Thursday, March 24, 2022
Deltacron: What scientists know so far about this new hybrid coronavirus
In many countries, as restrictions lift and freedoms are restored, there's a general feeling that the pandemic is over. There is, however, still the significant concern that a dangerous new variant could emerge.
This happened when Omicron arrived, but we got lucky with that one. Omicron turned out to be more transmissible, but mercifully it hasn't caused an increase in severe disease in most countries where it is dominant.
The race is on to find a variant-proof vaccine
In a state-of-the-art science lab, nestled into the genteel slopes of the NSW Southern Highlands, a group of genetically engineered mice have become frontline soldiers in the fight against COVID-19.
But this wasn't guaranteed. Variants crop up randomly, and new ones have the potential to be more dangerous than previous ones. Another has just arrived, and is currently going by the name deltacron. It is – as you can probably guess – a hybrid of Delta and Omicron, the two variants dominant most recently.
Deltacron's story begins in mid-February, when scientists at the Institut Pasteur in Paris uploaded a genetic sequence of the coronavirus that looked very different from previous sequences. The virus sample had come from an elderly man in northern France and looked odd. Most of its genetic sequence was the same as Delta's, which was dominant worldwide up until late last year, but the part of the sequence that encodes the virus's spike protein – a key part of its external structure, which it uses to get inside cells in the body – came from Omicron.
By March, three further hybrid genetic sequences had been reported, this time in the US. There are now over 60 logged across France, the Netherlands, Denmark, the US and the UK.
There may, however, be different deltacrons. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur have said the deltacron sequences reported in the UK and US have certain differences from those found in other countries. They've said that it might be necessary to add a number to these different forms of deltacron, to indicate which is which.
It's not unusual for viruses to mix and match parts of themselves if two different viruses infect one cell. This is called "recombination", as one virus combines parts of its genetic sequence with parts from another related virus as it assembles copies of itself. It appears to happen at random during viral replication.
What will our next COVID winter look like?
With influenza infections dropping to record lows during the social distancing phase of the pandemic, we are in uncharted waters as we approach winter with a new sub-variant in play.
However, when there's a transfer of power from one viral variant to another – with one variant becoming less common and another more so, meaning both are circulating in the population and there's a chance for them to simultaneously infect people – the chance of recombination happening increases. This will have been the situation as Omicron emerged to displace Delta as the most dominant form worldwide.
Recombination usually creates a new virus that isn't viable, as the mixing of different genes can interfere with the virus's ability to make the proteins it needs to survive. But sometimes one does survive, and that appears to be what's happened with deltacron.
Indeed, as the deltacron hybrids found in the US/UK appear to be different from those found in mainland Europe, it's possible that this has happened multiple times separately.
A chip off the old block?
At the moment it's hard to say in what ways deltacron will resemble its parents. Delta and Omicron are quite different viruses. They differ in how they infect cells and how they evade immunity. We still don't know enough about deltacron to be able to tell how different it's going to be to either.
Because it's been found in multiple nearby countries, it's likely that deltacron can spread. However, Omicron itself is continuing to spread widely in Europe, so it's still the variant we need to be watching carefully right now.
Time will tell if deltacron will displace Omicron, and whether deltacron will be any better at evading immunity and if it will cause more severe disease. There are currently too few deltacron cases to draw any conclusions on these issues. What we need are experiments to determine the properties of deltacron – scientists have started that process and have been able to infect cells with it, so hopefully we'll have answers in time.
In the meantime, we need to keep an eye on it. The fact that deltacron has probably spread across borders emphasises the need for ongoing genomic surveillance to keep tabs on how the virus is changing and moving. As the coronavirus is continuing to spread widely and infect large numbers of people, it's likely that more variants will emerge – including through recombination.
We can, though, be somewhat confident that prior infection with other variants, as well as vaccination, will offer protection from severe disease should deltacron begin to dominate. We know that vaccines, which are based on the original Wuhan strain of the virus, also protect against severe disease with the more recent variants. Time will tell whether Delta and Omicron have produced a wild child for us to worry about.
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A patch instead of an injection?
Australian biotech firm Vaxxas says it will conduct the world’s first human clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine patch after securing exclusive rights to a US developed vaccine candidate.
Vaxxas CEO David Hoey said an agreement with the University of Texas and the National Institute of Health gave it exclusive usage of the vaccine in patches, and meant that Vaxxas could now timetable phase one trials of the Covid patch in Adelaide later this year.
Mr Hoey said 50 to 100 people would take part in the trial. They would need to have already been vaccinated three times with an approved vaccine. He said an independent investigator would conduct the trial which was primarily about the safety of the vaccine.
“We’ll then go into a phase two study based on the outcome of phase one and then to a larger phase three study as well.”
Vaxxas argues that vaccine patches are not only less painful and less invasive than regular injections, they also enable vaccines to be dispensed more efficiently over time. The vaccine candidate being used was a relatively inexpensive non mRNA vaccine that survived at room temperature.
Mr Hoey said it could be mailed as Covid patches in the post, or distributed in the developing world. “It’s appropriate for every geography on the planet,” he said.
“As the Covid pandemic transitions to becoming some kind of endemic disease … we see this as a patch that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, is easy to administer, and is something that can have global appeal.
“It’s taking Australian technology, and putting it at the centre of addressing a real global problem and this is the first step.”
Mr Hoey said Vaxxas would look at the blood response to vaccination and see how much it increased the immune response to Covid-19.
He paid tribute to biologist Jason McLellan who with fellow researchers had invented “the next generation of the core piece” of current approved vaccines and the vaccine used in the patch was from the same stable.
McLellan, professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at The University of Texas, is also credited with leading a team that produced the first molecular structure of the virus’s spike protein in early 2020.
Mr Hoey said Vaxxas wanted to have its Covid patches available in the market in less than 36 months.
Meanwhile, work is continuing on building Vaxxas’s hi-tech laboratory at Northshore, Hamilton in Brisbane, where the company plans to employ 120 people. Vaxxas plans to produce up to 300 million patch doses each year at full capacity.
Mr Hoey said Vaxxas also had been working on a patch for influenza. It had conducted a study with more than 200 people published two years ago where influenza vaccine was stable at 40 degrees Celsius for 12 months. That again would enable easier distribution of patches at room temperature.
The flu patch was due to go into clinical trials in Australia next year.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Australia: The political response to Covid was much more harmful than the disease itself
Like most countries, Australia aped the Chinese Communist response to the problem: Heavy restrictions
Four out of five young Australians surveyed say they experienced mental health issues in the last two years.
One in four young Australians thought about suicide over the past two years and 15 per cent attempted self-harm, according to a poll of 16- to 24-year-olds.
Experts called for urgent action to tackle the nation’s deepening youth mental health crisis as the exclusive survey for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald revealed the magnitude of the pandemic’s toll on young people.
Eighty-two per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced mental health issues during COVID-19.
Young Australians have taken the biggest psychological hit – a separate poll found significantly fewer adults aged 25 and over (49 per cent) reported mental health issues.
Those aged 16 to 24 were most likely to report symptoms of anxiety (75 per cent) and depression (62 per cent), while 36 per cent identified eating disorder symptoms, binge-eating being the most common.
While youth mental health was a growing problem before COVID-19, the survey shows issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Forty-two per cent said their mental health issues had become worse and 11 per cent said they were caused by the impact of the pandemic.
The survey, conducted by research company Resolve Strategic, was based on questions to 1002 people aged between 16 and 24 from February 16 to 27. The findings have a margin of error of 3 per cent.
Molli Johns, a 19-year-old from the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, said she relapsed into her eating disorder during the pandemic and became depressed.
Ms Johns is one of several young people who shared their experience of mental illness for a new podcast about youth mental health, called Enough, being launched on Monday by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I lost all motivation,” said Ms Johns, who studied year 12 remotely in 2020. “I was getting up just to sit in front of my computer screen and what was the point?”
Professor Patrick McGorry, executive director of Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, said mental ill-health in young people was at crisis point.
“We’ve been trying to wake people up for 20 years about youth mental health because it’s been deteriorating, worldwide, and especially in Australia all that time,” Professor McGorry said.
“The pandemic has definitely put the skids under young people.”
The Australian mental health system had been overwhelmed during the pandemic, Professor McGorry said, with GPs, headspace centres (which provide mental health services to 12 to 25-year-olds) and emergency departments inundated and the workforce dwindling and exhausted.
