Skip to main content

Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 63

By December 5, 2021Commentary

Got some documents in response to my DOH requests, going to take a while to work through them.  Will report as I do.

The inaptly named journal Science saw fit to publish the methodologically and analytically dreadful Bangladesh mask trial.  In normal times this would never pass peer review, but Science is a completely politicized publication at this point.  Breaks my heart to see this misuse of “science”.  In any event, here is one of the many good critiques of this study.  People seem to forget that the primary outcome of the study was actually just whether the intervention increased mask wearing.  The authors then decided to try to twist that into effect on cases.  Just a grotesquely confounded and biased study, with a weird analytic approach designed to try to show an effect, after a standard analysis showed no effect.  This paper, far better than I ever could, destroys the methods and reported results from this study, which of course, is getting lots of attention from the media.  (Arvix Paper)

The risk of heart inflammation following mRNA vaccination in young males is such that it should give parents pause before vaccinating children, who have literally a vanishingly small risk from CV-19.  The UK has issued a bulletin warning about the myocarditis issue.  (UK Bulletin)

Yet another large study finds that infection with CV-19 is highly protective against reinfection.  The study is from a large Ohio health system.  The “effectiveness” of prior infection over a very extended period of time was around 85%.  Effectiveness appeared similar across age groups and against Delta.  Similar case rates of hospitalization and death occurred in those with prior infection and without.  Vaccination and prior infection was significantly more protective than prior infection alone.  (JID Article)

Much as the media tries to hide it, African-Americans have the lowest rates of vaccination among major racial or ethnic groups.  They fill many important positions, including as physicians and nurses, in hospitals and long-term care facilities and this vaccine hesitancy is partly responsible for the capacity issues in these institutions, as the workers are fired or leave rather than get vaccinated.  This note in JAMA validates the differential rates of vaccination in this group of health care workers, with the exception of physicians.  It is time to drop the mandates for health care workers, no matter how much sense they make.  (JAMA Article)

Primates are often used in research as a close analogue to humans.  This somewhat complex study of primate and human responses to vaccination or infection generally finds that infection provides a broader degree of adaptive immunity.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This study in Lancet looked at the immune response to varying third doses of vaccines.  In general antibody and other responses were increased, with few serious adverse events.  (Lancet Article)

Another study on whether the booster appears to in fact boost protection against infection.  I will again caution that these short term studies may not reflect longer term effectiveness.  But this study from Israel finds that the booster shot substantially reduced the risk of both infection and hospitalization.  (JAMA Article)

The cause of lessening effectiveness of the vaccines over time may be in the dosing schedule as much as other factors.  This study suggests that lengthening the time between doses creates a stronger immune response.  (JAMA Article)

Seasonal coronaviruses are still with us generally at the same levels as before the epidemic, although the 2020-21 season was delayed, possibly due to CV-19 mitigation measures.  (JID Article)

Join the discussion 9 Comments

  • Dan Riser says:

    So slightly over 10 years ago I had a heart valve replacement. Now valves like this are not to last forever and they tell you that but early this past fall my echo showed that it wasnt acting right. I wondered if it was coincidence that I had both Pfizer vacs . When I asked the cardiologist he shook his head no. Heart valve surgery is not elective and they were telling me I had to have it done. So I find it intriquing that the heart association has come out recently on the topic. I did have the surgery, although up to the last minute the management of the hospital was going to cancel it because of their covid management that has left them short staffed for ICU. They wont tell the truth. They have beds but their staffing is messed up.

  • SteveD says:

    This paper, far better than I ever could, destroys the methods and reported results from this study, which of course, is getting lots of attention from the media’

    There is really no such thing as a well designed mask trial. Because of the nature of masks, it is not possible to do a blind study, much less a double blind study. After all, what would a mask placebo look like? I am not sure even how the intervention portion could be blinded.The participant will always know whether or not he as been asked to wear a mask and whether or not he is complying. (one could consider using a ‘fake’ mask I suppose, designed to fool humans but not viruses – not sure that would be ethical).

