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Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 58

By November 23, 2021Commentary

Anyone who follows this epidemic closely would be a very reluctant predictor of the next move.  But there are indications that the current wave in Minnesota is again plateauing, possibly turning over, right around the same time it did last year.  Now, this could be another head fake, especially if we ignore all that wonderful advice CDC and DOH give us about not enjoying Thanksgiving, and I hope you do ignore it, but right now it looks to me like case growth has slowed and when we get fuller data from a week or so ago, we may see a rollover.  Hospitalizations will take a little longer.

Among the casualties of the epidemic response has been children’s physical and mental health.  CV-19 isn’t threatening to them at all but the response has been deadly.  Here is an article from Canada indicating that the terror campaign quite successfully led to late diagnosis of cancer in children, and worsening outcomes.  (Canada Story)

A reader forwarded a link to this presentation on a Texas study, which I will get to separately.  But this is a good example of how an apparently smart person creates a seriously misleading presentation by allowing for two confounding factors.  One is not identifying people’s infection status before vaccination or in the absence of vaccination.  The second is not separating out people by length of time following vaccination.  And in the shorter recent time period where lessening effectiveness is apparent, that lessening is attributed to Delta when in fact it is likely solely due to waning effectiveness of the vaccines.   (Tex. Presentation)

An interesting comparison of the after-effects of a breakthrough infection versus one in an unvaccinated person is found in this paper.  The headline is that for younger people, those under age 60, who were vaccinated, less substantial care was needed and there were fewer poor outcomes than for unvaccinated ones, but the same was not true in the elderly.  The protective effect weakened over time.  And the risk of death was not significantly different between the groups in the elderly.     (Medrxiv Paper)

This study in schools in British Columbia found extremely low transmission among school children and that 90% of transmission relating to children occurred in the home.  Given the low transmission among school contacts, the authors state the obvious, it makes no sense to close schools.  (Medrxiv Paper)

People occasionally send me emails, or Russian or Chinese trolls do, claiming to know four people who died after getting vaccinated, etc.  All made up bullshit.  The research continues to show that the vaccines are generally quite safe.  This study looked at stroke, heart attack and similar events following vaccination.  This was a very large, well-designed study from France and it found no increased incidence of these events in the initial weeks after vaccination.  I keep reminding people that 10,000 (a couple of readers pointed out my bad math on the earlier number, I am fried) people die a day in the US so there will be some coincidental deaths after vaccination.   (JAMA Study)

And here is another metareview of vaccine side effects, specific to myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart tissue.  It also finds a relatively low incidence and few cases of severe disease.  Still a side effect to watch carefully, and a reason not to vaccinate young men in particular.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Kind of an interesting study, looking at antibody levels and the likelihood of binding to CV-19 to determine minimal levels for effective neutralization of a viral invasion.  Both infected and vaccinated persons were assessed.  Again we see that natural infection appears to provide a more effective adaptive immunity.  If accurate, useful information for assessing vaccine efficacy.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Inquiring minds want to know, will the boosters work any better than the original vaccine doses?  This study, like others, finds that the third dose elevates antibody levels above where they were after a second dose.  They claim the levels are also above those from infection, or from a combination of infection and vaccination.  But it still isn’t, by design, as broad a response as found from natural infection.  And what goes up fast may come down fast.  We will need to assess booster effectiveness at 6 to 9 months post-receipt.  The data clearly shows natural infection at least as good as pre-booster vax.  Study does not appear to control for time from infection or vax.   (Medrxiv Paper)

Here is a vaccine effectiveness study from the Coast Guard.  So likely a much younger, largely male population.  Effectiveness against infection declined from 89% in June to 63% in August.  No serious disease occurred after vaccination, however.  (Medrxiv Paper)

LTC residents have had a tough epidemic and the vaccines may not provide lasting relief for this group.  This research examined a group of vaccinated residents and compared antibody response to that in younger vaccinated persons.  The followup was only three months, but in that time the antibody response in the LTC residents declined and was much below that in the comparison group.  On the other hand, a group of residents who had been infected and vaccinated had a stronger initial response and it persisted.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Another “non-pharmaceutical intervention” that didn’t work.  Early in the epidemic, New York City tried to divide Brooklyn into concentric circles of restrictions.  Like everything else, made no difference in spread.  (Medrxiv Paper)

 

Join the discussion 11 Comments

  • J. Thomas says:

    Can you comment on the PCR testing threshold for new cases (40 cycles) and fully vaccinated breakthrough cases at 28 cycles in the CDC’s testing protocols? Seems to me this is just another gimmick to disguise data and create an apples to oranges situation to mask the breakthroughs.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      In general I think the PCR test has been woefully misused during the epidemic, with infections that are very minor being called “cases” when they don’t represent infectious people. Feeds the terror and causes unnecessary quarantines, etc.

  • Garth Wood says:

    Hello, Kevin.

    You state that “30,000 people per day” die in the U.S. in this blog post. Is this correct? Population (estimated) of the U.S. is 333,701,877 as of Monday, Nov. 22, 2021, while the annual death rate for the U.S. is estimated at approx. 8.977 per 1,000 people. Doing the math, that should be 8.977 x (333,701,877 / 1,000) ≈ 2,995,641 / year, or ≈ 8,207 / day.

    Have I missed something? The two numbers are quite different (although your general point stands either way).

    • Kevin Roche says:

      My brain is fried, somehow I took 350,000 deaths (in an average year) and divided by 365,000 and got 10,000. Thank you for catching.

