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Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 186

By January 15, 2023Commentary

This is a very vaccine effectiveness set of of summaries, so I will get the non-vax effectiveness stuff out of the way first.

The way the CDC and state Departments of Health have attributed deaths to CV-19 is a joke.  I did an analysis of death certificates for all supposed CV-19 deaths under the age of 30 and found that basically none had anything to do with CV-19.  Others have done similar work.  Here is a great worksheet showing just how absurd some of these death attributions are.  (Tweet)

To me, it is quite clear and quite logical that the early hysterical response to the epidemic had a variety of negative impacts on the public health, including discouraging persons from seeking care when they had symptoms of an acute health issue and limiting the effectiveness of health care responses.  This study from Japan finds that persons who suffered heart attacks outside of a hospital early in the epidemic had far less likelihood of good outcomes.  (SSRN Study)

The first vax effectiveness study comes from Singapore which has an excellent health system and good research capabilities.  It examined both prior infection and vax in regard to current Omicron variant infection.  (Medrxiv Paper) in persons 18 and over.  The essence of the findings, in a highly prior infected (75% estimate) and vaxed (92% primary series, 80% boosted) population, was that a prior non-Omicron or early Omicron variant infection provided no protection against a current Omicron variant infection.  A more recent Omicron variant infection provided some protection.  Being boosted added a modest degree of protection.  All types of prior immune response protection lessened over time.  I have been saying this for years now, no matter what, we are all going to be exposed to CV-19 variants multiple times and we are all going to be infected multiple times, just like the other seasonal coronaviruses.  So what?   (Medrxiv Paper)

This is a relatively well-designed, but very dated, study on the impact of prior infection and/or vax on infections among nursing home staff in NYC.  The design appropriately considered no infection, no vax; prior infected, no vax; prior infected vaxed; and vaxed only groups.  This is a pre-booster time period, January to June 2021, and the one quibble on design is that the follow-up period isn’t long enough to identify waning effectiveness, and this is all pre-Omicron.  But compared to no vax, no prior infection; a prior infection alone reduced risk by 55%, two-dose vax, no infection, by 80% and prior infection and vax by 82%.   (JID Study)

Next up is study from France on whether a second booster dose helps in regard to Omicron infections.  The study was conducted from March to October of 2022 among those 60 and older.  Compared to a booster which was at least 6 months prior, the second booster in the first month following receipt provided protection of about 40%, which is pretty weak and certain to decline rapidly.  A quite high rate of protection was found in regard to prior infection, particularly a more recent Omicron prior infection.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This study comes from a network used to monitor flu in the US and looked at the impact of three dose vaccination and prior infection.  In people without prior infection, three doses had little effect on Omicron risk.  But having a prior infection conferred significant protection.  Interestingly, a high number of persons with prior infection were detected by antibody testing, not a prior positive PCR test.  Although the authors pimp the study as demonstrating that persons with prior infection benefit from vax and boosters, what I took away was that prior infection provides good protection on its own and vax adds only a marginal benefit.  (Medrxiv Study)

Now a couple of studies from the Netherlands.  The first looks at household infections and infectiousness during the time July 2021 to August 2022 and whether vax impacted those rates.  During Omicron, vax effectiveness was estimated at a mere, well, negative, although there were limitations on ability to calculate effectiveness.  Effectiveness against transmission, or infectiousness was also very modest, around 60% even with a recent booster.  (Medrxiv Paper)

The second study looks at prior infection as well as vax, from January to September 2022.  Interesting findings include the now standard one that prior infection with vax is better than vax alone, but sequence of immunizing events–vax or infection–did not seem to matter in regard to protection against subsequent infection, and new immunizing events tended to restore protection, but never higher than the previous high.  The level of protection from a prior infection was clearly related to the level of circulating antibodies.  (Medrxiv Paper)

Finally, another study shows the benefit of including nucleocapsid antigens in a vax, as the body appears to have a strong capability to respond to that region following both a natural infection and vaccination with an inactivated virus.  Those regions mutate far less frequently, so protection could be expected to be far longer-lasting than spike-protein based vax.  (Medrxiv Paper)

 

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Ray V. says:

    Kevin, I found your blog from Kurt’s “25 List” (I’m on it also… Mitigating Chaos) I wish I could spend hours a day reading your work as I believe it to be spot on and ridiculously informative. Unfortunately, as president of a company I have a few other responsibilities. That being said, I peruse each article and when I get so mad from having you expose the truth that I’m getting dangerous to be around, I have to move on. Thank you for being a trusted source of current events…Ray

  • Joe kosanda says:

    Thanks for the link to the excel file on the covid under age 30 deaths

    A few questions

    A) Was the data base for all US under 30 Deaths
    b) do you have a link to obtain a downloadable version of the excel spread sheet

    One observation is that the vast majority had other significant health issues, and most likely all covid did was give a final push to a teetering goner.

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