottom page – https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1446289780405424130?t=7FoCMM4RorW7i-HP9V3O_g&s=19

IF you don’t think there is a campaign to win your mental thoughts – think again – they have been studying the messaging to you since the beginning – https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04460703

Confirmation bias is big dopamine hit – makes you feel good you are thinking right. You need to constantly train your brain to think and relish the times when you can counter the mass thinking and have independent thought. It is very well possible mass thinking is also right but it should be driven empirically not emotionally – you have to be the Spock or Data in Star Trek – else if there is a campaign for society belief you will likely lose. Its no different in going to Target and Walmart and expecting to purchase 1 item and leave with less than a $20 receipt – there is a billion dollar plus marketing campaign attacking your psyche as soon as you step into the store.

As a person who builds models with lots of data its important to realize that an error does not live on its own – just like when you find 1 bug in your home it’s a certainty there are other bugs. The whole messaging of covid has many issues from the beginning. They were late on realization of airborne. Here we showed the data clearly showed that but they wanted to push the hand sanitizers and other mechanism. They still have not adopted any ventilation guidelines that have been suggested multiple times. The reasoning for this is the inconvenience of the data not aligning with the message. IF you can push the spread is coming from the unvaccinated then you can get more vaccine – but you sacrifice the conclusion of fixing our ventilation systems. As pointed out in last blog – the timing was impeccable in terms of hot south summer spread – and generally many states are less vaccinated in the South – but you can see its not like the South really budged in policy and now the transmission fell. It is the physics of the virus and our lifestyle – winter is coming.

The crazy idiotic message that natural immunity was somewhat INFERIOR to vaccine was incredulous. No one really needs a study to understand IF you can recover from a virus naturally the body immune system which has gone through thousands of years of evolution is superior to a recent mRna vaccine or any other type of vaccine. You can see they are losing this message – but where is the mea culpa from the government and science body?

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab884/6381561#.YWGhCytQ_Hc.twitter

“SARS-CoV-2-specific cellular and humoral immunities are durable at least until one year after disease onset.”

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/pfizer-scientist-your-antibodies-are-probably-better-than-the-vaccination/

“Nick Karl, Pfizer Scientist: “When somebody is naturally immune — like they got COVID — they probably have more antibodies against the virus…When you actually get the virus, you’re going to start producing antibodies against multiple pieces of the virus…So, your antibodies are probably better at that point than the [COVID] vaccination.””

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/delta-does-not-appear-make-children-sicker-secondary-immune-response-stronger-2021-10-08/?taid=6160a59dd5012e00018e34df&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

“The researchers caution that the benefits of stronger memory B cells after infection do not outweigh the risks that come with COVID-19. "While a natural infection may induce maturation of antibodies with broader activity than a vaccine does, a natural infection can also kill you," said study leader Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University, in a statement. "A vaccine won’t do that and, in fact, protects against the risk of serious illness or death from infection."

So concern here about death but we know the young has barely any risk – should we really be vaccinating them when we could be vaccinating the adults in other parts of the world – and potentially actually have a net benefit for the child to get natural immunity?

The message in the beginning if you take the vaccine things will get back to normal – under the concept that transmission would be reduced. Wrong again…. https://dailysceptic.org/2021/10/10/vaccine-effectiveness-drops-again-now-as-low-as-minus-86-in-over-40s-latest-phe-data-shows/

“Strikingly, the (unadjusted) vaccine effectiveness (VE) in over-18s continues to drop. For those in their 40s it hits nearly minus-86% this week, down from minus-66% in last week’s report. This means the double-vaccinated in their 40s are now getting on for being almost twice as likely to be infected as the unvaccinated of the same age. Those in their 50s, 60s and 70s have similarly super-low VE estimates, while the unadjusted VE for those in their 30s goes negative for the first time, having been dropping for some weeks. For the under-18s, on the other hand – which is the group currently being vaccinated – it actually went up, from 84% to 88%.”

