Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 75

In your holiday meal stupor, I am sure these research summaries will perk you right up.  Be interesting to see the next week of data in Minnesota.  I suspect the state will be in one of its slow processing times, and it will take longer than usual to see any trend emerge.  My sense is that people largely blew off all the worrying about Moronic and the epidemic in general, but then I do things like have 25 people get together with no masks or other precautions to have fun and enjoy each other’s company.  But the emergence of home tests and the constant encouraging of people to test is likely to inflate case rates, as well as driving ER staff nuts as people with colds come in because of positive tests.  Anyway, by the end of the first week of January should have a clearer picture of where we are and are going.

Here is some common sense research from Israel which would have a similar result in the US.  Comparing hospitalizations rates and overall medical burden in children with influenza, measles and CV-19, CV-19 had by far the lowest rate and lowest burden.  No excuses for any restrictions on children.  (Ped. Study)

And another study examining why children appear to have milder courses of CV-19 disease.  After being infected, children have antibodies that are strongly cross-reactive with certain seasonal coronaviruses.  In addition they have stronger T cell responses to infections than do adults, in part because many children who have never been infected have a T cell response from prior seasonal coronavirus infections that appear to be effective against CV-19.  And children did not show the same lessening of antibody response that adults did.    (Nature Paper)

Once more a study finding that effectiveness against infection waned with the Pfizer vax, while that against hospitalization remained high.  A booster restored effectiveness against infection with some indication a lower inclination toward lessening effectiveness over time.  (SSRN Study)

I have to tell you, however, that I am dubious that boosters are in the long-run going to be a lot more effective than the original doses.  This paper describes an outbreak in the Faroe Islands among health care workers who had been vaxed and boosted.  22 of 33 attendees at an event became infected with Moronic.  While all were “symptomatic”, they all also had mild disease.  (Medrxiv Paper)

And this paper describes the actual course of immune system reponse to attempted infection following vaccination in people with prior infections.  The timing and dynamics of recognizing and generating a response to CV-19 explains why an “infection” may occur, but is generally cleared very rapidly.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Another study finding an increased risk of myocarditis, especially in younger men, following vaccination, but also from infection with CV-19.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Readers have probably figured out that I am strongly opposed to the way we are doing testing.  But one good thing about the rapid tests is that they actually appear more accurate than PCR at defining who is really infectious and harboring virus that can be cultured, i.e., is capable of replication.  They also can identify those with extremely large viral loads, who are most likely to infect multiple people.  (Medrxiv Paper)

And this paper describes a supposedly superior PCR test that is much more likely to only identify persons who actually are infectious.  (Medrxiv Paper)