He called on the federal government to urgently invest in specialised early intervention back-up systems of care for the “missing middle” – those young people with severe mental health problems such as anorexia, early psychosis and personality disorders – that the 20 Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions could not fix.
“This is an urgent national priority,” he said.
While the Resolve poll found one in four respondents had suicidal thoughts, the latest Australian government figures show the number of people under 25 who died by suicide remained steady in the first year of the pandemic.
In 2020, 480 Australians under the age of 25 took their own lives, the same number as in 2019.
Resolve director Jim Reed said behind each statistic in the poll was a human story and the sheer scale of the issue was staggering.
“While we can only really be certain that a young person is experiencing a specific or serious problem with an expert diagnosis, surveys like this can capture a lot of people who have not attempted to get a formal diagnosis or for whom the symptoms are less severe,” he said.
A separate Resolve poll of 1414 people aged over 25, conducted a week earlier, found significantly less psychological distress among adults.
Forty-nine per cent of this cohort reported mental health issues during the pandemic compared with 82 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds, 13 per cent had thought about suicide (compared with 25 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds) and 3 per cent had attempted self-harm (compared with 15 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds).
“Ironically, few young people tell us they’re worried about vaccines or COVID itself, and for them social restrictions have been the major force,” Mr Reed said. “The cure has been worse than the disease for this age group.”
Isaac Percy, 23, from Camden in outer Sydney, said his anxiety was exacerbated by COVID-19 uncertainty and fear.
“It was really hard to be pulled away from my support network of friends … and not being able to go do things I enjoy like seeing live music.”
Australian Psychological Society CEO Dr Zena Burgess said the survey findings were sobering and tallied with the experiences of the society’s members.
“Eating disorders got worse, anxiety got worse, depression got worse and generally, all the self-esteem issues of adolescence and young adulthood got worse,” she said.
One in three psychologists have been so busy they have had to close their books, according to an Australian Psychological Society survey of its members last month, compared with one in 100 before the pandemic.
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US surgeon general worried COVID views being 'shut out' after Biden admin sought to 'flag' disinformation
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said on "Fox News Sunday" that he worries about differing points of view regarding COVID-19 being "shut out" of the national dialogue.
Speaking to Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher, Murthy was asked to address pushback from those who claim the government's response to COVID-19 has been too political.
Referencing how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has altered its guidance despite urging people to "follow the science," Gallagher noted how "if there were dissenting views on the science, then you were called out, you were called names from a lot of media outlets" at the start of the pandemic.
"Well, listen, what we have to do in this is understand that number one, science evolves," Murthy replied. "We learn new data, and that should inform our response and that's true, you know, with illnesses across the board.
"But what's also really important, Trace, is that we have the ability to have respectful, thoughtful dialogue with one another. I worry about the temperature rise in our dialogue about people being shut out in terms of their points of view being heard. We need to be able to hear all voices, we need to be able to respect one another.
"We need to be able to recognize that we may have to shift our path from time to time based on new data. Doesn't mean that people were wrong before. It just means that we've got to learn as we go," he continued.
"Because conformity is the enemy of sciences as everybody is taught," Gallagher responded.
Last July, White House press secretary Jen Psaki revealed that the White House was working with Murthy's office to "flag" posts on Facebook that allegedly conveyed COVID-19 disinformation.
"Within the Surgeon General's Office, we're flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation," Psaki said at the time. "We're working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts with people, who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content. So, we're helping get trusted content out there. We also created the COVID Community Corps to get factual information into the hands of local messengers."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-surgeon-general-covid-views-shut-out
***********************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Tuesday, March 22, 2022
The World Is Suffering From Mass Delusional Psychosis
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
* According to psychiatrist and medical legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, the true public health crisis is not COVID-19 itself; rather, it’s the fear of the infection, which has “morphed and evolved into a form of mass delusional psychosis”
* Many enter a state of hysteria when they see an unmasked person, even if they look perfectly healthy and clearly are not suffering from any kind of respiratory issue. This is a highly irrational state that has no basis in reality
* Delusion is defined as believing something that doesn’t conform with reality
*There are serious concerns about the lasting effects this widespread insanity will have on children as they grow up. One of the worst traumas children suffer as a result of all this fearmongering is the idea that they may kill their parents or grandparents simply by being around them
* Treating the children’s trauma in therapy is not going to be enough, as parents and other adults are the ones creating the trauma by their own exaggerated fear response. To heal a generation of traumatized children, we must first address the psychosis of the adult population
A number of mental health experts have expressed concern over the blatant fear and panic mongering during the COVID-19 pandemic, warning about potential — and let’s face it, likely — psychiatric effects. In a December 22, 2020, article in Evie Magazine, S.G. Cheah discusses what may in fact be the real problem at hand: mass insanity caused by “delusional fear of COVID-19.”
Cheah refers to lectures and articles by psychiatrist and medical legal expert Dr. Mark McDonald, who believes “the true public health crisis lies in the widespread fear which morphed and evolved into a form of mass delusional psychosis.”
“Even when the statistics point to the extremely low fatality rate among children and young adults (measuring 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at 25), the young and the healthy are still terrorized by the chokehold of irrational fear when faced with the coronavirus,” Cheah writes.
Infectious Hysteria
Cheah goes on to review a number of irrational behaviors that have become all too commonplace, such as parents being kicked off planes because their young children refuse to wear a mask during the flight, or people having hysterical meltdowns when they see a person not wearing a mask.
The science is quite clear about the risk posed by asymptomatic individuals, meaning anyone who feels perfectly healthy yet may have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with a PCR test set to an excessively high cycle threshold. They pose an exceptionally low risk to others, if any risk at all. Science is even clearer on healthy individuals who test negative for SARS-CoV-2. You simply cannot spread a virus you do not have.
The bulk of published science also shows that masks do not prevent the spread of viral infections, and this is particularly true if you’re wearing cloth masks, surgical masks or masks with vents.
Despite all of that, many still enter a state of hysteria when they see an unmasked person, even if they look perfectly healthy and clearly are not suffering from any kind of respiratory issue. This is a highly irrational state that has no basis in reality.
Indeed, according to McDonald, these people are suffering from delusional psychosis, and there are a lot of them. He goes so far as to refer to the outside of his home or office as the “outdoor insane asylum,” where he must assume “that any person that I run into is insane” unless they prove otherwise. As explained by Cheah:
“Instead of facing reality, the delusional person would rather live in their world of make-believe. But in order to keep faking reality, they’ll have to make sure that everyone else around them also pretends to live in their imaginary world.
In simpler words, the delusional person rejects reality. And in this rejection of reality, others have to play along with how they view the world, otherwise, their world will not make sense to them. It’s why the delusional person will get angry when they face someone who doesn’t conform to their world view
It’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing so many people who’d happily approve the silencing of any medical experts whose views contradict the WHO or CDC guidelines. ‘Obey the rules!’ becomes more important than questioning if the rules were legitimate to begin with.”
In his interview with Jesse Lee Peterson, McDonald explains his diagnosis this way:
“There was never a medical crisis. There were always enough resources to deal with the people who were sick … Many resources were in fact turned away … The question then, for me, became, ‘What’s the real crisis? What are people really suffering from?’
It became clear to me, very quickly, within the first two or three weeks in March [2020], that it was fear. Since then … the fear … has morphed and evolved, not just into a ‘I’m worried, I’m scared so I need to stay home,’ but an actual belief that is against reality — because the definition of delusion is something you believe that doesn’t conform with reality.
They believe that they are going to die — no matter what age, no matter what state of health they’re in — if they don’t leave their house with a mask and gloves on every day and run from [other] human beings. That’s delusional psychosis. It’s false, it’s wrong, it’s not backed up by evidence. And many, many Americans are living that and believing that.”
While there’s no data to back this up, McDonald says it appears women tend to be more prone to delusional psychosis than men. Part of it, he suggests, may be because when women get scared, they tend to become more hyperprotective than men under the same circumstances, likely because women — speaking in pure generalizing terms, of course — tend to be more emotionally driven.
Mass Delusional Psychosis Traumatizes Children
McDonald is particularly concerned with the lasting effects this widespread insanity will have on children as they grow up. As a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of children and adolescents, he should know. Since the lockdowns began in the first quarter of 2020, he’s seen a massive increase in patients, and their mental states are far worse than what he’s used to seeing in these age groups.
