Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 166

My trip is winding down, be home tomorrow, oh joy, coming back to our benighted country.  We need a political savior and I am sure there is one.  Sorry, but it ain’t Trump.  Might be DeSantis.  Might be Rubio.  Might be Cruz.  Might be Haley.  Definitely isn’t Harris or Newsome.  Dems have no one.  Republicans have ten good candidates, or more.

Here is another lockdown study which tells us what any person with a functional brain (so public health experts and politicians are excluded) could have figured out even before the lockdowns began–they did nothing to limit mortality and they caused greater unemployment and slower employment growth.  So smart states, like Florida, that avoided lockdowns, had no worse rate of deaths and much better economies for their citizens.  (JOEM Article)

I have been dubious about the effectiveness claimed for various drugs against CV-19 infection.  I have been particularly skeptical about Ivermectin because the mechanism of action seems unlikely to work against a virus. But there is some research suggesting it may have an effect.  This study from Brazil claims that prophylactic, which means taking it constantly as a preventative measure, use of ivermectin substantially reduced the risk of infection and serious disease.  But there is a big, no, huge problem with the study.  It was methodologically infirm because enrollment was voluntary and there was no adjustment for prior infection.  But take it if you want to, but it does have side effects which might be expected to occur more often with constant use.  (Cureus Article)

This study looked at the quality of life and work impact of CV-19 infection and compared them in vaxed and unvaxed persons.  It found that being vaxed lessened the period of diminished quality of life and loss of work productivity during an infection.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Once more I am not sure if the followup period is long enough, but this study from Singapore has the usual findings that even boosters offer very modest, at best, protection against infection but do provide longer term good protection against serious disease.  (JAMA Study)

And this study from England found that the vax were moderately effective against later Omicron strains in regard to hospitalization.  They didn’t even look at effectiveness against infection because it is basically non-existent.  (Medrxiv Study)

According to this study one reason boosters may not work so well is that if they are given in a person who had a CV-19 infection in the months before vaccination, the effect of the booster is greatly impaired.  (Medrxiv Paper)

It is pretty obvious by now that there is enormous individual variability in susceptibility to infection and in infectiousness.  This study again confirms that, finding that the 20% most infectious persons are over 3 times more likely to transmit than the average infected person.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Here is the CDC in the context of monkeypox claiming that positive PCR tests with more than 34 cycles to get to positivity should be ignored because they weren’t reliable.  Funny, I remember the CDC saying that there was no issue with even 40 cycles being used in the context of CV-19.  (CDC Article)