There is a big push to get the vaccine to EVERYONE no matter what age or health – as if EVERYONE has the same risk/reward profile. It was stated BECAUSE billions have taken it is so safe – yet we now see the benefit for the young and healthy who are barely impacted by covid are seeing heart issues. We have countries realizing the risk/reward is not there. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10073273/amp/Finland-joins-Sweden-Denmark-pausing-use-Moderna-COVID-19-vaccine-young-people.html?__twitter_impression=true

“Finland joins Sweden and Denmark in pausing use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in young people over fears the shots are causing rare heart inflammation”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10049375/amp/EU-finds-J-J-COVID-shot-possibly-linked-rare-clotting-condition.html?__twitter_impression=true

“J&J’s one-shot COVID vaccine is linked to another ‘rare’ life-threatening blood clotting condition”

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109730

“The incidence of myocarditis, although low, increased after the receipt of the BNT162b2 vaccine, particularly after the second dose among young male recipients. The clinical presentation of myocarditis after vaccination was usually mild.”

Remember the fear of children causing covid spread even though study after study showed that’s not the case – then they said Delta would be different? https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.06.21264467v1

“COVID-19 in UK school-aged children due to SARS-CoV-2 Delta strain B.1.617.2 resembles illness due to the Alpha variant B.1.1.7., with short duration and similar symptom burden.”

This study shows not even close to adults in fact 70% didn’t have LIVE culture – the PCR test down to 25 CT testing for fragments that will not transmit! https://www.cmaj.ca/content/193/17/E601

“Compared with adults, children with nasopharyngeal swabs that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were less likely to grow virus in culture, and had higher cycle thresholds and lower viral concentrations, suggesting that children are not the main drivers of SARS-CoV-2 transmission.”

The hatred and the campaign to squash IVM was amazing. Then comes Molnupiravir by Merck – there was an initial celebration only to be re-messaged to have a mutually exclusive outcome of Pro-Vaccine or Pro-Treatment – no way you can be both? There is a control/change in the media which is presented in Matt Taibbi article which of course many now hate him for pointing out the hypocrisy and change – https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-the-vaccine-neurotic?r=5mz1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=58888585

“As even Vox put it initially, molnupiravir could “help compensate for persistent gaps in Covid-19 vaccination coverage.”

Within a day, though, the tone of coverage turned. Writers began stressing a Yeah, but approach, as in, “Any new treatment is of course good, but get your fucking shot.” A CNN lede read, “A pill that could potentially treat Covid-19 is a ‘game-changer,’ but experts are emphasizing that it’s not an alternative to vaccinations.” The New York Times went with, “Health officials said the drug could provide an effective way to treat Covid-19, but stressed that vaccines remained the best tool.”

If you’re thinking it was only a matter of time before the mere fact of molnupiravir’s existence would be pitched in headlines as actual bad news, you’re not wrong: Marketwatch came out with “‘It’s not a magic pill’: What Merck’s antiviral pill could mean for vaccine hesitancy” the same day Merck issued its release. The piece came out before we knew much of anything concrete about the drug’s effectiveness, let alone whether it was “magic.”

Bloomberg’s morose “No, the Merck pill won’t end the pandemic” was released on October 2nd, i.e. one whole day after the first encouraging news of a possible auxiliary treatment whose most ardent supporters never claimed would end the pandemic.”

“In other words, it took less than 24 hours for the drug — barely tested, let alone released yet — to be accused of prolonging the pandemic. By the third day, mentions of molnupiravir in news reports nearly all came affixed to stern reminders of its place beneath vaccines in the medical hierarchy, as in the New York Times explaining that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who initially told reporters the new drug was “impressive,” now “warned that Americans should not wait to be vaccinated because they believe they can take the pill.””

“This lunacy started with the Great Lie Debate of 2016, when reporters and editors spent months publicly anguishing over whether to use “lie” in headlines of Donald Trump stories, then loudly congratulated themselves once they decided to do it. The most histrionic offender was the New York Times, previously famous for teaching readers to digest news in code (“he claimed” for years was Times-ese for “full of shit”) but now reasoned a “more muscular terminology,” connoting “a certain moral opprobrium,” was needed to distinguish the “dissembling” of a politician like Bill Clinton from Trump’s whoppers. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” could be mere falsehood, but “I will build a great great wall” required language that “stands apart.”