One of the worst traumas children suffer as a result of all this fearmongering is the idea that they may kill their parents or grandparents simply by being around them. As noted by Cheah, they’re also being taught to feel guilty about behaviors that would normally be completely, well, normal.
Just one example is hysterical adults calling a toddler who refuses to wear a mask a “brat,” when in fact resisting having a restrictive mask put across your face is perfectly normal at that age.
“It’s not normal for children to grow up thinking that everyone is a danger to everyone else,” Cheah says, and rightly so. It’s not normal at all, and hysterical adults are mindlessly inflicting severe emotional trauma on an entire generation.
As noted by McDonald in his interview with Peterson above, a primary cause of depression, especially among youngsters, is disconnection from others. We need face-to-face contact, we need physical contact as well as emotional intimacy. We need these things to feel safe around others and within our own selves. Digital interactions simply cannot replace these most basic human needs, and are inherently separating rather than connective.
McDonald cites recent CDC statistics showing there’s been a 400% increase in adolescent depression compared to one year ago, and in 25% of cases, they’ve contemplated suicide. These are unheard of statistics, he says. Never before have so many teenagers considered committing suicide.
“This is a mass-casualty event,” McDonald says, and parents — adults — are to blame, because they are the ones scaring them to the point they don’t feel life is worth living anymore.
This is also why just treating the children is not going to be effective enough. We have to address the psychosis of the adult population. “It’s up to us adults to fix this,” McDonald says, “because children are not going to be able to fix this themselves.”
Delusional People Ultimately Require Controlled Environments
We must also address the mass delusion for another reason, and that is because it’s driving us all, sane and insane alike, toward a society devoid of all previous freedoms and civil liberties, and the corrupt individuals in charge will not voluntarily relinquish power once we’ve given it to them.
A totalitarian society, McDonald believes, is the ultimate end of this societal psychosis unless we do something about it and realize that “we’re fine, we’re perfectly safe.” Indeed, we’re in no more danger now than we were pre-COVID. We must not allow our freedoms to be taken from us due to delusional fears. As noted by Cheah in her article:
“It’s not unthinkable that the final outcome would be total societal control on every aspect of your life. Consider this — the endpoint of a mentally ill person is for them to be put under a controlled environment (institutionalized like an asylum) where all freedoms are restricted. And it’s looking more and more like that’s the endpoint of where this mass psychosis is heading.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-world-is-suffering-from-mass-delusional-psychosis_4350211.html
***********************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Monday, March 21, 2022
UK: People will riot if another full lockdown is enforced, top doctor warns - but admits some additional restrictions may be needed if hospitalisations and deaths continue to rise
Ministers risk sparking riots if they try to impose another lockdown, according to a leading doctor.
Professor Roger Kirby, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said the public would not tolerate being deprived of their liberty on such a scale again.
However, he conceded that some additional restrictions may be needed if hospitalisations and deaths rise significantly due to the current surge, warning: ‘We are not out of the pandemic yet and must not risk becoming complacent.’
In an interview to mark two years since the first lockdown began on March 23, 2020, Prof Kirby said he thought the UK had acquitted itself well during the crisis.
But he added: ‘Locking down people again, I don’t think people would tolerate it again. There would be riots like there were in Belgium if they tried to do that.’
Doctors are concerned about a new wave triggered by social mixing and the rise of a more transmissible variant of Omicron called BA.2.
Case rates among the elderly are at the highest level recorded during the pandemic, with one in 29 people over 70 in England infected.
Hospitalisation rates are also rising, with about 1,900 Covid admissions per day across the UK – 50 per cent higher than a month ago –although roughly half are incidental where a patient has been admitted for another condition.
To blunt any spike, health bosses will start rolling out the spring booster vaccination campaign this week.
It will offer five million people, including all over-75s and those over 12 whose immune systems are weakened, the chance to receive a fourth dose. The first 600,000 invitations will go out in the coming days.
Addressing the Tory Spring conference in Blackpool yesterday, Boris Johnson urged people to take up the offer.
The Royal Society of Medicine will hold its 100th free webinar about Covid on March 31.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10631269/People-riot-lockdown-enforced-doctor-warns.html
**********************************************A Flu Bug’s Worst Enemy, It Chews Them Up and Spits Them Out
This is not well referenced so I am not sure how authoritative it is
Bump your levels of this to above 10% and you’ll make your body virtually flu-proof – causing these cells to basically chew up and spit out any infected cells it is in contact with. Here are 9 simple ways to ramp up your levels.
Story at-a-glance
Natural killer (NK) cells are a specific type of white blood cell. They’re an important component of your cell-mediated (innate) immune system and are involved in both viral diseases and cancer
NK cells are cytotoxic; they induce apoptosis (programmed cell death), which destroys the virus along with the infected cell
NK cells — which are not antigen-specific — contain the infection while your adaptive, humoral immune response generates T cells containing antigen-specific cytotoxins to clear the infection
KLRD1 is a receptor gene found on the surface of NK cells, and the level of KLRD1 found in a person’s blood prior to exposure to the influenza virus can predict whether that individual would contract the flu with 86% accuracy
People whose immune cells consisted of 10 to 13% NK cells remained disease free after exposure to the flu virus, whereas those below 10% became ill
Natural killer (NK) cells, a specific type of white blood cell, are an important component of your innate immune system. Your immune system consists of two different branches — cell-mediated immunity (innate) and humoral immunity (adaptive). When you contract a viral disease, the pathogen enters your body and infects your cells.
The subsequent disease process involves your cell-mediated immune response, which activates your NK cells, along with chemicals that attract them to the site of infection, where the white blood cells basically chew up and spit out the infected cells. This process clears the virus and rejuvenates the gel-like water inside your cells.
During recovery, your humoral immune system kicks in and starts generating antibodies against the virus to help prevent the same kind of disease process and symptoms from occurring again, should you be exposed to the same virus later on. As long as your cell-mediated immune system is activated first and the humoral immune system is activated second, you will have long-lasting immunity against that pathogen.
On a side note, naturally acquired herd immunity in a population comes into play when a very high percentage of individuals have gone through this sequence of cell-mediated and humoral immune response. This sequence is not followed during vaccination, which is why vaccine-induced “herd immunity” is a misnomer.
As explained in one 2008 paper on the functions of NK cells:
“NK cells are effector lymphocytes of the innate immune system that control several types of tumors and microbial infections by limiting their spread and subsequent tissue damage … NK cells are also regulatory cells engaged in reciprocal interactions with dendritic cells, macrophages, T cells and endothelial cells. NK cells can thus limit or exacerbate immune responses.
Although NK cells might appear to be redundant in several conditions of immune challenge in humans, NK cell manipulation seems to hold promise in efforts to improve hematopoietic and solid organ transplantation, promote antitumor immunotherapy and control inflammatory and autoimmune disorders.”
NK cells are cytotoxic, meaning they’re capable of killing cells. Tiny granules in the cytoplasm contain granzymes — special proteins such as perforin and proteases. Perforin, hinting at the functional basis of its name, perforates the cell membrane of the cell targeted for elimination, allowing the proteins and other chemicals to enter, thereby inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death) that destroys the virus along with the infected cell.
In this manner, NK cells — which are not antigen-specific — contain the infection while your adaptive, humoral immune response generates T cells containing antigen-specific cytotoxins to clear the infection. Put another way, the NK cells keep viral replication in check while the adaptive arm of your immune system “learns” the properties of the virus and creates antibodies to match.
Research confirms that when you are deficient in NK cells, you’re far more susceptible to viral infections, and likely tumor formation as well. NK cells also help regulate your immune system by producing cytokines, signaling molecules that stimulate and regulate other immune system cells.
Since NK cells have the ability to differentiate between normal, healthy cells and abnormal cells, such as those infected by a virus or that have turned cancerous, scientists are looking for ways to enhance NK cell function as a way to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatments. The good news is there are many ways to boost the number and function of your NK cells
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New AstraZeneca drug that slashes Covid risk is approved
A drug that cuts the risk of developing Covid for the most vulnerable by 77 per cent after just two injections has been approved by the medicines regulator.
