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Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 23

By September 17, 2021Commentary

Big news, resulting in today’s double dip on the standard series, the FDA advisory panel has refused to recommend routine boosters in adults, contrary to what the incompetent Biden administration wanted.  While I haven’t seen the full rationale, I strongly suspect it is because for most people, the vaccines are showing continuing excellent efficacy in preventing serious disease and there is little data on the effect of a booster.

I don’t want to forget to mention that our beloved CDC issued a report documenting an alarming arise in childhood obesity, which was already a problem among children.  There is only one, and one only, explanation for this–closing schools, issuing stay at home orders, disrupting normal educational and social experiences–what did you think was going to happen?  But by all means, especially in regard to children, let’s only focus on coronavirus, which does far less harm to children that all these mitigation measures.

And speaking of keeping children out of schools, this study from the UK looked at daily testing as an alternative to quarantining children, and staff, who may have had contact with a positive case.  The design was a randomized trial by school.    (Lancet Study)   The two approaches were equivalent in infection rates but children missed less school with daily testing.  But what is very noticeable is how few cases there were at all.  I have a better idea, leave the kids alone unless they are truly symptomatic.

A new technical brief from the UK on variants of concern, which really is focused on Delta.  As in the past briefs, it continues to be the case that Delta has lower rates of serious illness and the brief shows continued strong protection from serious disease by the vaccines.  This brief again has household transmission data.  For the original strains it was estimated at 16.6% secondary transmission, for Delta it is 10.4%.  You would have to get more detailed data on vaccination status, etc. to make an apples to apples comparison, but it is still basically comparable to Alpha, which did occur when vaccinations were present in the population.    (UK Brief)

The mask Nazis and nuts aren’t going to listen to anything but those little voices they hear in their heads, which have plenty of room to echo around given how little of the space there is given over to neuronal tissue.  Here is another study showing the futility of believing that a mask will do anything to slow transmission of the virus.  This study finds at best a 50% blockage of fine aerosols with virus.  Just so you understand that, if you had 4 encounters in a day with someone spewing fine aerosols, the mask isn’t going to stop you from getting infected in two of them.  And the authors suggest that the major variants are more present in fine aerosols.  (JID Study)

This well-done study from the UK finds no greater, actually lesser, disease severity among children in the wave driven by Alpha than existed in the prior wave.  (Medrxiv Paper)    I think it is always to going to turn out that a new dominant variant is no worse than the prior one.

Every country has its own vaccine effectiveness studies.  The Netherlands is heavily vaccinated and this study found that through August, out of all the hospitalized patients, only 5.7% were vaccinated.  Vaccine effectiveness was high and basically identical during the Alpha and Delta waves.    (Medrxiv Paper)

Join the discussion 13 Comments

  • Bill in Seminole says:

    Today’s FDA action on boosters seems counterintuitive. On July 4th, the FDA said, if you were vaccinated you don’t need to wear a mask indoors. Barely a month later, they reversed course and said to the vaccinated, put the mask back on. That “put the mask back on indoors” guidance was based on testing done in Provincetown, RI, where among those testing positive they said 74% were vaccinated.

    Biden was on television not more than a few weeks ago telling those of us who are vaccinated that we were in danger from the unvaccinated. But no booster shots? Why wear masks indoors, something that has minimal to no protection, but give no boosters?

    I’m confused.

  • Nick says:

    Because it’s all about control. Keep taken the jabs and boosters. They do no good. Stand up and have faith in God. All this other bs they are trying to implement on us bogus. A small town in northern Mn has 4 couples now sterile after getting the jab. Look at the bigger picture folks.

  • Ganderson says:

    As long as a significant % of the population believes that covid 19 is the black death the madness will continue. Amherst College announced today that, while their football games will allow spectators, there will be no food tables or drink in the stadium as is common in D III football. Oh, and all spectators for outdoor sports must be masked. Outside. The general public will not, as of now be allowed indoors, so, unless the loons who run the place change their minds, no fans for hockey nor hoops.

    National champs UMASS hockey opens its season in a couple weeks- i have my tickets, lets see if they’ll let me go. Mask wearing is ubiquitous here- just insane.

  • Bryon says:

    Kevin, what is your take on Israel regarding vaccine effectiveness?

    I’ve seen many sources that state a high proportion (60-ish percent) of hospitalizations are fully vaccinated. This comports with the fact that they have cases and deaths right now that match the highest they have ever seen while being heavily vaccinated.