The key term was moral opprobrium. Moralizing was exactly what journalists were once trained not to do, at least outside the op-ed page, but it soon became a central part of the job. When they used they word “lie,” the Times explained, they wanted us to know that was because “from the childhood schoolyard to the grave, this is a word neither used nor taken lightly.” Put another way, the Times didn’t want people reading about something Donald Trump said, grasping that it was a lie, and, say, chuckling about how ridiculous it was. If the New York Times sent the word “lie” up the flagpole, they now expected an appropriately solemn salute.

This was the beginning of an era in which editors became convinced that all earth’s problems derived from populations failing to accept reports as Talmudic law. It couldn’t be people were just tuning out papers for a hundred different reasons, including sheer boredom. It had to be that their traditional work product was just too damned subtle. The only way to avoid the certain evil of audiences engaging in unsupervised pondering over information was to eliminate all possibility of subtext, through a new communication style that was 100% literal and didactic. Everyone would get the same news and also be instructed, often mid-sentence, on how to respond.”

The point is context and prose is very engaging to the mind as many have discovered. The data however when looked and examined cannot tap the emotional psyche. This is why most hit pieces avoid data. Here is a recent BBC article bashing IVM – https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58170809.amp – just a prose discussion without many numbers and poorly cited studies. Here is a beautiful response to the article – note how much effort is required to bash a prose report and whether you actually want to hear this after a confirmation bias dopamine hit – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy7c_FHiEac

Whereas the limited pros article for IVM do try to show dates and data – https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/amazing-covid-19-cases-indonesia-plunge-government-authorizes-ivermectin-treatment/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=PostBottomSharingButtons&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons

Our own data shows Indonesia covid metrics has plummeted – the 7 day MA fatality rate is still somewhat high still under the peak and shows signs of coming down.

Here are the data sites for ProIVM – not quite as compelling in the emotional psyche – lots of data and charts – https://ivmmeta.com/ https://c19early.com/

AS noted several times risk/reward is clearly to take it.

Remember the other message about isolation and quarantine and how New Zealand was praised whereas Sweden was butchered….well look who has given up on their strategy – no mea culpa? – https://gizmodo.com/new-zealand-abandons-covid-zero-strategy-leaving-few-c-1847791560

“New Zealand will abandon its strategy of completely eliminating covid-19 from the country, adopting a new policy of learning to live with the virus and trying to achieve high vaccination rates, according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at a press conference on Monday.”

Our data shows NZ confirmation rising now even beyond the 2020 peak!

Sweden – not perfect yet…too soon to celebrate – winter is coming!

All of this is like a comedy of errors – an agenda to control the hearts and mind of the population. The liberal policy makers have shifted to quite an Authoritarian setup with freedom of choice gone – my body my choice – is left to the way side as society impact though not proven clearly is sold as worth it. The most simplistic solution to reduce covid is pushed to the way side – the V word is Vaccine not Ventilation. Also lets not forget the simple message to get healthy? How many years do we have to wait to continue with the excuse getting healthy takes a long time?

The US continues to be on top even with 56% full vaccinated.

Europe looks to be the only one starting to grow – perhaps getting cold?

Georgia is third place in terms of death

See how the colder regions are leading in confirmation per capita?

Covid19mathblog.com

There are a few factual truths society has failed to grasp which I will try to reiterate here. I see so many reports pointing out the South transmission as proof those states have no idea what they are doing and the unvaccinated are the issue. This thinking makes you lose the reason why transmission is really occurring and therefore the solution to solve the issue is misaligned. Vaccination is not the solution to transmission – it is HVAC re-evaluation! WHY do I say that….lets talk about the physics of the virus before we talk the data – since the data for some reason is not suffice by itself.

Covid/SARs is a coronavirus – same as many cold viruses. This is a virus with lipid outer shell which hardens at temperatures 60F below. I am not making this up this is well known and many studies have evaluated the physics of coronavirus – here is a 2010 study – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2863430/#!po=39.1892

“At 4°C, infectious virus persisted for as long as 28 days, and the lowest level of inactivation occurred at 20% RH. Inactivation was more rapid at 20°C than at 4°C at all humidity levels; the viruses persisted for 5 to 28 days, and the slowest inactivation occurred at low RH. Both viruses were inactivated more rapidly at 40°C than at 20°C. The relationship between inactivation and RH was not monotonic, and there was greater survival or a greater protective effect at low RH (20%) and high RH (80%) than at moderate RH (50%).”

