Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 106

DOH finally came up with more documents in regard to my Data Practices Act Requests, supposedly this time not just irrelevant filler.  We will see, will take some time to get through.

Meanwhile, everyone is rushing for the exits.  Fear of missing out on the end of the pandemic.  Next phase–every politician saying they did a great job managing the pandemic and they were never for lockdowns, masking, vax mandates, etc.

Another study on excess deaths, finding that most excess deaths during the epidemic were caused by CV-19, but accepting over-attribution methods, but also noting that especially among younger age groups there were substantial increases in deaths from things like homicides and overdoses, and those increases were linked to suppression measure stringency.  There were also many deaths likely due to missed care in areas like dementia and heart disease and diabetes.  In other words, lockdowns kill.  (Medrxiv Paper)

And here is a specific example of the problem of missed health care.  A paper finding that more patients were being diagnosed with advanced cancers that are harder to treat and more likely to result in deaths.  This is due to the terror campaign that kept people from getting regular screenings.  (Medscape Story)

I have harped on incidental admissions for CV-19, because over-attribution of hospitalizations has been a critical component of the terror campaign.  Lower absolute numbers of real hospitalizations also means lower case rates and might help people have a better appreciation of real risk.  This study involved a chart review which found that at least 25% of hospitalizations attributed to CV-19 were just incidental.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This review of studies on the effect of adaptive immunity resulting from a CV-19 infection concludes that natural adaptive immunity lasts for an extended time with little evidence of waning, appears equally effective against all variants with some uncertainty regard effect against Omicron, is highly protective against hospitalization and death and that such immunity appears as good or better than that resulting from vax.   As the authors say, there is no reason not to recognize the immune status of people with prior infection.  (Elsevier Paper) 

If boosters don’t work so great against infection, why not go for four doses?  Ooops, may not be any better, according to this research among health care workers in Israel.  Israel has been very aggressive with boosters and fourth shots.  Notwithstanding the restoration of higher antibody levels, substantial numbers of Omicron breakthru infections were seen, almost all mild, but with high viral loads.  Vax effectiveness was pretty low against Omicron, even with a booster.   (Medrxiv Paper)

Some people with breakthru infections end up in the hospital and this research examines the characteristics of those persons.  The vaxed persons who were hospitalized were older and had more comorbidities.  They nonetheless had less severe outcomes than did unvaxed persons, which appears to be due to an ability to have a strong recall of immune response in the initial days of hospitalization.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This paper looked at antibody and T cell responses following a booster in people over 80.  The antibody response was substantial and lessened more slowly than it did following a second dose, but the T cell response showed a similar trajectory following the booster, which is somewhat concerning.  (Medrxiv Paper)

The latest UK vax surveillance report, really no change from earlier ones.  Lot of events in the vaxed, boosters help a little, still showing good protection against hosp and death.  (UK Report)

Another study using actual claims and EHR records showing that in people aged 18 to 39, especially males, there is a significant rate of myocarditis following a booster, which should be considered in any vax decision.  While most myocarditis is mild, it is not without risk.  (Medrxiv Paper)