Evusheld, which is manufactured by AstraZeneca, has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as a preventative treatment for the virus for those who are immunocompromised or unable to have a Covid vaccination.
Around 500,000 people in the UK are immunocompromised or suppressed, meaning they are less likely to mount a strong immune response to the vaccine.
One dose of Evusheld, which is given as two injections, has been found to reduce the risk of developing symptomatic Covid-19 by 77 per cent, according to clinical trials, and the protection lasts for at least six months.
It has been authorised for use before a patient is exposed to the risk of Covid in order to prevent disease, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis.
The drug is a combination of two long-acting antibodies which bind to the spike protein on the outside of the virus, preventing it from attaching to and entering human cells.
Dr June Raine, MHRA Chief Executive said after “careful review” of the data the drug has been approved “to help protect against the effects of Covid-19”.
She said: “While the Covid-19 vaccines continue to be the first-line defence against Covid-19, we know that some people may not respond adequately to these vaccines and for a small number of individuals Covid-19 vaccines may not be recommended for other reasons, such as a previous allergic reaction to one of the vaccine ingredients.
“For these people, Evusheld could provide effective protection against Covid-19.”
It is understood the UK currently does not have any doses of Evushelf on order, but the government’s Therapeutics Taskforce is actively engaging with AstraZeneca before making further decisions.
MHRA said there is not yet enough data to know if the drug is effective against Omicron and it will continue to work with the manufacturer to establish this.
In December Sir Mene Pangalos, head of research and development for AstraZeneca, suggested it would protect against the variant.
"Consistent data ... now provide confidence that Evusheld, a combination of two highly potent antibodies, retains neutralising activity against the omicron variant at a level that will continue to provide benefit to patients,” he said.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, the chairman of the Commission on Human Medicines, said the commission was “satisfied” that the medicine meets the “expected standards” for approval.
He added: “The recommended dosage is 300mg of Evusheld, but a higher dose of 600mg may be more appropriate for some Covid-19 variants. All this is outlined in the summary of product characteristics.
“Pre-exposure prophylaxis with Evusheld is not a substitute for vaccination in individuals for whom Covid-19 vaccination is recommended.”
Gemma Peters, the chief executive of Blood Cancer UK, welcomed the approval of the drug but said the Government is still yet to set out plans for how it would be used in the UK.
"For some time, we have been urging the Government to set out its approach to using preventative treatments for people who have not responded well to the vaccines, and it is disappointing that it has not yet done so," she said.
"We hope the MHRA’s approval of Evusheld will prompt a sense of government urgency on this that has so far been lacking. Many people with blood cancer have now spent almost two years avoiding social interaction – the Government needs to do more to support them to be able to start getting back to normal."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/new-astrazeneca-drug-slashes-covid-risk-approved/
***********************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Sunday, March 20, 2022
10 biggest COVID mistakes – Americans deserve an apology from the medical experts
The medical establishment has marched in lockstep on COVID-19, presenting a consensus of expertise as they marginalized physicians who had different opinions. Two years into the pandemic, it’s fair to ask, how did public health officials do?
Surface transmission
Wash your hands like crazy (at least 20 seconds) and pour alcohol-based solutions on your grocery bags to stop COVID transmission, you were told for months. Despite being an expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci immediately applied the influenza surface transmission model to COVID. The logical starting hypothesis should have been that COVID was aerosolized.
There are only three coronaviruses that cause serious illness in humans: SARS, MERS and COVID. SARS and MERS spread by air. Why did Dr. Fauci think COVID was so different? The NIH could have done the definitive experiment in one day to get the answer. It’s OK to be wrong in science, but not for months when the National Institutes of Health could have spent a fraction of its $42 billion budget to instantly establish how COVID spreads.
No hospital visitation
The barbaric policy of banning loved ones from holding the hand of their dying loved one and saying goodbye was a human rights violation that spanned much of the pandemic. All the so-called experts and the medical establishment were complicit, allowing this cruel policy to be instituted while abandoning their duty to respect the dignity of human life. As a physician, I can assure you there are things worse than dying.
Closing schools
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argued they were using science to close schools, but many private schools and most schools in Florida and other states remained open throughout (with no difference COVID outcomes). The CDC director initially said schools were safe but was swiftly corrected by the White House the following day. It later came out that the teachers’ unions had made edits to the draft school closure policy before it was issued (kids did not have a chance to make edits).
Now studies are revealing the catastrophic harm to a generation of children – significant motor and cognitive declines and a mental health crisis. In Baltimore, many kids never logged on to virtual learning and were never seen in class again.
Analyzing the strength of natural immunityVideo
Ignoring natural immunity
Ironically, when public health officials insisted that those who had natural immunity be fired for not being vaccinated, they fired those least likely to spread the infection in the workplace. Drs. Fauci and Rochelle Walensky never talked about natural immunity and instead created the imprecise construct of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. In reality, most unvaccinated Americans have antibodies that neutralized the virus, but they are antibodies that the government did not recognize.
Eventually the data came in. Natural immunity was 2.8 times better in preventing hospitalization than vaccinated immunity and having both meant you had the same protection as natural immunity alone.
The singular focus on vaccines meant that little attention was paid to lifesaving therapeutics.
Downplaying therapeutics
The singular focus on vaccines meant that little attention was paid to lifesaving therapeutics. For example, Paxlovid is an antiviral medication that reduced COVID deaths to zero in the clinical trial, yet not enough has been produced. Fluvoxamine, an $10 anti-depressant medication that has been available for years, was found in two reputable studies to reduce COVID death, up to 91% in the latest study (no study suggests it’s not effective). Yet, few doctors are aware of these data because our public health officials have never talked about Fluvoxamine.
Not spacing out vaccine doses
Spacing out vaccine doses makes a vaccine more effective and lowers the side effect profile. It also would have allowed the U.S. to save more lives when we were rationing a scarce vaccine supply. Yet public health officials dismissed pleas to space out the doses as many of us called for.
West Point cadet resigns over vaccine tyrannyVideo
Ironically, just three weeks ago, after 250 million Americans received the vaccine, the CDC finally changed their guidance to recommend longer intervals between doses. The CDC acknowledged it was to reduce serious adverse effects such as myocarditis. Myocarditis is now recognized to occur in 1 in 1,862 young males after the second vaccine dose.
Cloth masks
The U.S. remains an international outlier by masking toddlers. At this point the only people in America still forced to wear masks are children, waiters, servers and staff. The NIH could have funded researchers to properly study each mask type in the first 10 days of the pandemic, but they failed to pivot funding to do so. Current data suggests that covering the faces of children for two years with a cloth mask had zero benefit and some harm.
Doctor explains why vaccine mandates are unnecessaryVideo
Promising no vaccines mandates, then breaking it
This was a stated promise made by President Biden, Fauci and many others – a social contract. They then broke their promise insisting that any unvaccinated workers, regardless of their risk or natural immunity, be fired. They demanded that soldiers be dishonorably discharged and nurses be laid off in the middle of a staffing crisis.
This policy ignited a debate over civil liberties, which ultimately divided the country and hardened many toward the idea of vaccination. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration has been delinquent in authorizing the Covaxin and Novavax vaccines, which use traditional vaccine technology.
Downplaying a lab leak
A bombshell investigation by "Special Report" host Bret Baier of Fox News revealed that prominent U.S. virologists told Drs. Fauci and Francis Collins of their concern that the virus may have been manipulated and originated in the lab, but then suddenly changed their tune in public comments days after meeting with the NIH officials. The virologists were later awarded nearly $9 million from Fauci’s agency.
Boosters for young people
Two top FDA officials quit in protest because of political pressure to approve boosters in young people. The FDA issued the authorization by not convening their Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee – a highly unusual break from historic precedent. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the mortality risk of an un-boosted person under age 30 was zero. You can’t lower a risk of zero any further with a booster.
Throughout the pandemic, all COVID decisions were made by a small group of like-minded government doctors who often replaced the scientific method with medical dogma. They had tremendous influence over medical universities, scientific journals and medical societies. In fact, nearly all of these entities received funding from Drs. Fauci and Collins and from Big Pharma. It’s no surprise, then, that with one united voice, the leaders of these organizations joined the groupthink bandwagon as the media parroted whatever they said.