  • J. Thomas says:

    At ~8,207 deaths/day with a (very generous) 2% Covid fatality rate, that would mean that roughly 164 people/day die of this [virus]. Over an 18 month period, that means we should have a total US death count of ~88,635. The published death count is 789,155 over the same ~18 months. That would mean an over 17% fatality rate for this [virus]. I’m calling BS on the entire scam. We have no accurate numbers to support any points of view.

  • J. Thomas says:

    https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712

    It seems as though if you survive the first few months after a Covid vaccine, you’ve past a critical phase for most people. We keep comparing the results of historical (do nothing approach) Covid patients to the results (risks) of the vaccines. I think this is wrong. We should compare the results of early properly treated patients to the results of the vaccines. Statistically, this group is hard to find due to our medieval approach, but that doesn’t mean that this is not the best overall approach to this situation and vaccine efficacy decisions.

  • Terry Bletsch says:

    With regards to vaccine deaths being “b.s.”, why do you not mention the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)? 18,853 deaths reported as of Nov. 12. It does not report only deaths but other adverse events such as heart attack and miscarriages. Reporting is voluntary but medical professionals and vaccine manufacturers are required to report adverse events. As for coincidental deaths, it is estimated that the VAERS reports account for only 1% of adverse events.
    I appreciate your Blog since the MSM is far from helpful in most cases. Thank you Kevin

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I know VAERS incredibly well, I ran a unit at UnitedHealth that had a pharmacovigilance contract with the FDA for safety monitoring. they contract with the big database companies because VAERs and its drug counterpart are worthless and anyone who understands anything about safety monitoring knows it. Historically, 99.99% of reports had nothing to do with the vaccine. This epidemic is 1000 times worse with all the attention paid to it, every nut is filing reports.

      I keep pointing out over and over and over again, there is no actual credible research showing any number of deaths at all, and this research is based on incredibly large claims data bases covering most of the population and electronic medical record databases covering the same numbers, not the bullshit VAERS system that should be retired. And if you don’t trust US research, research from every other country shows the same thing. I am sorry but I am beyond frustrated with people who don’t want to get vaxed and make stuff up to justify it. If you don’t want to get vaccinated don’t do it, but if people say it is for safety reasons they are lying to themselves. Integrity and honesty are everything in life.

      not upset at you, appreciate the reading, but really, really frustrated with the lies about safety, and that is just what they are, lies

  • J. Thomas says:

    I think the entire issue comes down to the lack of “integrity and honesty” that’s plagued the entire Covid adventure, from it’s nefarious beginnings to the present day. The underlying theme to most of your threads are that government officials and hospital administrations are not at all forthcoming regarding access to and integrity of data. 95% of the population is outside of the ‘system’, relying on an honest process to supply us with accurate data so we can have true “informed” consent before we choose to become part of this experiment. The 95% who got vaccinated so far haven’t done it via ‘informed’ consent. It’s been via coordinated government backed coercion and fear.

    If we had ‘integrity and honesty’ within the government and medical systems, there would be no room for lies and misrepresentation of events. This is all of their own doing! I do find it fascinating that you can’t find any groups of doctors who’ve come together publicly to support the vaccine rollout the way they have to raise concerns. You have 2 camps of ‘organized’ messaging, the government is pushing it and doctor groups raising caution flags. When you factor in the regulatory capture by the pharmaceutical companies and the completely data-less vaccination of children with an unapproved serum, you open the door to more conspiracy and alternative views. On top of that, governments have apparently purchased years worth of these [vaccines] basically tipping their hand to the future of medical care. You’ll be blogging about this for the next decade …

    People all over the world see the hypocrisy and variety if outcomes from different approaches and that NO ONE has it understood. It’s time to say that corona viruses win and stop the madness trying to change that. Fauci has to make a grand statement to this point, then resign !!

  • J. Thomas says:

    T or F?

    The following people are totally exempt from vaccine mandates: All US Senators and House Representatives plus all Congressional staff; 6,000 White House employees; All employees of Pfizer (2,500), Moderna (1,500), and Johnson & Johnson (120,000); 15,000 CDC workers; and 14,000 FDA employees … and two million illegal aliens.

    But many blue collar and professional workers of this country, first line medical personnel and first responders are not. Let’s get real about “honesty and integrity are everything in life”. No society can function very long when this phrase only applies to special groups.

    Another point regarding VAERS, the point of the system was never about specific accuracy of the feedback. It’s in place to asses the quantity and velocity of the feedback after a new product is introduced. Under all other historical situations, a new product with this profile of feedback would be put on hold until further investigation could sort out the details. This vaccine train left the station at 100 MPH and nothing in its way is going to stop it. This is corruption, period. It’s not a failed system when it’s used as designed.

    You are also then saying that 99.99% of the doctors who filled out the feedback are also wrong in their assessments. Who would buy into that opinion when they are the same ones executing the vaccine program. Maybe it’s their legal way of screaming out for help without loosing their jobs by voicing honest opinions?

  • James Zuck says:

    Kevin since you have a low opinion of VAERS, is there different internal feedback quality metric that the CDC or FDA uses?
    Before my retirement I worked for a global agricultural machinery company in the area of product development and quality. The company used a point rating system and failures that scored a certain point rating had to be addressed before the product went to market. When the product went to the consumer, we had an early warning team that monitored issues that might create warranty or safety issues that was missed during product development. The same point rating system was used and the same rules applied. The early warning team relied on 2 reporting systems in this phase, warranty cost and a contact management system from the dealer.
    I am just curious what that looks like in the medical industry.
    Thanks again for what you are doing.

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