Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 147

There has been continuing uncertainty about the seasonal nature of CV-19.  It certainly appears to have waves or surges.  Other respiratory viruses appear to be seasonal, including other CV strains.  And there are logical reasons why it would be, including factors relating to the virus itself, transmission dynamics and host factors.  This study uses a modeling approach to identify northern hemisphere waves in the November to March time frame, with southern states seeing another wave in the summer months.  Awareness of seasonality can help with health planning, so a more defined understanding of factors would be good.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This study looked at the seriousness of a second infection of CV-19.  It is an odd study and has been interpreted by some as saying a second infection is more serious.  It was conducted in the VA, which is obviously a skewed population.  But one huge flaw is that there is no attempt to identify the thousands of people who have identified multiple infections through home testing and thus don’t show up in the records.  These infections are all mild by definition, since no health care and official testing was sought.  In addition, all the authors actually did was examine the cumulative effect of the infections.  They found that in general, the second infection added additional risk of serious harm to various organ systems, not that the second infection was more severe or even equally severe to the first.  Interestingly, the research also found that this was the case even among people who were vaccinated and boosted.  (RS Article)

Here is more evidence of the damage being done by the epidemic response, and other stupid policies of the current non-administration, including leaving the border wide open.  Drug overdose deaths continue to soar past pre-epidemic trends, particularly those due to fentanyl and those among African-Americans.  Not the kind of equity progressives were looking for, but exactly what their policies created, and they had every reason to expect it.  (Medrxiv Paper)

There is a lot of work on the largely mythical “long” CV-19.  Cynical me thinks the medical community is ginning this up to be able to generate tens of billions in revenue for years, maybe decades.  Anyway, this study supposedly finds that a large percent of persons have symptoms lasting for months.  Big caveat–it is all self-reported.  I am sure we have a lot of malingerers in the population who will be happy to find any excuse to not work or do other usual activities of living and to get on the government dole.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This was a meta-review of a small number of studies on the effect of vaccination on the aforementioned long CV-19.  While the overall quality of the studies is poor, they suggest that vaccination appears to lower the risk for long-CV-19.  (Medrxiv Paper)

The goobermint is trying to persuade parents to vaccinate their young children, which is a pointless exercise, with no benefit and some risk.  This study from Arkansas looks at cases among children of all ages who showed up at an ER or were admitted to a hospital.  The first thing to note is that 20% of the cases were incidental–CV-19 had nothing to do with why the child sought care.  The second thing to note is that most of the case were among adolescents.  The third thing to note is that 19 to 21 year-olds were included in the study, and those aren’t children.  The fourth thing to note is the serious outcomes and long lengths of stay were in the incidental admissions category.  No matter how it gets hyped, the risk to children of serious disease is miniscule.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Next up is a study from Israel on the effect of infections in children and adolescents.  This was a large study and it found zero deaths in either previously uninfected or previously infected children.  Those with a previous infection had at least 18 months of good protection against a subsequent infection.  Unlike vax-derived immunity, those with an infection showed only slight waning over the period, from about 89% lower risk to 82% lower risk.   The authors point out that this means there are real questions about the value of vax in this age group.  (Medrxiv Study)