At this point, the everyday Americans who paid the price for the errors of the medical establishment can evaluate their performance. This partial list of catastrophic errors begs for a complete overhaul of our health agencies. The American people, and children in particular, deserve an apology.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/10-biggest-covid-mistakes-americans-apology-dr-marty-makary?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=ea57a0ca-a9ef-4e0f-a3d5-fbbbcacbc15e
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
<a href="https://edwatch.blogspot.com">http://edwatch.blogspot.com</a> (EDUCATION WATCH)
<a href="https://antigreen.blogspot.com">http://antigreen.blogspot.com</a> (GREENIE WATCH)
<a href="https://pcwatch.blogspot.com">http://pcwatch.blogspot.com</a> (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
<a href="https://australian-politics.blogspot.com/">http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/</a> (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
<a href="https://snorphty.blogspot.com/">http://snorphty.blogspot.com/</a> (TONGUE-TIED)
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Saturday, March 19, 2022
A strange deletion
My site jonjayray.com has gone down -- apparently because my subscription has run out
The odd thing is that I did not receive the normal warning that my subscription was due. Why? I have no real idea but suspect that the "incorrectness" of many of my files may be involved.
I no longer have details of how to contact them. I relied on warning emails for that. The upload address was jonjayray.us.tempcloudsite.com but that no longer seems to lead anywhere. They had something to do with Linux. Help on tracing them would be appreciated.
All my files are duplicated on a mirror site: johnjayray.com which is still running fine
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Friday, March 18, 2022
9 in 10 COVID Deaths Are in Vaccinated People: Report
Joseph Mercola
A report released by the UK government has confirmed that 9 out of every 10 deaths related to COVID-19 are found in those who are fully vaccinated. Although the virus variant is the same and the UK approved only one different vaccine (AstraZeneca) from the United States, the data in the U.S. are different. This may be due in large part to the CDC definition used to identify who is “vaccinated.”
U.S. data are also likely to become even more sparse in the coming weeks and months. In addition to the CDC hiding data, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) quietly decided in early February to stop recording deaths attributed to COVID-19.
Data Is Essential
Yet, data is the foundation of scientific analysis. Without it, researchers are unable to analyze statistics and draw conclusions, which leaves public health experts unable to make accurate recommendations. Knowledge gives you the power to make informed decisions based on evidence.
Six months into the pandemic, a report revealed that most Americans had significant misconceptions of the COVID-19 risks. Months later, a second survey demonstrated that not much had changed. While analysts blamed “ignorance of fundamental, undisputed facts on who is at risk” for the so-called misconceptions, others said the politicization of the pandemic was also at fault. But there were other factors at play that skewed the data scientists thought they had.
According to a whistleblower who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID injection clinical trials, data were falsified, patients were unblinded, the company hired poorly trained people to administer the injections and follow up on reported side effects lagged way behind. Her testimony was published November 2, 2021, in the British Medical Journal by investigative journalist Paul Thacker.
This is yet another indication that the true number of adverse events and deaths from the shots currently identified as COVID vaccines may never be known. The only logical conclusion to draw is that the data don’t support the Warp Speed production and mass vaccination program initiated in early 2020.
In fact, the shot program not only is ineffective, but also has likely damaged and killed far more people than any health agency will ever publicly admit. It is essential to share this information to help prevent more deaths and damaged lives.
UK Government Report: 90 Percent of Deaths Are in Fully Vaccinated
A reporter from The Exposé points out that while the world has been distracted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK government quietly released a report that confirmed 9 in every 10 deaths from COVID-19 in England were in people who were fully vaccinated.
The February 2022 report was from the UK Health Security Agency, which publishes weekly surveillance. The report contains several tables of raw data showing that the vast majority of people who were infected, hospitalized or died from COVID-19 were fully vaccinated.
The Exposé, demonstrated step by step how the data, gathered from Jan. 24, 2022, through February 28, 2022, supported this assertion. In the UK, health authorities differentiate between those who have never received a shot and those who received one, two or three doses. All told, there were 1,086,434 cases of COVID in vaccinated individuals that accounted for 73 percent of all cases during that period.
When children were removed from the equation, vaccinated individuals accounted for 91 percent of all cases. The reporter also compared data taken in 2021 when Delta was the dominant variant against the current report when Omicron is the dominant variant in England. It showed a higher number of children hospitalized for Omicron than for Delta.
Since children have never been at high risk for severe disease from any COVID variant, it begs the question if the current number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 may be due to increased PCR testing—known to have a high false-positive rate—in children hospitalized for other reasons, such as a broken leg or appendicitis.
When children were included in the figures for hospitalization, the data showed 75 percent of those hospitalized with COVID in the current period were vaccinated. But, when children were removed from the equation, 85 percent of the hospitalized individuals were vaccinated. Similar results were found when the data were analyzed for COVID deaths.
During the four-week period in the current report, vaccinated individuals accounted for 89 percent of deaths. Most interestingly, not only are the deaths in vaccinated individuals rising precipitously, but the number of deaths in those who are not vaccinated is dropping.
Vaccinated Deaths Rising in California
Headlines in the March 7, 2022, Mercury News read, “COVID-19 Deaths in California Among Vaccinated Rose Sharply With Omicron.” The corresponding story added that 10 deaths recorded in Santa Cruz County, California, and nine of those were vaccinated. On the surface, this is similar to findings reported from the UK. Yet, the raw numbers in the United States are different.
This is likely because U.S. data do not differentiate between individuals who have had one, two or three shots. In fact, the U.S. CDC clearly states that you can only be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the final dose in the primary two-shot series from Pfizer and Moderna or the one shot from Johnson & Johnson.
Therefore, as the UK analyzes data that identify individuals on the spectrum of having received one of three shots, the United States only counts vaccination if you’re two weeks after your last dose. Since not all patients who are fully vaccinated are identified on admission, analyzing U.S. numbers is difficult, if not impossible. You must ask yourself if this is intentional.
It probably is safe to assume that if a person in the United States is identified as being vaccinated, they are likely fully vaccinated by CDC standards. However, there are also likely individuals lumped into the unvaccinated group who have had one or two shots or may even be fully vaccinated by CDC standards but were not counted as such on admission.
The Mercury News justified the vaccinated deaths, writing: “Of the vaccinated patients who died, one was in his early 100s, three were in their 90s, two were in their 80s, three were in their 70s and most had underlying health problems. The unvaccinated man who died was in his 50s.”
While age is certainly a significant factor in any infectious disease including COVID, the article did not mention any of the other CDC-identified comorbidities that contribute to COVID deaths. To add to the misinformation, the article quoted Dr. Errol Ozdalga, a hospitalist at Stanford, who told the Mercury News that patients admitted during the Delta wave and earlier infections were otherwise healthy.
The implication is that those with comorbidities the CDC identified as increasing the risk of severe illness, such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease and immunocompromised, were not hospitalized with COVID before Omicron.
““That went away with Omicron,” Ozdalga said. The variant has afflicted those with weakened immune systems, those who were “predisposed in some way” to severe illness, he said.” Additionally, without supporting information, the news report included a simple statement:
“Dr. George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert at UC-San Francisco, said the raw numbers make the deaths among the vaccinated look worse than they are — their rates of dying remain far less than the unvaccinated.”
Economist Survey Reveals Significant Vaccine Injury Rate
Economist Mark Skidmore executed a critical online survey using the U.S. population to estimate damage from the COVID-19 shots. He presented the most recent and significant data20 from the ongoing study at the Doctors for COVID Ethics Symposium 3.
His paper seeks to understand the number of people who have died from the COVID shots that he estimates based on the survey. He used the survey to triangulate information from the general population and what they are experiencing.
The participants were asked to report on the adverse events of people they knew best in their social circle — in other words, good friends or family members. The surveys were close to representative of the general population in age, income and gender in December 2021.
Skidmore first presented a list of adverse events the FDA acknowledged could be possible and compared it against the documented data of injury and deaths from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) published in OpenVAERS.
Some of the most common events on the list were stroke, heart attack, myocarditis, death, thrombocytopenia and venous thromboembolism (blood clots). According to Skidmore, everyone agrees that adverse events can and do occur — the main difference in opinion is how often and how many.
Skidmore then looked at the ratio between COVID illness fatalities and COVID shot fatalities. The ratio in OpenVAERS is 2.6 percent and in VAERS (the number reported by the CDC that doesn’t contain all data originally substantiated) it’s 0.9 percent.