This is what causes cold seasons. Potentially Covid could be more lethal as perhaps hardening of the shell occurs at higher temps – not much study done on this. Nonetheless the physics is there for this virus. Typically if one sets your AC temp to 75 then your HVAC unit is operating 55-61 degrees (https://carolinacomfortsc.com/how-cold-should-the-air-coming-from-my-air-conditioner-be/) plus it is generally dehumidifying too so IF the virus is in the air it is being encapsulated (shell hardening) allowing it survive longer. Summer time leads to more indoors and particularly if people close down outside areas like they did in CA. This is why you see more transmission in the South.

Now the next reasonable question is why not flu and cold….well another fact not understood by the public WE have never tested for a virus as we have done for covid. When you had a cold or flu before and was reasonably ok did you go take a test and have it confirmed and put into a DB? Likely not. These numbers are huge but we have NO frame of reference – potentially cold/summer flu before was just a prevalent and/or not as airborne as covid. No argument about the deaths being higher for covid but this discussion is about transmission. To think its just unvaxx causing transmission, you will solve for a solution that wont solve anything.

WINTER is coming! Who will you blame when counties are essentially fully vaccinated – blame the kids? Even though studies show they don’t transmit as much? HVAC can cost effectively be revamped. Most if not all commercial HVAC have an economizer which controls the amount of fresh air. We should target <1000ppm of CO2 as Taiwan does. Also technology to destroy Covid in HVAC should be adopted and made standard. Pharma approach is NOT the only way to end this.

FL drop is related to temp NOT a change in policy or worse yet the die off as many are talking about….

Clearly there is a confirmation bias to see and hear only what you want to hear. Vaccination status when taking into human behavior into account is not the best mechanism for transmission. For sure the vaccinated will likely have a shorter duration of infection but they are also more asymptomatic and more confident causing more cases. There is also evidence now the fact the level of infection is not lower as many have alluded to at least in the beginning- https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261295v1

“PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values were similar between both vaccinated and unvaccinated groups at diagnosis, but viral loads decreased faster in vaccinated individuals.”

HVAC/Ventilation is the key to reducing transmission to a much larger degree than vaccines could ever. IF vaccination was the solution we would see high transmission counties as model counties showing limited transmission and vice versa. This is not the case. JUST look at the data with open eyes and mind.

Interesting to see the data for confirmation is now starting to shift to the north

Temp dropping below 60F in Montana

Big news is Merck is able to show a pill to cut death and hospitalization – https://apnews.com/article/merck-says-experimental-covid-pill-cuts-worst-effects-a9a2245fdcee324f6bbd776a0fffcc60

“In a potential leap forward in the global fight against the pandemic, drugmaker Merck said Friday that its experimental pill for people sick with COVID-19 reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half.

If cleared by regulators, it would be the first pill shown to treat COVID-19, adding a whole new, easy-to-use weapon to an arsenal that already includes the vaccine.

The company said it will soon ask health officials in the U.S. and around the world to authorize the pill’s use. A decision from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could come within weeks after that, and the drug, if it gets the OK, could be distributed quickly soon afterward.”

The vaccine companies are not too happy. Of course it’s a special pill not a generic medicine. I know the anti-IVM crowd is much stronger than the IVM crowd. However its important to realize India -who by the way represent 1 out of 10 doctors in the US – has continued the use of IVM and has seen their numbers drop dramatically without many being fully vaccinated – still at 17.6% vs. US at 55.8% — vaccination was not the answer in India? Any talking about this?