    Therefore, there will always be the possibility that the propensity or decision to wear a mask has additional behavioral effects which confound any conclusion of directional causility. In this study, it appears that mask intervention was corellated to social distancing. There is no way to separate the two factors.

    For all their pretenstions of science, those researchers might as well study string theory.

  • J. Thomas says:

    “(one could consider using a ‘fake’ mask I suppose, designed to fool humans but not viruses – not sure that would be ethical).” Isn’t this exactly what we have now? Lots of human fools running around with masks on because they think it’s unethical not to.

    Had the [vaccines] not been rushed to market, we would have known they were inadequate after a few months. Testing on dosage spacing could have been carried out along with exposing better awareness regarding the myocarditis in young men. But no, it’s much more profitable to kill and maim a few hundred thousand first when you have complete immunity from your actions. This is why it takes TIME to develop a functional and safe product. We are testing these product as we go.

    It should also be illegal to put up any signage promoting these EUA products without the word ‘Experimental” in front of “Vaccine”. As a matter of fact, it is illegal. But since we don’t have a justice department anymore, all of this is irrelevant. So, instead of letting doctors be doctors and use the products and treatments that we have available, let’s just keep plowing this serum it into people until there’s no one left to experiment on. I guess that will be the end of the pandemic …

    • Kevin Roche says:

      there is nothing “inadequate” about the vaccines, and not having them would have meant that literally tens of thousands more people would have died, and the terror and lockdowns would be far worse

  • SteveD says:

    ‘there is nothing “inadequate” about the vaccines’

    Not if they are used properly, with prudence and wisdom and tarteted only to those who need them. However, compared to other vaccines except perhaps the vaccine to influenza, a starting efficacy of 95% is not very good. Appaently the vaccine loses its bite overtime. Trying to stomp out an airborne RNA viral pandemic (having an IFR of 0.15%) with a leaky vaccine to a single viral protein which loses efficacy over time, is the height of stupidity. There are several known mechanisms by which mass vaccination can make things worse by making viruses become either more contagious, resistant, or virulent. (Antigenic enhancement, normal evolution, Marek effect, etc.).

    Becaue of mass vaccinations the vaccines ae probably accellerating the evolution of the virus. That this can happen is not merely a hypothesis. There is plenty of science behind it.

    We should have vaccinated only the vulnerable. (over 50 or those with health problems)

  • guest says:

    Martin Neil on twitter (long thread, includes charts):
    https://twitter.com/MartinNeil9/status/1466814347762671628

    “1. Our research team have now analysed the ONS England November mortality data. We conclude that despite seeming evidence to support vaccine effectiveness this conclusion is doubtful because of a range of serious inconsistencies and anomalies…
    2.The data appear to show lower non-Covid mortality for the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated. Odd. Also unvaccinated mortality rates peak at the same time as the vaccine rollout peaks for the age group, then falls and closes in on the vaccinated. This is not natural
    3. Consider what we are witnessing here. We have a vaccine whose recipients are suffering fewer non-covid deaths and hence are benefitting from improved mortality. And the mortality rates look to differ significantly from historical norms, as evidenced in mortality lifetables.
    4.Correlating unvaccinated mortality with vaccine roll out we see curious patterns (dotted line the proportion of people getting first and second doses). Why are the unvaccinated dying after NOT getting the 1st dose? Why are the single dosed dying after NOT getting the 2nd dose?
    5. Plenty of evidence that the vaccinated who die within 14 days of vaccination may be categorized as unvaccinated. Then someone who dies within 14 days of first dose is miscategorised as unvaccinated and a similar thing could occur post second dose.
    6. Miscategorization might explain odd phenomena in ONS mortality. To correct the error we can take the difference between the expected mortality for the unvaccinated and the data, and re-allocate this unexpected excess mortality to the vaccinated to get new ADJUSTED estimates.
    7. The early spikes in mortality that appear to occur soon after vaccination may be caused by the infirm, moribund, and severely ill receiving vaccination in priority order and thus simply appearing to hasten deaths that might otherwise have occurred later in the year.
    8. Turning to Covid mortality, at face value, there appears to be clear evidence of vaccine effectiveness. But…
    9. After vaccination people endure weakened immune response for a period of up to 28 days and may be in danger of infection from Covid or other infectious agent at any time in that period. It therefore makes sense to examine infection date rather than date of death registration.
    10. We adjust for this using a temporal offset and see a large spike in mortality for all age groups during the early weeks, when covid prevalence was high, and when the first dose vaccination rollout peaked.
    11. After our offset adjustment we observe no significant benefit of the vaccines in the short term. They appear to expose people to an increased mortality, in line with what we know about immune exposure or pre-infection risks,
    12. Whatever the explanations for the observed data, it is clear that the ONS data is both unreliable and misleading. Absent any better explanation Occam’s razor would support our conclusions. The ONS data provide no reliable evidence that the vaccines reduce all-cause mortality.
    This is the latest of numerous attempt to decode ONS hieroglyphs, but now we may have stumbled upon a rosetta stone to help solve the puzzle.
    http://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/

