Coronmonomania Lives Forever, Part 161

Remember that god-awful Bangladesh mask trial that showed zero benefit from masks but researchers tried to make up data to show there was benefit, even though that wasn’t the primary outcome.  Well, here is another re-analysis of the data showing again that there was zero evidence of mask effectiveness.  The study design was extremely poor and led to multiple biases which made conclusions worthless.   Of all the stupid interventions in this epidemic, this is one of the dumbest.  (BD Analysis)

One of the consequences of the epidemic and our response to the epidemic was a temporary lessening of certain other respiratory infections, which are now rebounding.  Influenza starts in the Southern hemisphere winter and moves north.  It appears that we are in for a really bad flu season, based on what is happening in the Southern part of the globe and this study from Nicaragua finds that influenza has already seen a heavy resurgence in that country.  (Medrxiv Study)

Here is supposedly premier medical journal the Lancet two years ago pimping for suppression of the virus, in essence supporting lockdowns and school closures.  (Lancet Statement)    Here is Lancet two years later, after the complete failure of all the bullshit it recommended, still pimping for lockdowns, school closures, masks, etc. and still in denial that you can suppress a respiratory virus.  (Lancet Statement)

What did Sweden do differently in the epidemic?  It didn’t panic and it tried to avoid undue pain to the public economy and the public health.  What was the result of that approach?  Sweden had the lowest level of learning loss by students and now an article points out that the country has the lowest level of excess mortality over the last few years.  For the vax safety conspiracy theorists, Sweden is also a very highly vaxed country, so what this means is that excess deaths were, as I keep saying, driven by the lockdowns and terror campaign and have nothing to do with the vax.  (Sweden Article)

These companion articles in Science suggest that the Wuhan market was the source of at least one of the jumps of CV-19 into humans, that there likely were two jumps in that area and that they likely occurred in November 2019.  (Science Article)   (Science Article)

The continuing evolution of the Omicron variants and the ability of the human immune system to cope with them is discussed in two articles in Nature.  The gist of the first study is that Omicron continues to evolve in ways that evade antibodies from earlier strains. One implication noted by the authors is that this means Omicron-oriented vaccines that use earlier versions are unlikely to be effective against infection or transmission.  (Nature Article)   The second article confirms that new Omicron versions evade most antibodies generated by infection with earlier strains, but remain highly transmissible.  (Nature Article)

People still trying to figure out why some people don’t get infected or don’t get serious disease.  This study looked at regular users of fish oil, and like similar studies on other supplements, found that while it may not prevent infection, use seems to be associated with lower risk of serious disease.  (Medrxiv Study)