The risk to take the vaccine may be low but so is the fact is the reward of taking the vaccine (not dying) gets smaller as you are younger and it would seem the risk is growing as you get younger as more and more reports are coming out.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v1

“Conclusions Post-vaccination CAE rate was highest in young boys aged 12-15 following dose two. For boys 12-17 without medical comorbidities, the likelihood of post vaccination dose two CAE is 162.2 and 94.0/million respectively. This incidence exceeds their expected 120-day COVID-19 hospitalization rate at both moderate (August 21, 2021 rates) and high COVID-19 hospitalization incidence. Further research into the severity and long-term sequelae of post-vaccination CAE is warranted. Quantification of the benefits of the second vaccination dose and vaccination in addition to natural immunity in this demographic may be indicated to minimize harm.”

Interesting to see the argument that it is selfish not to get vaccinated. Would it be selfish to promote vaccination on a demographic who could see more harm than reward?

Explaining how the “healthy” are impacted by Covid – a genetic market C677T – Also explains how Asia has fared well….and also how much diet can play – message once again get healthy!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7467063/

“The global prevalence of both the CT and TT genotype was found to be highest in Europeans (54,0%) and North Americans (42,8%) and lowest in Asians (35,4%) and Africans (19,6%) [5]. However, subgroup analysis showed remarkable regional differences. Among East Asian countries, both genotypes were found to be most prevalent in China (67,1%) and least prevalent in India (20,3%). In European countries the highest prevalence was found in Italy (66,3%), the lowest in Finland (44,2%) [5], [6]. While the TT genotype was found significantly more often in males of the Indian cohort [5], generally, the C677T polymorphism seems to be distributed equally between genders [7]. However, low folate status resulted in significant higher levels of Hc only in male subjects [7], [8]. Further, the C677T mutation seems to be associated with a significantly increased risk for coronary artery disease only in homozygous men”

“In conclusion, we propose a theory of specific vulnerability to a severe course of COVID-19 initiated by H-Hcy, which can be triggered by the presence of the C677T polymorphism. Male gender, nutritional factors, life-style factors and several underlying diseases seem to be further significant risk factors for an increased vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic early risk stratification by measurement of Hc-plasma levels and possibly screening for the presence MTHFR polymorphism appears promising. Additionally, treatment with vitamins and micronutrients in addition to standard supportive care seems to be warranted to protect and support the most vulnerable patient groups.”

US continues to lead deaths and confirmation. Russia is coming up – winter is coming!

The same cohorts but this should start changing as winter comes…

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.

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://richmond.com/news/local/more-virginia-children-are-hospitalized-for-covid-now-than-ever-before/article_feed66ab-08f3-5764-87ce-886d8bf831b0.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

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.

Covid19mathblog.com

Interesting the Atlantic is coming out with some interesting thought pieces – this one goes with our last discussion in terms of measuring asymptomatic flu – never done – https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/ – what does it mean to measure something if you don’t have base for it. How prevalent is a viruses in society that don’t impact the body (asymptomatic)?

“From the start, COVID hospitalizations have served as a vital metric for tracking the risks posed by the disease. Last winter, this magazine described it as “the most reliable pandemic number,” while Vox quoted the cardiologist Eric Topol as saying that it’s “the best indicator of where we are.” On the one hand, death counts offer finality, but they’re a lagging signal and don’t account for people who suffered from significant illness but survived. Case counts, on the other hand, depend on which and how many people happen to get tested. Presumably, hospitalization numbers provide a more stable and reliable gauge of the pandemic’s true toll, in terms of severe disease. But a new, nationwide study of hospitalization records, released as a preprint today (and not yet formally peer reviewed), suggests that the meaning of this gauge can easily be misinterpreted—and that it has been shifting over time.”

“The federal government requires hospitals to report every patient who tests positive for COVID, yet the overall tallies of COVID hospitalizations, made available on various state and federal dashboards and widely reported on by the media, do not differentiate based on severity of illness. Some patients need extensive medical intervention, such as getting intubated. Others require supplemental oxygen or administration of the steroid dexamethasone. But there are many COVID patients in the hospital with fairly mild symptoms, too, who have been admitted for further observation on account of their comorbidities, or because they reported feeling short of breath. Another portion of the patients in this tally are in the hospital for something unrelated to COVID, and discovered that they were infected only because they were tested upon admission.”

