Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 180

Ah, yes, masks will save us all.  I have referred to them as virus collection devices.  Experts often fail to use even the most basic common sense and logic when thinking about an issue.  Let’s see, a mask is designed to block outgoing and incoming pathogens, which it does inefficiently, but it does serve as a collection point.  And what do we think happens to all those collected pathogens?  They potentially are available to be transmitted to others.  You will recall one of my favorite mask-related studies, the one that found that CV-19 remains viable on a mask for a very long time.  So this study is no surprise.  It looked at what was on masks used by health care workers.  It found very high rates of viral and bacterial contamination, many resistant to antibiotics.  (SSRN Study)

You will recall that states took to bribing people with financial, and in some cases non-financial, incentives to increase vax rates.  This study shows that non-financial incentives had no impact on vax uptake and financial ones a very minor effect which was not statistically significant.  (SSRN Paper)

It should be apparent to everyone by now that both a CV-19 infection and being vaxed provide some protection against a subsequent infection or reinfection, with the combination appearing somewhat stronger and more durable.  It should also be apparent that nothing is going to stop ongoing presence of, exposure to and reinfections by CV-19.  But the population has a sufficient immune response to substantially limit the amount of severe disease. All those conclusions are supported by this recent study from Mexico covering the potential effect of both a prior infection or vax or the combination on the risk of subsequent infection.  (Medrxiv Study)

We are in the midst of an explosion in RSV cases, particularly in children.  I don’t think there can be serious debate about the fact that closing schools and limiting children’s contacts with each other has played a role by failing to allow normal exposure to pathogens.  This paper explores the disruption in normal RSV infection patterns during the epidemic.  Typically RSV cases increase in fall, peak in the winter and largely disappear in spring and summer.  In 2020 there basically was no RSV season.  In 2021, the season expanded substantially with the wave beginning in summer.  In 2022 the season began in late spring and reached the highest incidence rate historically recorded and is still ongoing.  Another result of failing to consider overall public health during the epidemic.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This paper claims that the phenomenon of “immune imprinting” following multiple vaccine doses is not real, but the result of methodological biases in studies.  Immune imprinting is a phenomenon whereby an initial immune response, which is provoked by repeat exposure to the same antigens, i.e., the vaccines, impairs a response to exposure to a slightly different variant, in this case later Omicron variants.  While I understand the authors point, I think there are good reasons to trust the data that suggests that boosting has very limited value and appears to indicate that multiple boosters may in fact raise reinfection risk.  (Medrxiv Paper)

More good news on the effect of the epidemic responses.  In Korea suicide attempts rose sharply, especially among young women.  (SSRN Paper)