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Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 138

By May 18, 2022Commentary

Lot of press lately about the US having 1 million CV-19 deaths.  That is so wrong it is an actual intentional lie lie.  Perhaps half that number have actually died because they contracted CV-19, which is still a huge number.  But the rest are just bullshit to include.  And the epidemic nuts are breathlessly talking about it isn’t over and we are going to have another big wave and we all need to mask up, get our 20th booster, etc.  Just absurd how little so many people have learned during the epidemic.

A wastewater study from Milan illustrates both the value and limits of using that measure to track the epidemic.  They suggest that high levels following vax campaign in that city indicate high infection rate among the vaxed, but variation in viral loads makes use for predicting actual case numbers tricky.  (JAMA Article)

There are lots of coronaviruses and since the start of the epidemic people are racing to find relatives of CV-19.  This study from Japan finds lots of similarities in various bat coronaviruses.  While I am not sure where the virus came from, it is still possible it just arose naturally.  The number of these similar coronaviruses in the wild in Asia also may be an explanation for why the epidemic has generally been less severe there, as the population may have greater adaptive immunity.  (Medrxiv Paper)

If you want to see national data on supposed relative risks for vaxed versus unvaxed persons, you can find it here. While I don’t trust the data completely, for the same reason that Minnesota’s similar data seems skewed, even in this data you see falling effectiveness, especially in younger people.  (CDC Data)

Here is another study relating to a superspreader event, this one in a bar, in which most of the infected persons were vaxed.  The authors think the lesson is that we need to keep using non-pharmaceutical interventions.  I think the lesson is that it is pointless to keep trying to stop transmission.  (CDC Study)

Remember the nonsense about it being Trump Republicans who wouldn’t get vaccinated.  This study from a large Southern state, where there are probably lots of Trumpers, finds that the lowest rates of vax are among African-Americans, by far.  (Medrxiv Study)

This study from Spain found that vaxed persons are as likely as unvaxed ones to transmit Omicron, and found in general it had a higher secondary attack rate and shorter interval to transmission than did prior variants.   (Medrxiv Paper)

Finally, this CDC study finds modest additional protection against infection for nursing home residents who received a booster, but the data was gathered shortly after administration, so likely effectiveness after a few weeks is close to zero.  (CDC Study)

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