If these numbers reflect reality, the number of people who report injury or death in the survey should be close to zero since the cohort is small enough that it may not capture such a small percentage. Skidmore then asks, if we assume that the survey is a reflection of the true ratio in the population, what is the true population ratio for injury or death after receiving the COVID-19 shot?
From the data collected the ratio reveals there have been 307,997 deaths from the shot. The method used gives a 95 percent confidence interval between 215,018 and 391,410 deaths. Using the same mathematical approach to identify the number of severe adverse events to the general population, the data show there were roughly 1.1 million severe events and 2.3 million less severe events from the shot.
He acknowledges that much of what people see and report is through the lens of their biases. One of those is political affiliation. He showed that people who identified as Democrats reported far fewer shot-related deaths than did Republicans or independents. This likely also affects the number of deaths and adverse events reported to VAERS.
Using the fatality counts by party affiliation, he found that if the Democrat perception was correct, there were 119,000 fatalities compared to 487,000 fatalities if the Republican perception was correct. This gives a potential range of deaths and illustrates the differences in perceptions of people based on how they see the world. However, no matter which number is used, it is still far more than the number of fatalities reported in the VAERS system.
Unprecedented US Death Toll Keeps Rising
While the data from Skidmore and the UK reflect the death rate from COVID-19, it is also important to track the number of all-cause mortality as it’s one of the most reliable data points we have. This statistic is clear-cut. Either a person is dead or they’re not. It does not rely on the reason for death.
In early 2022, mutual insurance holding company OneAmerica announced an increase in the death rate of working Americans, aged 18 to 64, in the third quarter of 2021. Their data show it was 40 percent higher than prepandemic levels.
Other insurance companies have also cited higher mortality rates, including the Hartford Insurance Group that announced mortality increased 32 percent from 2019 and 20 percent from 2020 before the shots. Lincoln National reported death claims have increased 13.7 percent year over year and 54 percent in quarter four of 2021 compared to 2019.
Funeral homes are also posting an increase in burials and cremations in 2021 over 2020. One large German health insurance company reported their company data were nearly 14 times greater than the number of deaths reported by the German government. This data were gathered directly from doctors applying for payment from a sample of 10.9 million people.
The rising death toll that can be linked to the COVID shots is an inconvenient truth for the health agencies that have promoted mass vaccinations with a genetic therapy experiment. In what appears to be a response to this data, Health and Human Services (HHS) have decided to stop the reporting requirements for hospitals and acute care facilities on COVID-19 deaths.
Although the information is published on the HHS website, fact-checkers have claimed the viral social media posts are “false” by simply changing the headline.29 So, while the HHS publicly announced they would no longer require hospitals to report deaths from COVID-19, fact-checkers erroneously report the U.S. government is not ending daily COVID death reporting.
If it helps to sort all this out, an unnamed federal health official actually acknowledged the move to stop reporting COVID-19 hospital deaths when they spoke with a reporter from WSWS, calling the move “incomprehensible.” The official added, “It is the only consistent, reliable and actionable dataset at the federal level. Ninety-nine percent of hospitals report 100% of the data every day. I don’t know any scientists who want to have less data.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/9-in-10-covid-deaths-are-in-vaccinated-people-report_4339503.html
***********************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Thursday, March 17, 2022
Should I Vaccinate My Child Against Covid?
Yesterday, Florida followed Norway by not recommending the Covid vaccine for children. The CDC recommends them.
What does the data say? As public health scientists, we must be honest both with what we know and what we do not know.
The emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine for children was based on two randomized clinical trials for ages 5-11 and 12-15, respectively, with a total of 4,528 subjects. In both trials, there was a reduction in mild Covid infections during the two months following the second dose, with the vaccine efficacy in the 68% and 98% range for the younger children and somewhere between 75% and 100% for the 12-15-year-olds (95% confidence intervals).
What these numbers mean is that if the true value is, e.g., 90%, and if 100 children would have been infected without vaccination, then 90 of them will avoid the infection if vaccinated, while 10 children will still get infected despite being vaccinated.
A vaccine that only prevents mild disease is of little use, so what about serious disease, hospitalizations and deaths? There were zero such events among those who received the vaccine. There were also zero such events among those who received a placebo.
Hence, from the randomized trials we do not know if the Covid vaccines prevent hospitalizations and death among children. Neither do they tell us whether the protection against mild infection lasts longer than two months, or whether the vaccine reduces transmission.
With limited information from the randomized trials, we must turn to observational studies and we now have one. In New York State, 23% of children ages 5-11 and 62% of children ages 12-17 had been fully vaccinated by the end of January 2022.
These 1.2 million vaccinated children were studied from November 29 to January 30, comparing them to the unvaccinated children in the State. Here is what we learned from that study, with all risk estimates based on 95% confidence intervals.
The New York study confirms the results from the randomized trials. The vaccine reduces short-term infection risk. During the first two weeks after the second dose vaccine efficacy against infection is in the 62%-68% range for 5–11-year-olds and in the 71%-81% range for 12–17-year-old children.
The protection against infection wanes rapidly. In the fifth week after vaccination, the vaccine efficacy against infection is in the 8%-16% range for 5-11-year-old children and in the 48%-63% range for the older ones. In the seventh week after vaccination, vaccine efficacy dropped further, to the 18%-65% range for the 12-17-year-olds.
This is consistent with the rapid waning in protection that we have seen among adults, although the decline seems more rapid for children.
For the 5-11-year-olds, vaccine efficacy is negative during the seventh week after the second dose, with the unvaccinated having a lower risk of infection in the 29% -56% range. How can this be? A likely explanation is that the unvaccinated children got infected earlier than the vaccinated ones, and once the protection has worn off, the vaccinated children are at higher risk than the unvaccinated ones who have now acquired natural immunity.
That is, the vaccine simply postponed infections by a few weeks or months.
How about deaths from Covid? That is what really matters.
Unfortunately, the New York study does not present mortality data. Why? Over the two years of the pandemic, the survival rate for New Yorkers ages 0-19 is 99.999%. Despite over 3 million children, there may not have been enough Covid deaths during the two-month study period to determine vaccine efficacy against mortality. It would still have been useful to tally the numbers, but the study authors did not do so.
For hospitalization, the study reports that vaccine efficacy is higher than for infection, and while that protection also wanes over time, the decline is slower than for infections. The numbers reported mean that by vaccinating 365,502 children ages 5-11, an estimated 90 hospitalizations were prevented. This would mean that in order to prevent one hospitalization, one must vaccinate 4,047 children. The corresponding number is 1,235 for children ages 12-17.
These numbers are difficult to properly interpret for four reasons. (i) They are based on a two-month period, and the vaccines have additional benefits outside that time window. (ii) They compare vaccinated children with unvaccinated children with or without natural immunity from prior Covid infection. This will underestimate the vaccine benefits for children without a prior infection while overestimating the benefits for those with natural immunity. (iii) They include both hospitalizations that are due to Covid and hospitalizations for other causes with a concurrent unrelated mild Covid infection.
Even if the vaccine had zero efficacy at preventing hospitalization due to Covid, the efficacy against mild Covid infection would ensure that the study reported good efficacy against hospitalization. That the reported vaccine efficacy is higher for hospitalization than for infections indicates that there is at least some efficacy for the former, but it is impossible to properly estimate the level of efficacy without data that distinguishes hospitalizations due to and with Covid. (iv) The study was conducted during a large wave of infections, which has since declined. The benefits are less during the lower transmission period that we have now entered.
When deciding whether to vaccinate a child, we must also consider known and potential adverse reactions. From the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink we know that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can cause myocarditis among adolescents and young adults. Current risk estimates are in the range of one myocarditis for every 3,000 or 8,000 vaccinated adolescents and young men. Women have lower risk. There may also be additional still unknown adverse reactions.
The Covid vaccine has been widely used for children without solid information about its efficacy on hospitalizations and deaths, and without the ability to conduct a proper benefit-risk evaluation. The recent observational study from New York State adds a few important pieces to the puzzle, but we still do not know whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
For older people who have not yet had Covid it makes sense to get vaccinated. While there may be unknown low-risk adverse reactions, the large reduction in mortality risk far outweighs any such risks. For children, the mortality risk is very small and the known and any still unknown risks from adverse reactions may outweigh the benefits at reducing hospitalizations and death from Covid, which are unfortunately still unknown.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14072&omhide=true&trk=title
**********************************************What Covid health orders have done to the social lives of children
I was disturbed by what I saw happen to our children in late 2021 during lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Our kids have acted unselfishly despite being at little risk of Covid, accepting the mantra that they need to be restricted and not become ‘vectors of transmission’ passing this virus on to their elders.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, Professor of Psychiatry and Ethics, offers this in response, ‘Any society that uses children to shield adults from harm has entirely lost its moral bearings.’
