A Head Full of Coronavirus Research, Part 94

Let me not hide my disdain for the new president, a disgraceful human being, who lies about his life history to advance his career.  Yesterday he tells us there is nothing we can do to alter the trajectory of the epidemic over the next few months.  After a year of telling us how horrible the prior administration’s response was, how it didn’t follow the data or the science and it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths that could have been avoided, we hear this.  You may recall I wrote post after post talking about the futility and hubris involved in believing we had the power to easily suppress, in a large, complex society spread over a massive geography, a highly transmissible respiratory virus.  So I might be inclined to agree with the new president, but this is the most grotesque lowering of expectations and backsliding we could ever have expected.  Beyond pathetic.

While China, Russia and India are churning out software and other engineers by the tens of thousands a year, taking the lead over the US in technology advances, our education priority is to have repellent nut cases ensure that biological males can compete with girls and use their restrooms.  Which countries will own the future?  But we shouldn’t be surprised that a hallmark of the Biden administration would be a creepy and perverse obsession with children’s sexuality, given earlier behaviors.

A large study from Germany looking at the prevalence of CV-19 infection in children and corresponding parents. (JAMA Article)   While prevalence was low among both children and parents, it was three times lower in the children, suggesting once again that they are less likely to be infected and less likely to be a significant source of transmission.   As the authors conclude, children aren’t the problem.

This meta-review contains the kind of idiot logic or lack there of, which has plagued this plague and feeds the irrational hysteria.  (Annals Study)  61 studies were reviewed on the topic of asymptomatic infections.  Based on the research included, the authors estimated that at least one-third of all infections were asymptomatic and that three-quarters of people who had no symptoms at the time of a positive PCR test remained so throughout their “infection”.  No discussion of false or low positives, no discussion of respective viral loads, no reference to systematic contact tracing, but boy, you sure can conclude that all those asymptomatic non-infections are a big problem, as these authors do.

One of my favorite topics is of course the complete failure of politicians or the media to address the astounding health toll wreaked by excessive suppression measures.  This toll on health will be with us for many years.  This article surveyed reports of foregone health care.  (JAMA Article)   During the period from March to mid-July, 1337 people were surveyed.  41% said that they had foregone needed care.  60% attributed missing care to fear of contracting CV-19.

The divide over how the epidemic response has affected wealthier and poorer individuals could not be starker.  The American Institute of Economic Research has an article on this.  Very well-paid millennials sit at home and “work” while low-income people either lost their jobs or have to keep working in the usual place, often a high-risk environment.  (AIER Article)  And of course the high-income people therefore have no problem insisting on stringent suppression since it doesn’t affect them at all.  And the truly rich just got richer and richer.

Not sure what to make of this, kind of an interesting study on how to estimate patient viral loads.  (Medrxiv Paper)  The question I have is, since it appears that PCR testing was the source of their viral load data, how accurate that was.  If it is accurate, obviously you then could begin to look at relationships with infectiousness, severity of illness and other outcomes.