A group of researchers and clinicians who were skeptical of the usual CV-19 epidemic response have written an article discussing what lessons should have been learned. These articles are important, but just like the epidemic responses, largely futile because it is apparent that most politicians and public health “experts” are determined to learn nothing. Highlights include the use of bad models, no evidence to support “non-pharmaceutical” interventions, i.e. lockdowns, limited evaluation of drug treatments, and the disparagement of legitimate clinical or scientific concerns about various official actions as “misinformation”. (IJPH Article)
Children were at very low risk of any serious illness from CV-19. There was no need to vaccinate them, particularly since the vaccines had low effectiveness. This research used data from schools that did regular weekly testing for CV-19 to assess effectiveness. Effectiveness was extremely low and what there was lessened quickly. (SSRN Study)
This study covered severe outcomes from flu or CV-19 in five countries. It found that those infected with CV-19 were more likely to have these outcomes than those infected with flu virus. I will assume the study is accurate but the point of this line of research was and is purely to try to justify the extreme actions taken as part of the epidemic response. (SSRN Study)
Methodological issues are important to understand to fully appreciate the meaningfulness of research results. This study examined the impact of inclusion/exclusion criteria, which determine who is included in a study, on the outcomes of research on vax effectiveness for children and adolescents. This will not be a surprise but including people with prior CV-19 infections and/or more comorbidities raised the apparent effectiveness. In other words, the effectiveness was higher due to the immune response from a prior infection. (SSRN Study)
Another methodological issue is the selection of design for the study. A common one for vaccines is a “test-negative” approach. This article explains that design and attempts to apply it to data from randomized clinical trials on the CV-19 vaccine. The authors find that the design produced results similar to the RCTs. The test-negative design takes everyone who sought a CV-19 test and then sorts they positive and negative test results by vax status. It supposedly reduces bias due to health-seeking behavior but it rather obviously actually enhances that bias risk. (JAMA Article)
The epidemic-related closures of schools and limiting of athletic and other activities did indeed have a negative effect on these young persons’ fitness and physical health. (JAMA Article)