I offer some observations.
A group of teenagers bounce through the local mall with a mixture of chat and laughter. They go in to browse the local merchandise when one of them stops. Most of the group proudly show a vaccine passport, enter the store, and continue shopping but one teenager notices that one of the other girls doesn’t. She knows the other girl is not vaccinated and decides to stay outside with her friend. She does not make a scene, but patiently waits for their friends to come back. They seem oblivious to what has happened, and why should they notice? They are doing what teenagers have always done. I am, however, uncomfortable at the ease at which children show private health information and cannot understand the justification for the risk of stress and social anxiety to kids in the prime of their life.
Two younger teenagers enter a shop. They are below the age required by Health Orders for mandatory vaccination. They look around and are approached by a shop assistant who demands to see their proof of vaccination. One girl proudly displays her green tick while the other volunteers that she is under the age required and is not vaccinated. That girl is abruptly escorted from the premises as if she was a criminal. Under normal circumstances, this would result in a sternly worded complaint from the parent to the manager or police. It has never been considered reasonable to treat children in such a way. Disturbingly, the shop assistant is complying with the health order. The girl is not allowed in the store unless she is closely accompanied by a vaccinated parent. The parent was just outside looking at a lengthy list of things to do during a busy and stressful day.
Fast forward to March 2022. I walked through our local shopping centre and observed that around 20 per cent of people were wearing masks. Individual choice is paramount and there can be a variety of reasons for this, but a little surprising was that young people comprised the highest number. Why were they masked? The fatality rate for those under 50 is around 0.0035 per cent, below the 0.0044 per cent risk of dying while on the road. Do the same people mitigate risk when driving by wearing helmets and fire suits? Or do they accept that there is risk in everything they do? If it is not for physical safety, then does it provide psychological safety? If so, why are the young fearful?
NSW Health Minister Hazzard recently rejected the Health Department’s demands to bring back mask mandates and other restrictions and deserves credit for demonstrating leadership. Some may be sceptical at this newfound courage, but I would like to propose a test. Now that the fatality rate is in line with that of Influenza why not simply repeal the Public Health Orders? At a stroke of a pen, it was enacted and at the stroke of a pen, it can be repealed, thus showing consistency with Premier Perrottet’s desire for ‘personal responsibility’ and the Prime Minister’s statement that the public have had a ‘gutful of governments telling them what to do’.
The last two years have demonstrated that the longer governments bypass the usual accountability measures the more the tendency will be to coerce and exhibit influence and power over people’s lives.
Paediatric Neurosurgeon turned politician Ben Carson notes, ‘We’ve been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. But at some point, maybe we will wake up and recognize that it was the politicians who created our problems.’
Clinical Psychologist and Spectator UK contributor Dr. Gary Sidley recently posed the question, ‘Should a civilised democratic society be deliberately inflicting emotional distress on its people?’
The child who asked his mother if he was going to die had just learned he had contracted Covid. He experienced symptoms one would expect from a seasonal flu and was back bouncing off the walls after a day. The induced fear, however, has had a lasting impact. The severity and duration of which we don’t yet know.
Is this what we really want for us and for our children?
We might do well to remember the words of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.’
https://spectator.com.au/2022/03/the-hazzard-of-government-health/
***********************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
New Covid-19 variant is one of the most infectious diseases the earth has EVER seen - as renowned scientist warns EVERYONE is going to get it
A former World Health Organisation scientist says the new BA.2 Omicron subvariant sweeping the world is one of the most infectious diseases the Earth has seen - and almost everyone will be exposed to the virus.
While the now-dominant strain is not as deadly as previous ones, including Delta, it is up to six times more transmissible than the original strain of Covid-19, Professor Adrian Esterman told Daily Mail Australia.
Predictions of a big surge in cases became a reality in New South Wales on Wednesday with 30,402 positive tests returned in the previous 24 hours, almost triple the number reported on Tuesday.
The BA.2 variant is also up to 30 per cent more infectious than the initial BA.1 version of Omicron which forced the reinstitution of lockdowns at Christmas.
'We think [the first] Omicron is very similar to Delta and that BA.2 is then another 25-30 per cent more contagious,' James Wood, a public health mathematician at the University of NSW told Daily Mail Australia.
The higher risk of contagiousness comes from the variant's superior ability to 'evade' immunity - meaning even triple-vaccinated people are susceptible to catching the new strain.
The BA.2 version of Omicron has an ability to 'evade' immunity, which includes vaccination. While vaccination provides a high level of protection from severe disease, it is less effective against preventing someone from catching Omicron at all. That even applies to boosters.
Generally vaccines were more effective at preventing symptomatic infection from Delta than Omicron.
For example, someone who had two shots in 2021 and a booster at the start of January would now have a 50 per cent chance of catching BA.2 if exposed.
Professor Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist and biostatistician, said it was very likely all Australians would be at risk of catching BA.2 this year - especially given the return of people to schools, offices and public transport.
'(At the moment) you are much more likely to get it; we're already seeing that with the case numbers going up,' he said.
But it is almost impossible to get an accurate reflection of its spread because so many rapid tests are being done at home and are going unreported.
The only objective, verifiable figures are the numbers of people in hospital with Covid. On Tuesday, that figure was 1,801 Australia-wide; a total that has been relatively steady throughout March. On January 25, there were 5,390.
While not everyone exposed to a virus is infected by it, BA.2's high 'basic reproduction number' or 'R0' of 12 - compared to 2.5 for the original Wuhan virus - could mean almost all Australians will come into contact with it in 2022.
The R0 is the average number of secondary infections produced by a typical case; an R0 of 12 means up to 12 people could be infected by each case.
'Everyone's been exposed to Covid-19, full-stop, and unless you're very careful you will be exposed again this year,' Professor Esterman said. 'With face mask mandates being dropped, social distancing being removed, the chances are even higher.
'Those things are put in place to dampen down transmissibility, that's the whole point. When you remove them it's just increasing transmission. 'If you remove all of those protections, then your transmissibility almost gets back to the basic reduction number because we have very little immunity.'
While Omicron is generally less severe than the Delta strain, it is serious enough for some people that Professor Esterman likened wanting to catch Covid to gambling with your health.
'If you say "I don't mind getting infected" it's a bit like Russian roulette because you do have that chance of getting seriously ill or having long-term health problems.'
Mr Esterman, who is 73, admitted his own son argues 'it's no worse than the flu'. 'To a certain extent, he's right: the death rates not worse than seasonal flu,' he said.
'The trouble is it causes more severe disease in vulnerable people than influenza, and it has the capacity to cause real damage to younger people too.
'There have been several cases of young, healthy and fit people dying from Covid. I cannot remember that ever happening with influenza.'
Professor Esterman said while death rates have dropped to now be comparable to the flu, Covid is far more infectious and the spectrum of long-term health impacts is much wider.
'Covid-19 can attack every part of the body, from clotting to the heart and brain. There have even been cases of young children with multi-system inflammatory condition.'
Professor Esterman said it was 'very likely' people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome got it as an immune system response to a previous viral infection. 'These are the balance of risks individuals have to bear in mind.'
He pointed out that with six million reported deaths worldwide and 5,590 in Australia attributed to Covid-19, it was one of the deadliest pandemics in history.
Professor Esterman also issued a warning that the pandemic is 'not over' and it's been 'sheer luck' that we are not in the middle of a wave that is both more infectious and deadlier.
'It is true that pandemics become less infectious over time, but that happens over 100 years, not one year,' he said.
He described it as 'the toss of a coin' as to whether the next variant causes more severe illness. 'While it's true to say it's the beginning of the end, it's not the end yet,' he said.
Professor Esterman is an advocate of introducing a fourth dose for people at risk, who could include people with HIV/AIDs, kidney problems, diabetes, obesity and different cancers.
