Coronamonomania Thrives in Darkness, Part 7

The good news nationally, and in Minnesota, is that the latest wave has pretty much receded all across the country, and there are no signs of a substantial return.  The primary factor is likely to be seasonality, aided by immunity from infections and vaccinations.  I think we can all hope, with some evidence, that we turned the last corner.  At the same time, we should be realistic that CV-19 is not disappearing but is merely retreating to endemic status, and should be treated as such.  Enough with the coronamonomania.

Progressivism is actually pro-regressive.  It is based on ideology; ideology is a belief in beliefs; it is aversive to facts and truth, and eventually comes to ruin on the reefs of reality.  It never has and never will create one iota of improvement in human well-being and quality of life.  Like all ideological movements, because it is doomed to failure, it must destroy any dissent and muzzle dissenters and feed the population a constant stream of misinformation.  Technological advances have unfortunately enhanced this ability to suppress truth.  But we can be hopeful that in the long-run, truth will prevail.  And our first item reflects, even in the heart of progressivism, the clash of ideology and reality, as San Francisco has to sue its own school board to reopen, finally recognizing that the lives of low-income and minority children are being destroyed by closures.  I am shocked that the city didn’t recognize that the school board was preoccupied with the uber-important task of renaming schools.  Apparently, as elsewhere, children are committing and threatening to commit suicide in record numbers in the city.  This is a tragedy, but entirely predictable and the blame should be laid solely at the feet of the government of California and the city.  I would suggest a life sentence in a reopened Alcatraz would be appropriate.  (SF Article)

This study, which will appear in a CDC population, focuses on reinfections in a young adult population.  (Medrxiv Paper)   The group was over 2400, mostly male, Marine recruits who were followed during training.  They underwent antibody testing and those who were positive and negative were followed with several subsequent PCR tests with intervals of a few weeks.  About 190 were antibody positive and out of this group, 19 had one subsequent positive PCR test, or around 10%.  In contrast, of the remaining group that was antibody negative, 48% had one or more subsequent positive PCR tests.  Those in the antibody positive group who had a subsequent positive PCR test tended to have low initial antibody levels, but also had viral loads ten times lower than the antibody negative recruits who subsequently had a positive PCR test.  Most cases in both groups were asymptomatic.  The big-picture takeaway is that there is some risk of reinfection among young adults, but that reinfection does not result in any risk of serious disease, or likely infectiousness.

Influenza cases appear to have largely disappeared.  Why?  Why would the same mitigation strategies that have worked so poorly against CV-19 work better on influenza?  I have speculated that it is more likely some virus out-competition factor.  This article discusses the issue in detail.  (Medium Article)

And I am very curious to understand the whole geographic/seasonality pattern much better.  Here is a lengthy article on that topic, posted on the Lockdown Sceptics site.  (LS Article)   It cites a number of studies which I  have also summarized.

And I mentioned a couple of times last week the issues around acquiring CV-19 in the hospital.  This article from the UK cites research estimating that as many as 40% of cases in that country may have stemmed from people who contracted the disease in the hospital and then passed it to others.  (HAI Article)

This study looked at trends in children’s admissions to hospitals, comparing the ten years before the epidemic to the period during the epidemic.  (JAMA Study)   There was a 45% reduction admissions, with significant reductions in all categories but births.  As the authors suggest, at least some of this is likely due to avoidance of health care due to the CV-19 terror campaign, so it will likely result in negative impacts in health outcomes in future periods.