Coronamonomania Thrives in Darkness, Part 86

Looks like another week with no Minnesota briefing, maybe we are done for good.   Cases staying below or around 100 a day, many undoubtedly non-cases.  Nationally, maybe a very slight blip, hard for me to find good state-by-state data, but it isn’t likely to be variant-related, but seasonal movement.  In Minnesota, 81 cases reported today.  I assure that at least half are false positives, but the state has no interest in that, nor in telling you how many were in unvaccinated people.  So you understand that scale of foolishness, over 4.4 million Minnesotans have been tested, or over 80% of the population.  Most have been tested more than once, an average of 2.5 times.

While you don’t like to suggest people are malingerers, you also have to realistically think some people focus on symptoms or imagine them.  So when I hear about long COVID, I wonder.  And here is a study finding in that  regard, that children and adolescents with complaints about respiratory symptoms lasting for weeks,  most of the time  the actual diagnostic findings don’t support the complaints.  (Medrxiv Paper)    Among children and adolescents with respiratory complaints, none were found to have any actual symptoms that related to CV-19.

Remember when it was Alpha, B-117, that was the variant that was going to destroy the world, not Delta.  Well here is yet another study showing that B-117, according to detailed UK data, had exactly the same hospitalization and death rate as the original CV-19 strain.  Pure bullshit terrorism when politicians and supposed experts try to scare us with these variants.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Why are children so much less likely to get CV-19 infection or serious illness?  The obvious answer is that their immune systems are better able to combat this, and probably other, pathogens.  And this study verifies that.  Comparing uninfected children’s nasal and airway passage immune responses to those of children who got infected and adults, a much greater prevalence of virus pattern recognition receptors were found, which led to a stronger, faster response to CV-19.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Yeah, that terror campaign and telling people to stay home was really good for health.  Another example of how good is found in this research.  People drank more and they are incurring much more alcohol-related disease.  Nice work, IB and all you other moronic, lemmings of governors.  (JAMA Study)   People with problems also had trouble accessing treatment and support sources like AA.

The CDC has continued to do a variety of seroprevalence, or antibody, studies, using multiple sources.  At this point these surveys will measure both infection and vaccination.  (CDC Data)   The blood donor survey, which obviously has some selection issues, shows every region of the country is over 50% seroprevalence among adults.  The survey only has data up to February, when vaccination rates were low, so a lot of the prevalence reflects infections.  The commercial lab seroprevalence survey, through April, shows about a 22% seroprevalence, but in the whole population, so a younger group than the blood donors alone.  Interestingly, seroprevalence declines by age group in this data set.  Vaccinated people may not be asking the labs to do antibody studies.

And here is some seroprevalence data from California, which currently has a statewide estimate of 86%, which is above the vaccination rate and suggests a high level of infection with resulting antibodies.  If the numbers are accurate, and if many other states are similar, very hard to imagine any significant case bump in coming months.  (Cal. Survey)

One reason there isn’t much outdoor transmission and that meteorological factors seem to play a role in spread is that ultraviolet light disables the virus.  This study verified the effect of UV on CV-19.  (Medrxiv Paper)   The authors outlined several pathways by which UV damaged both CV-19 and one of the seasonal coronaviruses.