I Am Done With Coronamonomania, Part 7

Or maybe I am not quite yet.  Because interesting stuff keeps cropping up.

I remain very dubious about “long” CV-19, the notion that somehow that viral infection leads to lasting health consequences that are substantially different from the health aftermath of any serious disease episode.  One of the supposed effects is on cognitive functioning, with multiple sufferers claiming they have fuzzy brains for months after an infection.  I suspect they had fuzzy brains before infection and/or are looking for any excuse to get sympathy and avoid work and other life tasks.  And recent research supports that this may indeed be the case.  The authors used a running survey of cognitive functioning of adults to study the impact of a CV-19 infection.  Results before and after an infection were compared, and the infected group was compared to the uninfected one.  There was no apparent effect on cognitive functioning and other studies showing there was likely were flawed because they did not have or use baseline cognitive function to assess whether there really was any change.  (SSRN Study)

This study from the UK attempted to assess association of a large range of variables with likelihood of infection and how those risk factors may have changed over the course of the epidemic.  The study covered an extended period, but was based on survey data.  It might identify an association but the risk of a non-causal relationship is high.  Over the entire study period, being male was associated with a higher risk of infection, but interestingly, being a minority, living in a multigenerational household and using tobacco were associated with a lower risk.  Obviously, having more and closer social contacts was linked to a higher risk.  Household size had an uncertain relationship as did living with children, and those relationships appeared to change over time.  Masking appeared to have little effect, with some effect early on but none later on in the epidemic.   (PLOS Study)

There is now a wide body of research on typical antibody responses following vaccination.  It is beyond question that there is substaning lessening of circulating antibodies to CV-19 within a few months.  There are multiple types of antibodies and that waning may vary by antibody type.  This study also confirms that if you have a prior infection, your antibody response is stronger and lasts longer than if you were not previously infected.  (SSRN Study)

Now some of the ludicrous stuff that happened during the epidemic was because the public health experts and our political leaders pushed obviously futile and damaging policies.  But some of what went on is due to people occasionally, or not so occasionally, being really gullible, dumb, and prone to believing any crazy thing that some lunatic says.  So it was with hydroxychloroquine.  This compound was widely used to treat malaria, because it supposedly had anti-viral capabilities.  There were no trials that showed it had any efficacy against a respiratory virus much less CV-19.  Nonetheless some physicians thought it was worth giving a shot to treat or prevent CV-19.  Most drugs have some adverse effects and if use an unproven treatment for a disease you might not be using the most optimal approach for curing the patient.  In any event, it appears that patients treated in a hospital with HCQ actually had a higher rate of death than those who were not, primarily due to cardiac side effects.  (HCQ Article)

I was surprised by this study showing that the amount of virus in a person’s upper respiratory system is not correlated with the severity of subsequent disease.  Perhaps what matters is not how much you are exposed to but how favorable the person’s immune response and other body environment factors are to fast and ongoing viral replication.  (JAMA Article)

This large study from England on vaccine effectiveness among children shows that serious events were so rare as to make a comparison between vaxed and unvaxed difficult.  There was at best a minor effectiveness which was gone by week 20 following vaccination.  (Medrxiv Study)