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Top doctor has rubbished Pfizer's promotion of fourth Covid jab
A leading Australian doctor has slammed Pfizer's call for a fourth Covid jab, saying the company should use its staggering profits to provide vaccines for developing countries.
Dr Nick Coatsworth, who fronted the Government's vaccine rollout campaign, said Pfizer should 'stop doing press releases about how we need a fourth dose' and tackle other more pressing issues.
'How about you really surprise us and provide pneumococcal vaccine at cost to low income nations. Be like Astra,' the former deputy chief medical officer tweeted on Tuesday.
Pfizer raked in a record $US37billion in revenue from its Covid vaccine in 2021 making it one of the most lucrative products ever.
The United States based drug-maker's overall revenue doubled to $81.3billion and is forecasting a even bigger 2022, which will also see the release of its Covid pill Paxlovid.
'The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, has come out on two occasions talking about how we need a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine, the CEO of Moderna has done it as well,' he told Dr Coatsworth told news.com.
'It’s a problem because you don’t listen to the person who’s responsible for shareholder profits if they tell you to take a drug.'
In stark contrast, vaccine competitor AstraZeneca announced early on in 2020 it would not seek to profit from a Covid vaccine while the pandemic was in effect, only recently moving to a profit-based model.
Covid vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and other manufacturers have saved millions of lives worldwide with Pfizer's CEO claiming the outlook of the company had shifted.
'We are proud to say we have delivered both the first FDA-authorised vaccine against Covid-19 (with our partner, BioNTech) and the first FDA-authorised oral treatment for Covid-19,' Albert Boula said earlier this year.
'These successes have not only made a positive difference in the world, but I believe they have fundamentally changed Pfizer and its culture for ever.'
And yet the company has been criticised for keeping a tight grip on the recipe for its Covid vaccines and not supplying them at reduced cost to developing countries.
'Pfizer is now richer than most countries; it has made more than enough money from this crisis. It's time to suspend intellectual property and break vaccine monopolies,' Tim Bierley, from Global Justice Now told The Guardian last month.
Dr Coatsworth said Covid vaccines weren't the only ones that the pharma giant could provide to needy nations.
'[Pfizer's CEO] has on two occasions talked about how we need a fourth dose, the CEO of Moderna has done it as well... You don't listen to the person who's responsible for shareholder profits if they tell you to take a drug,' Dr Coatsworth said.
He said given Pfizer's massive revenue it could be a 'good corporate citizen' and subsidised its vaccines for low income countries.
'They don't do that and haven't done it for 20 years... It would be a simple and effective action... Pneumococcal disease is a bigger problem than Covid,' he said.
Pneumococcal disease is caused by any infection from Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which can cause pneumonia, meningitis, and blood infection.
The World Health Organization estimates 300,000 children under five die from the infection each year - mostly in poor countries - despite a vaccine being developed 20 years ago.
Dr Coatsworth said Pfizer could easily save lives by using some of its Covid profits to subsidise the vaccine for this disease in those countries - where its cost of up to $21 a dose can make it unaffordable.
Competitor Moderna said on Monday it would set up a manufacturing facility in Kenya, its first in Africa, to produce messenger mRNA vaccines.
The company said it expects to invest about $500million in the Kenyan facility and supply as many as 500 million doses to the continent each year.
Moderna's COVID vaccine brought in $17.7 billion in sales in 2021 and has been cleared for use in over 70 countries.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Another nation has suspended their covid vaccine mandate!
While the Biden regime is still on track with its authoritarian mandates. More and more countries around the world are beginning to ease or suspend the COVID-19 related mandates.
On Wednesday, the Austrian government announced that it will suspend its mandate for all adults to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
This is after new findings were published that the vaccines were not effective against the Omicron variant. Health Minister Johannes Rauch said the decision would be reviewed again in three months and could be reintroduced if a new variant made it necessary.
It was last month when this authoritarian legislation was introduced to the public and become in early February. Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen imposed new Covid restrictions that require all adults in the country to be fully vaccinated and boosted or risk being fined.
The said law will go into effect beginning March 15th which was initially planned to run through January 31st, 2024.
However, everything changed on Wednesday, Karoline Edtstadtler, Austria’s constitutional minister said, “we will suspend the vaccination mandate, in accordance with proportionality.”
http://2020conservative.com/another-nation-has-suspended-their-covid-vaccine-mandate/
***************************************************While masks are off everywhere else, biden is forcing airplanes to keep them on!
The Biden regime will extend the federal mask mandate for all transportation networks through April 18, one month after it is set to expire.
Now, Joe Biden and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) faced criticism on Thursday for extending a mask mandate on public transpiration as COVID-19 cases continue to decline.
Florida Republican Representative Carlos A. Gimenez wrote on Twitter:
“What’s the science behind the FAA extending the mask mandate on planes? Biden keeps pushing the deadline over and over and over again. States and local communities have been rolling back these useless mandates for months. It’s time Biden do the same.”
More details of this report from CNN:
The Transportation Security Administration is set to extend the federal public transportation mask mandate for another 30 days, an administration official told CNN, pointing to guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The mandate is one of the last remaining broad requirements that Americans wear masks in public places. It applies to mass transportation including planes, trains, buses and hubs like airports.
The official’s comments came after CNN reported that federal officials began notifying stakeholders in the airline industry of the upcoming announcement. Three sources, including two industry officials and a government official, described the conversations to CNN on the condition of anonymity.
The requirement, which now extends to April 18, was previously set to expire a week from Friday, and the policy will be reviewed over the next month, the official said.
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The BA.2 subvariant of Ómicron advances in the world
When it was identified, it was described as silent, but experts say that the concept is outdated. Concern over the spike in COVID cases in Asia and Europe
March 15, 2022
The increase in COVID-19 cases caused worldwide by the Ómicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is decreasing, but researchers are keeping an eye on the highly transmissible subvariant known as BA.2.
And while the experts' consensus agrees that it does not seem to have the capacity to drive a large new wave of infections, the variant could potentially slow down the current decline in cases and make treatment more difficult.
In fact, as many countries relax their prevention measures against the disease based on the decline in cases, many believe that this can make it easier for BA.2 to drive a further increase in infections. A March 10 report by British researchers suggests that this may be happening in areas where a rise in new infections is beginning to be reported.
Simultaneously, records from several European countries and China show that infections of COVID-19 escalated again to become a new wave of concern to health authorities.
At first, BA.1 was a thousand times more common than BA.2, since the beginning of 2022, BA.2 began to be found in a greater proportion of new infections (Reuters)
The Ómicron variant and its BA-2 subvariant are responsible for mass contagion. For example, between March 2 and 10, daily coronavirus infections in Germany rose by 19%, in Italy by 17.7% and in Austria by 25.3%. The numbers have grown so much in Germany that they motivated that the country's Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, to openly describe the situation as “critical”.
The Ómicron variant was discovered in November, and it quickly became clear that the viral lineage already existed as three genetically distinct varieties. Each branch of Omicron had its own set of unique mutations. At that time, the most common was BA.1, which spread rapidly around the world. BA.1 was almost entirely responsible for the record increase in cases this winter.
And while BA.1 was initially a thousand times more common than BA.2, since the beginning of 2022, BA.2 began to be found in a greater proportion of new infections, according to The New York Times.
The increase in COVID-19 cases caused worldwide by the Ómicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is decreasing, but researchers are keeping an eye on the highly transmissible subvariant known as BA.2 (3d render)
What is known so far
All versions of Ómicron are highly contagious, so the variant quickly displaced previous forms of the coronavirus, such as Delta. But several studies found that BA.2 is even more transmissible than BA.1.
In Denmark, for example, scientists examined the spread of both subvariants in households, and found that people infected with BA.2 were much more likely to infect people with whom they shared a house than those with BA.1. In England, researchers found that, on average, it took less time for someone with BA.2 to infect another person, which accelerated its spread in communities.
By the beginning of 2022, BA.2 was becoming more common in several countries. By February, it had become dominant worldwide, displacing the once-dominant BA.1. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that BA.2 jumped to 11% in early March from 1% in early February, indicating that it could soon become dominant in this country as well.
But that doesn't mean that Americans are at risk of a new wave of BA.2 that is infecting a lot of new people. As BA.2 became more common in the United States, the total number of new cases fell by approximately 95%. Worldwide, the number of new daily cases had dropped by half what it was at its peak at the end of January.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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