Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 143

I don’t know what is going on in Minnesota and other states may have the same issues.  Determining trend in a home testing world is tough, and you can’t rely on hospitalizations when so many are incidentals.  But on a basis of reported cases, we really are sort of on a plateau.  Gives joy to the nuts I still see driving alone in their cars masked.

I have rambled on and on for months, years, decades about the excessive attribution of hospitalizations to CV-19.  This study took that problem head on and found that if you used a more reasonable definition of whether a person needed oxygen upon admission, only a third of hosps attributed to CV-19 were actually for treatment of the disease.   This study was based on chart reviews and finds that the rate of incidental hosps was particularly high among those previously infected or vaxed, suggesting the protection actually afforded by the vax is underestimated.  Those who not actually admitted for CV-19 treatment also had shorter length of stay and were less likely to die in the hospital.   (Medrxiv Paper)

This study got a lot of press for saying that even vaxed people can get long CV-19, but that just means that are as hypochrondiacal as unvaxed ones.  What the study actually focuses on is the prospect of serious disease even if vaxed, and it does find significant risk for vaxed persons, but less so than for the unvaxed.  It also has been touted as suggesting that vaxed persons have a risk of adverse events, but there is nothing in the article that in any way discusses that.  It should also be noted that the study was done in the VA population so not a representative population.   (Nature Article)

Very interesting paper on the common seasonal coronaviruses, indicating that their evolutionary history is complex and that they likely have multiple animal hosts.  (Medrxiv Paper)

One theory on vax effectiveness appearing to wane quickly has been that it is an artifact of depletion of susceptible persons, that is that those who were unvaxed may have undetected infections that give them immunity,  giving the appearance of lower vax effectiveness.  It is a garbage theory, and this paper demonstrates that and that the waning effectivess is real.  It is important, however, in effectiveness studies to identify all prior infections by date as well as date of all vax doses, and use a time at risk analysis among all subgroups.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This paper from England used matched cohorts to identify booster effectiveness during Omicron.  The follow-up period is a maximum of ten weeks so not long enough to capture the typical lessening of effectiveness over time.  According to the study, in that 10 week period,  boosters were 50% effective against infection and 80% effective against hospitalization.  Effectiveness was lower in those under 65 than in those over that age.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Another study on booster effectiveness during Omicron at a university finds it was lower during Omicron than during Delta, but again did not report trends or have a long enough follow-up period to detect typical effectiveness waning.  (JID Paper)

Another paper showing that the risk of myocarditis in young males following vax is real.  (JID Article)