Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 123

Second part of my weekend catchup on research.

Another study comparing Omicron and Delta in children.  While the incidence of Omicron was far higher, severity was much lower.  And there basically no deaths in either wave among children.  (JAMA Study)

More bad news for prevention and treatment faddists, additional research shows that no, vitamin D won’t stop you from getting CV-19.  We all have to stop imagining that there is some magic bullet to stop a respiratory virus.  (Vit. D Study)

A lot of people died from CV-19, but not as many as the official statistics claim, due to goofy attribution of cause of death rules.  This study looked at death rates by occupation.  As you would expect, more “essential” workers died than non-essential ones.  The study doesn’t adjust for relative health status so a lot of these stats are meaningless. Now here is the bizarre part.  This study is done by academics–they work at universities.  There are a lot of teachers employed in the US.  That group is not included among the occupations listed.  Why–the obvious reason is that they had very low death rates, and this set of authors didn’t want to give further ammunition to those who are rightfully upset about closing schools to protect teachers.  (Medrxiv Paper)

A South Korean prospective daily sampling study found that Delta infections were generally more severe and resulted in viral shedding for an median of five days versus three for other variants.  (JID Study)

Hungary chimes in on vaccine effectiveness, finding lower mortality overall during the Omicron wave than the Delta one, but also finding that vaccinated people, including those with boosters, had lower rates of death.  I no longer trust these studies that fail include an adequate follow-up period to ascertain the how long any additional protection lasts.  Other studies suggest boosters lose effectiveness just like the original doses.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Norway’s contribution to the day’s research is also on vaccine effectiveness, with a focus on hospitalization, finding that vax retains good effectiveness against hospitalization across all age groups, although that effectiveness does lessen over time, and that a booster enhances effectiveness against hospitalization.  At the same time effectiveness against infection dropped to essentially zero.   (Medrxiv Study)

I am sure weather conditions have an impact on viral spread, but I can’t find a simple explanation of exactly how or how much those conditions affect transmission.  Here is another paper claiming to find a relationship, particularly with humidity conditions.  (Arxiv Paper)

This study from a large commercial claims database validates the notion that CV-19 is merely a trigger for an acute health episode in people who already have serious health issues.  Most of the people with severe CV-19 disease had a major health issue, such as heart disease, dementia or diabetes.  (JID Article)