“The study found that from March 2020 through early January 2021—before vaccination was widespread, and before the Delta variant had arrived—the proportion of patients with mild or asymptomatic disease was 36 percent. From mid-January through the end of June 2021, however, that number rose to 48 percent. In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease. This increase was even bigger for vaccinated hospital patients, of whom 57 percent had mild or asymptomatic disease. But unvaccinated patients have also been showing up with less severe symptoms, on average, than earlier in the pandemic: The study found that 45 percent of their cases were mild or asymptomatic since January 21. According to Shira Doron, an infectious-disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, in Boston, and one of the study’s co-authors, the latter finding may be explained by the fact that unvaccinated patients in the vaccine era tend to be a younger cohort who are less vulnerable to COVID and may be more likely to have been infected in the past.”

“the study also demonstrates that hospitalization rates for COVID, as cited by journalists and policy makers, can be misleading, if not considered carefully. Clearly many patients right now are seriously ill. We also know that overcrowding of hospitals by COVID patients with even mild illness can have negative implications for patients in need of other care. At the same time, this study suggests that COVID hospitalization tallies can’t be taken as a simple measure of the prevalence of severe or even moderate disease, because they might inflate the true numbers by a factor of two. “As we look to shift from cases to hospitalizations as a metric to drive policy and assess level of risk to a community or state or country,” Doron told me, referring to decisions about school closures, business restrictions, mask requirements, and so on, “we should refine the definition of hospitalization. Those patients who are there with rather than from COVID don’t belong in the metric.””

Interesting Segway from the hospital discussion to the latest news of people dying because being turned away from ICU. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alabama-heart-patient-dies-after-hospital-contacts-43-icus-3-n1279025

“An Alabama antiques dealer died this month of a "cardiac event" after the emergency staff at his local hospital contacted dozens of intensive care units in three states and was unable to find him a bed as Covid-19 cases surged, his family said.”

From the data certainly ICU beds have soared….there seems to be Inpatient Bed availability so hopefully they were able to allocate appropriately between ICU vs non ICU….interesting the ICU used for covid is equivalent to the winter not higher – yet the total ICU utilization showing over 100% – which really points to other sickness increases driving the issue – so somewhat disingenuous to say it’s the Covid cases causing this issue – sure if it wasn’t there and/or the typical ICU wasn’t full it would be ok. Once again knowing some of the covid labels are not for covid as noted above it points to more issues beyond covid.

Another interesting point is the fact that Jefferson county (where he lives Birmingham AL) is one of the MOST vaccinated in the country @ 57%! Jefferson relative young county so 33% cant get the vaccine so we are at 90% compliant! So lets stop the unvax blaming for everything…..

Lots of discussion in terms of risk is long covid – no one wants long covid so getting covid voluntary is not the best option IF there is not certainty to treat and eliminate long covid. There are rumors that vaccination reduces long covid – this is as much substantiated as vaccine produces greater infection (ADE). This article highlights long covid and its happening to vaxx and unvaxx – https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/13/1032844687/what-we-know-about-breakthrough-infections-and-long-covid

“A small Israeli study recently provided the first evidence that breakthrough infections could lead to long COVID symptoms, although the numbers are small. Out of about 1,500 vaccinated health care workers, 39 got infected, and seven reported symptoms that lasted more than six weeks.

And a large British study subsequently found about 5% of people who got infected — even though they were fully vaccinated — experienced persistent symptoms, although the study also found that the odds of having symptoms for 28 days or more were halved by having two vaccine doses.

"I think it’s a reasonable concern. But it’s too early. I think we need to follow these patients. It’s quite recent that they’ve been recognized. So at the moment we don’t have that answer," Nath says, adding that if there is a risk, he suspects it’s probably very low.”

Singapore is seeing a surge deaths – yet they were one of the ones who went very strict in the beginning – yielding a super low confirmed per capita = 1.25% And then they went vaccine crazy with 80% per capita vaccinated….Deaths are above last year peak – confirmation higher than last year but not higher than the peak of last year

Israel study shows third jab increases antibodies – https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_booster-27082021.pdf

“Results: Twelve days or more after the booster dose we found an 11.4-fold (95% CI: [10.0,

12.9]) decrease in the relative risk of confirmed infection, and a >10-fold decrease in the