    This is unrewarded work done at some considerable career risk.

    Some of our clinical collaborators COULD NOT put their names on the paper.

    Y axis is mortality = deaths per 100,000 of population.”

    Their pre-print:
    Latest statistics on England mortality data suggest systematic mis-categorisation of vaccine status and uncertain effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356756711_Latest_statistics_on_England_mortality_data_suggest_systematic_mis-categorisation_of_vaccine_status_and_uncertain_effectiveness_of_Covid-19_vaccination

    Abstract:
    “The risk/benefit of Covid vaccines is arguably most accurately measured by an all-cause mortality rate comparison of vaccinated against unvaccinated, since it not only avoids most confounders relating to case definition but also fulfils the WHO/CDC definition of “vaccine effectiveness” for mortality. We examine the latest UK ONS vaccine mortality surveillance report which provides the necessary information to monitor this crucial comparison over time. At first glance the ONS data suggest that, in each of the older age groups, all-cause mortality is lower in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Despite this apparent evidence to support vaccine effectiveness – at least for the older age groups – on closer inspection of this data, this conclusion is cast into doubt because of a range of fundamental inconsistencies and anomalies in the data. Whatever the explanations for the observed data, it is clear that it is both unreliable and misleading. While socio-demographical and behavioural differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated have been proposed as possible explanations, there is no evidence to support any of these. By Occam’s razor we believe the most likely explanations are systemic miscategorisation of deaths between the different categories of unvaccinated and vaccinated; delayed or non-reporting of vaccinations; systemic underestimation of the proportion of unvaccinated; and/or incorrect population selection for Covid deaths.”

    • Kevin Roche says:

      sounds nice and fancy and worded in a way that people might believe it and makes no statistical sense. I will tell you look at the case rates by age for Minnesota for example, which we published about a month ago. if you think when you are 70 or 80 you are better off being unvaxed, you are dead wrong, literally dead wrong. Case rates are the absolute best way to determine this type of effectiveness and tracking case rates over time is a good indicator of any waning in effectiveness against hosp or death. I try to be very balanced in presenting vax info and I am very confident they are preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

  • J. Thomas says:

    https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056/htm

    Maybe you can comment on this apparently ‘adequate’ mechanism of potential DNA damage from the [vaccines] ? We’re playing with fire and anyone with your apparent background who won’t admit this has his own biases just like the ‘zealots’ who are warning that caution should be driving decisions, not pandemic theatre and Fauci-ism !

    • Kevin Roche says:

      just so everyone is clear, you have a completely irrational attitude toward the vaccines. Don’t get vaccinated if you don’t want to but don’t spread lies and misinformation either. There is absolutely zero evidence of any impact of the vaccines on DNA. The dingdong scientist who originally claimed that has been completely discredited and no one anywhere in any country has seen any evidence of that, so stop making stuff up.

Leave a comment