Coronamonomania Thrives in Darkness, Part 87

The IB was in full terrorist mood yesterday, trying to pimp the vaccine.  He claimed that if people don’t get vaccinated, because of the Delta variant there will be all kinds of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.  He is as usual a liar, liar, liar.  His DOH staff presumably is at least competent enough to read data and research and if they have or do, they would certainly know that his statements are false.  But as he has demonstrated throughout the epidemic, truth means nothing to him and lies and messaging are the standard way of doing business.

In other state-related news, data reporting is being scaled back, we are probably done for good with briefings, and hopefully sanity will return, especially in regard to children.

And  in national news, I have truthfully referred to our current president as a senile, corrupt, lifetime political hack.  He gets cover on  all accounts from the national media, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of his party.  But overseas and in some random outlets, the truth comes out, about the senility and the corruptness.  New emails show that Joe Biden knew exactly what Hunter was up to and facilitated his business arrangements, including by meetings in the vice-president’s residence.  And if we ever get a prosecutor with courage, we will find that Joe Biden profited from his son’s activities, and facilitated them because he was going to profit.

Now on to the research, which has begun to pile up.

As usual, I am fond of highlighting the bad news first, and the bad news is usually about the effects of the lockdown and terror campaign.  In this case, more confirmation that these actions by most of our governors caused a massive drop in childhood vaccinations, which will lead to the deaths of far more children than CV-19 will ever kill.  (Medrxiv Paper)   The drop in immunizations was worse, of course, in poor countries.

And here is more good news on children.  According to this article, the rate of diabetes among them doubled during the epidemic.  But we love our children.  (Medscape Article)   And again, minorities, specifically African-Americans, got hit the worst.

And another item I always like to point out is what our genius epidemiologists and physicians should have remembered from the start, which is that between innate immunity and immunity from similar pathogens, there would be wide variability in susceptibility to infection and disease.  But they didn’t and many still won’t acknowledge the importance of this as an epidemic dynamic.  Here is yet another paper linking “aborted” infection with a pre-existing T cell response.  (Medrxiv Paper)   Specifically, the authors found that exposed health care workers who did not appear to get infected had a different T cell response than those who did.

I know there is controversy about the safety of the vaccines, but one thing that really cannot be questioned is their general efficacy.  They have done a remarkable job in basically eliminating cases.  This study from Finland validates that effectiveness.  The study was done among the most vulnerable groups–the elderly and the chronically ill.  Within only one week after the second dose among these susceptible groups, the relative risk of infection was reduced by over 75% and of hospitalization by over 90%.  And the study is a reminder of what I have explained all along, adaptive immunity can’t be understood simplistically, there will still be people who are infected and get sick, especially the frail elderly.  (Medrxiv Paper)

And another vaccine study is carried by NEJM.  (NEJM Article)   This was a prospective study among health care workers and it found over 90% effectiveness in preventing infection.  Viral loads were also lower in vaccinated persons.

And the pathetic nonsense about the virus causing DNA modification or the mRNA vaccines being gene therapy and modifying people’s DNA continues to be debunked, as another paper finds no evidence of any such integration occurring via natural infection.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Another study which explores factors related to spread speed.  (Medrxiv Paper)   Examining case and death levels and the factors associated with them, the researchers find that population density, working in certain industries, air pollution and certain health conditions were linked to higher case and death levels, while warmer temperatures were associated with lower case and death levels.  I think the temperature variable is more complex, as shown by the summer case waves in the south and southwest.

Why do some people get so seriously ill from CV-19.  A number of immune system and general health factors have been identified, but one that really stands out is obesity.  This research in Lancet confirms that obesity is the single health factor which seems to place a person at very high relative risk of serious disease.  (Lancet Study)   Above a certain weight, the increased risk was basically linear.