I can’t remember if I also noted this Minnesota milestone, we have now tested everyone in the state at least once, and a lot of people more than once, at least according to the state’s official figures. And boy, didn’t that make a huge difference.
Florida is a bastion of CV-19 sanity. They are doing their best to stop schools from forcing kids to wear masks. Some school districts did it anyway and there is an ongoing legal fight. But now data has been released by the state showing no difference in cases in schools with and without mask mandates, and that cases overall have plummeted in the state, after a strong summer case wave. But nothing will deter the teachers’ unions. (Fla. School Story)
Here is a sensible public health perspective on masking young children that should apply to all children. (Masking Article)
One way to see the duration and strength of vaccine response is by testing for circulating antibodies (this only gives a partial picture as it ignores the T cell arm and the memory B cell response) and this study from Israel did monthly testing for up to 6 months on a cohort of health care workers. It found that the circulating levels did decline, more so in men, the aged and those who are immunocompromised. (NEJM Article)
Some good work comes out of Qatar, as that country vaccinated early and has a comprehensive health system. This is another study suggesting lessening of vaccine protection against infection over a few months. Using the Pfizer vaccine, researchers found that there was a steady lowering of protection against infection in months 2 to 7 following vaccination, reaching a low of 20%, but protection was somewhat stronger against symptomatic versus asymptomatic infection. By two months after vaccination protection against serious illness or death reached 96% and remained there. Effectiveness appeared similar against both Alpha and Delta. Effectiveness did not appear substantially increased by evidence of an infection prior to vaccination. This was, however, a heavily male and relatively young population. (NEJM Study)
Myocarditis has been a concern as a side effect for the mRNA vaccines. This Israeli study appears to confirm a higher than background rate following vaccination, with a notably higher risk in young males, but almost all cases being mild ones. (NEJM Article) And this study, also from Israel, shows the same results. (NEJM Article)
According to this household study from the Netherlands, children have higher viral loads than adults at infection onset, even though they have milder disease. Transmission in a household was far more likely if the index case, all adults, had a more severe case. I was not clear on whether testing time was consistent or how they knew when a person was infected, so a little dubious on the child viral load finding. (Medrxiv Paper)
These studies that help us understand how meteorological factors may influence the virus are critical and far too few in number. This was a complex study analyzing the effect of temperature on membrane lipids and proteins for CV-19 and finding a clearly optimal range for effectiveness of those lipids and proteins. At temperatures above and below a range of about 86 degrees to 104 degrees, this membrane area was more disordered. It isn’t clear if that is internal or external temperature, but it obviously includes the common human body temperature. (Medrxiv Paper)
This study found that vaccination did not ameliorate the symptoms of “long” CV-19, which is a dubious thing, since some studies find similar levels of the same symptoms among people who were not infected. (SSRN Article)
The CV-19 toll in prisons has been far worse than in the general population, likely reflecting crowding and some poor health status issues, but also potentially greater testing. (JAMA Article)
Kevin. I see the media is now saying masks work because schools with mask mandates have many fewer students in quarantine. Case in point Minnetonka 198 cases no mandate vs Wayzata 61 cases with mandate. What the best way to refute that?
Fewer students in quarantine tells you nothing except that we have a stupid policy which lessens quarantining if a school has a mask mandate. They aren’t telling us there are fewer cases in schools with mandates because it must not be true, or they would be telling us. When you see Minneapolis schools shutting down, you know there are a lot of cases, and those all have mask mandates. You have to population adjust case numbers when you do see them and adjust for testing policies, etc. This is the usual DOH bullshit.
The City of Charleston was in the process of holding ‘hearings’ to discuss re-instating mask mandates. Ooops, over the 3 weeks it took them to ‘hear’ from their constituents, the virus decided to ‘go away’. Seems the fools who think that masks have any effect on virus control just go schooled ! But, I’m sure they’ll be back the next time ‘cases’ rise.
It won’t be long before; masks, dogma and ideology are added to Wikipedia’s ‘virus control’ page.