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Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 33

By October 6, 2021Commentary

A little slow with stuff right now, I have another grandchild, a delightful little girl.  Have to wonder, however, what kind of a world are we creating for these children.  Anyway, duty calls, as ever, and the faithful servant always answers.  So here we go with more research summaries, but first……I know a lot of you live outside Minnesota and I don’t know what it is like in other states, but Minnesota is bound and determined to make sure we don’t get an accurate picture of what is going on.  We can’t get any useful information on breakthrough infections, on re-infections, on the real cause of hospitalizations and deaths attributed to CV-19 or any number of other important data points.  And our local media does nothing to challenge this state of affairs.  The local paper continues to highlight the messages of terror and fear, around hospitalizations in particular, while burying relevant information like the percent of those hospitalizations in fully vaxed persons and the number of hospitalizations attributed to CV-19 but really for some other cause.

Speaking of terrorization, the CDC notes that the epidemic, or more properly, the response to the epidemic has caused an increase in mental health issues in the population.  No kidding and you are partly to blame.  (CDC Study)

Anyone who is paying attention knows that lockdowns and other attempts to suppress the virus did not work.  This article is a substantial review of the literature noting the methodological flaws in over-estimation of the benefits of lockdowns and more recent evidence that there is no correlation between mortality rates and stringency of attempts to suppress CV-19.  A costly waste of time and destroyed of public physical and mental health is how they are best described.  (IJEB Article)

More evidence of the lessening effectiveness of the vaccines over time, in a prestigious medical journal.  The study comes from the Kaiser system.  The headline is that effectiveness against infection declined from 88% in the first month to 47% in the fifth month of the study.  Overall effectiveness against infection was 73% and against hospitalizations was 90%.  Effectiveness was lower in the elderly.  Now here is an important nugget.  Effectiveness against infection by Delta, and subsequent hospitalization, was not notably different than effectiveness against other strains, in fact after 6 months, effectiveness against Delta-caused hospitalization was as good as that against the other strains.  So recent case waves in the vaxed are not driven by Delta, but by waning.  Finally, although not discussed by the authors, it appears that having prior infection is highly protective, vaccinated or not, and that the combination of vax plus prior infection is even more protective.   (Lancet Study)

Yet another article tracking antibody level following infection.  The usual findings applied here as well.  Some reduced protection against variants in terms of circulating neutralizing antibodies; people with more severe disease had higher levels and some lessening over time, although even at 13 months there was generally a good response. (EJI Article)

I am not sure what the point of this study was but it purports to show that the rate of increase in CV-19 cases is unrelated to the level of vaccinations across a large of countries and counties in the US.  If you don’t separate cases into those among the vaxed and unvaxed, you aren’t showing anything in regard to the effects of vaccination.  And if you don’t account for changes in testing policies or levels and variation in those policies across areas, you have a serious confounder.  And of course, the possibility of seasonal factors is completely ignored.  So this is the kind of meaningless analysis that sometimes gets headlines but tells you nothing.  (AV Article)

A study from Argentina looked at the antibody response following vaccination with a Chinese vaccine.  Younger people and women had the strongest response.  People with prior infection had a very strong response after one dose and no further strengthening after the second.  People who became infected after either the first or second dose also showed a jump in antibody levels.  And antibody levels waned over time.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Kind of an interesting paper tracking the evolution of the virus within one immunocompromised patient who was infected for a year, showing internal mutation over that time.  These patients could be a source of the arising of important variants, but I don’t know why they would disproportionately do so when hundreds of millions of people are being infected in total.  (Medrxiv Paper)

 

 

 

Join the discussion 13 Comments

  • Christopher B says:

    Congratulations!

  • Frank says:

    Thank you for your work. Your analysis of the Lancet article was far more comprehensive than two analysis articles I had read in the lay press.

  • J. Thomas says:

    https://principia-scientific.com/here-is-the-spartacus-covid-letter-thats-gone-viral/

    Seems to have a very deep medical knowledge, but how accurate is this? Any Drs. out there who can add perspective?

  • Brian Ross says:

    How can vaxxed vs unvaxxed data be analyzed when the definition of unvaxxed numbers included people vaxxed twice but fell short of post 2 week period?

    • Kevin Roche says:

      yeah, I think they should put those people in a separate category so we at least see them. The Kaiser report does that.

  • David Pauls MD says:

    Kevin,
    I appreciate your insights very much. I find there is so much smoke and mirrors that I have a hard time sorting out the wheat from the chaff. As a surgeon, I have a lot of my patients ask me for my opinions on vaccination and boosters. I have used this site as my go to for actual data. I find the data on the previously infected plus vaxed to be helpful with the coming push for a booster. I was infected last December and was vaxed with Moderna in February. I’m not so keen on a booster at this point. Keep up the great work.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      based on what I see in the research, I would not think you need a booster. All the research strongly suggests that the combination of prior infection plus vax is the best protection and appears very lasting. you in essence had a booster with your second Moderna dose

  • Colonel Travis says:

    Kevin, does this persuade you in favor booster shots, or what are you thinking at this point? I can’t imagine they won’t authorize their use for everyone soon.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I am leaning toward getting a booster but very reluctantly. it appears that the extended response following a booster is higher than after the second dose. But this booster nonsense will get real old, real quick

  • J. Thomas says:

    Most importantly .. congrats on your new grand daughter. We pray daily for children everywhere !!

    “Hundreds of thousands of at-home COVID-19 tests from Australia-based digital diagnostics company Ellume were recalled Tuesday after discovering that some tests delivered higher-than-expected false positive results” The tests had been granted emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Another brilliant FDA EUA debacle.

    Caught this in today’s Covid bla, bla. How are home test results being layered into the rest of this test-mania ?

  • Debbie says:

    Interesting article in AIER that over 10,000 doctors and scientists are pushing back on all this pandemic nonsense. Read the declaration, and view the signatories….impressive. Government and public policy bureaucrats get out of the doctor/patient relationship and let the frontline docs treat the illness. They are saving lives, daily.

    https://www.aier.org/article/frontline-doctors-stand-up-to-authoritarian-public-health-officials/

  • B Swanson says:

    The Lancet study is interesting in its equal treatment of Delta, but it also reads like a Pfizer booster ad, and the study was funded by Pfizer.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      yes and while the researchers are nominally independent, you always have to be aware of funding sources

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