    Is this data wrong? If not, how could they have such a dramatically different result regarding vaccines than other countries reporting extremely high efficacy of the vaccines.

    Perhaps you already covered this though as I don’t read every post you make.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      when a really high percent of the population is vaccinated, most cases will be in the vaxed, and especially in the elderly. What matters is the relative proportion of cases and did the absolute number go down, and what is happening with serious cases. For some reason, and I don’t know what it might be, Israel seems to be having a worse experience with efficacy than most other countries.

  • Dan says:

    The FDA has either finally developed a backbone to stand up to King Biden or they are supporting the WHO who thinks we need to vaccinate the World before giving booster shots.

  • Abhijit Bhakshi says:

    One obvious hypothesis is that the Pfizer vaccine loses effectiveness rapidly, and because Israel used exclusively Pfizer and blanketed its population much earlier than any other country, the failure is now most obvious.

    Another possibility is that “vaccinated” people are able to shed infectious virus longer than “unvaccinated” people and this allows them to infect each other at high rates. Perhaps this phenomenon is also tied to the rapid loss of effectiveness.

    Another possibility is that the vaccines contribute to more infectious mutations.

    We ought to be looking at this instead of uncritically accepting the increasingly ludicrous claims that the experimental shots just work great.

    It’s not just Israel, Bryon. If you closely read some of Kevin’s more recent posts, you’ll see that effectiveness in preventing death is something like 50-60% in Minnesota at present. He had another recent post in which a study found 36% effectiveness in older people, who make up the only group (apart from the obese) who face any real risk from COVID.

  • Jody Ivan says:

    I still don’t understand why such a large push for vaccinations for what is basically a highly contagious but non-dangerous flu virus? I can see vaccinating the elderly and those at risk due to obesity, lung issues, etc, but not anyone else. Just get it and get over it and move on with your life – just like the flu. I have know lots and lots of people – including everyone in my immediate family and I am in my late 50’s – who have had this and no one has had any real issues. I know of only two people who have died and they both were in their 60’s with lung issues – and being that they were in the great state of MN I think it is a safe guess that they weren’t given hcq or remedisvir or anything else to keep it out of their lungs.

  • Abhijit Bakshi says:

    Kevin, you’ve probably covered this elsewhere, and quite a few months earlier, but I don’t recall. What do you say about this decision from the CDC to stop recording breakthrough infections: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm

    Date May 28, 2021:

    “Beginning May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections to investigating only those among patients who are hospitalized or die, thereby focusing on the cases of highest clinical and public health significance. …”

    Also, is this at all related to your difficulties getting good data for Minnesota?

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I don’t know why CDC would do that, other than to create the misleading impression that there were not many breakthroughs. And yes, I think Minnesota also selectively releases information to support messaging.

  • Debbie says:

    Not sure what I enjoy more….Kevin’s commentary or the comments section. I learn so much from both. Here’s something concerning I ran across the other day in my research. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall of TrialSiteNews.com but it’s significant I think. https://trialsitenews.com/group-think-usa-cleveland-clinic-removes-an-important-study-and-issues-a-call-for-vaccination/
    I think Kevin posted this study when it first came out. It’s the Cleveland Clinic study’s conclusions ( https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2) on natural immunity vs vaccinated immunity, is there a need for the previously infected to get vaccinated? It overwhelming showed natural immunity is strong and there is no need for vaccination of this population. Interestingly, the paper has since been redacted and the new conclusion is a universal call to get vaccinated. whaa? what?? Take down the previous scientific results and put out a statement to get vaxxed? What is happening to this world? As I’ve said before, who do we believe, who do we trust? I know who I don’t, that’s for sure.

    BTW, Abhijit Bakshi, l love your posts…esp the ones about using therapeutics to combat the disease. I agree wholeheartedly. Let’s do some real medicine and treat the patients like we would with any other disease. It’s criminal in my mind how this basic intervention has been silenced.

  • dwc says:

    The economics of COVID

    I’m not smart enough to develop a general theory that explains everything, but I think some of it goes like this…

    Demand is created by the gubmint – more COVID, more terror, more control.

    The healthcare bureaucracy/industry manipulates the available supply of COVID via PCR testing. Cases dropping, need more COVID? Adjust the cycle threshold.

    The medium of exchange is, of course, dollars, provided by the CARES Act.

    Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work.

    Terminate the CARES Act (I know, it’ll never happen) and COVID begins dying on the vine.

    In my humble opinion, of course.

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