When I launched this thread last May, Delta was just beginning to explore and infiltrate our communities. The vaccination rates were still climbing and many people–myself included–hoped we were out of the woods. But then the new case rate and the mortality rates climbed while the vaccination rates reached a plateau. Now, some epidemiologists are predicting another year or two of the pandemic.
Note that I use the term “epidemiologist” and not “radiologist” or “opthamologist.” Doctors such as radiologists and opthamologists are specialists, too, in their own areas, but they do not have any formal training or experience combatting viruses such as the SARS virus. They have likely never worked in the area of public health. The many variants of this CoV-2 virus that have emerged are daunting enough for the specialists to figure out without talk from quacks who may not have practiced in years.
Current updates SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) News Thread
The light at the end of the tunnel is the next wave
December 30, 2022
I had hoped last summer that we were slowly wrapping up the pandemic. Last June while in Oahu, I contracted Omicron, but fortunately, I had both shots and both boosters. So, I had mild to moderate upper respiratory symptoms and a low grade temp for a few days. On the first day of the infection, my PCP phoned in Paxlovid and by the end of the week, I tested negative. A few months later, I had a third updated booster, so I’m fairly confident I’ll get through, though I wear a mask in public for my family’s sake as much as for mine.
As of today (December 30, 2022), the WHO notes only one variant of concern (VOC) which is Omicron B.1.1.529, and no variants of interest (VOI) on the horizon. In the U.S., the dominant strain is XBB.1.5. In theory, that should be good news. However, earlier this month the most populated country in the world (China, where COVID began) lifted travel restrictions on its citizens, and many citizens of China wasted no time “getting the heck out of Dodge.” For the past year. many cities in China (e.g., Chengdu, Shanghai, and Shenzhen) went through periods of aggressive lockdown which led to drops in economic output and increase in civil unrest. This was the consequence of China’s “Zero COVID tolerance” program. But keeping people (both healthy people and those sick with COVID) in lockdown creates a reservoir in which the virus can mutate. Nor has China been particularly forthcoming with information during this pandemic. So now, other countries must carefully screen arriving passengers from China so as to protect their own citizens. China can browse open source data published by Western scientists, but keeps its own research very close to its vest. “The WHO’s director general said he was ‘very concerned over the evolving situation in China, with increasing reports of severe disease.'” It’s possible that the cases are rising faster than the Chinese government can deal with them. It is also possible that a new, more deadly variant has already emerged in that country. If China has any information to share with the world, now is the time to do so.
“The WHO’s director general said he was ‘very concerned over the evolving situation iin China, with increasing reports of severe disease.'”
www.bbc.com/news/59461861
In nature, Darwin tells us that only the fit survive. The old, the sick, the enfeebled, those that cannot adapt are selected for extermination when a plague hits. For those fortunate few that do survive, then Nietzsche says it best (“That which does not kill me makes me stronger.”) There has been at least one prominent politician in the U.S. (who has since contracted COVID himself) who actually advocated self-selection for the sake of economic policy, where senior citizens deliberately place themselves at risk. But who among us wants their grandfather or granddaughter to die as a matter of economic policy or prosperity? Nor does this overly-simplistic application of natural selection address issues such as long-term COVID?
So, I predict that a year from now (December 2023) we’ll be back to December 2020 in some ways. Right now, an average of 355 people in the U.S. are dying daily, so for thousands of people, this was their last Christmas. A total of about 225,000 Americans have died this year of COVID, and 6.69 million people have died around the world since the pandemic began. Next December, some people (like me) will still be wearing masks, but more people than ever will not, as a weariness, hopelessness and cynicism sets in, which is exctly what the virus would want in order to proliferate (at the expense of humanity.)
Wave of infections wash over North Korea
May 14, 2022
Citing North Korean sources, the BBC reports there are “half a million” cases of people with “unexplained fever” in North Korea, and some citizens are dying. There is no way to tell for certain that this is COVID, because the North Korean authorities do not have sufficient test kits. Nor do they have vaccines, having rejected previous offers of AstroZeneca earlier in the pandemic. Virtually, the entire North Korean population of 26 million people is at risk given the state of under-nourishment of the population and poor health care facilities (by Western standards.) Add to this the lack of immunity and you have the recipe for a “great disaster” as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un calls the pandemic.
“The spread of the malignant epidemic is [the greatest] turmoil to fall on our country since the founding.”
KCNA, BBC news
North Korean newspapers such as the Rodong Sinmun “suggested treating COVID-19 symptoms by ‘rinsing your mouth with salt water,’ ‘eating and drinking dairy products,’ taking antibiotics and ‘interferon α-2b’ anti-viral treatment.” Also recommened for milder cases: “Ingesting 3-5 grams of honeysuckle flowers and willow tree leaves after soaking them in water, and ‘angunguhwanghwan,’ a North Korean traditional medicine that has been taken off the market by Vietnamese authorities for containing dangerous levels of mercury and lead.” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for “rigorous enforcement of regional lockdowns and quarantine.”
The secretive kingdom is not likely to ask for help or admit culpability in the crisis. Nor can we expect reliable statistics from the isolated country.
New variants have been reported emerging in South Africa, but currently the World Health Organization (WHO) lists only Delta and Omicron as variants of concern (VOC.)
AT LEAST
COVID DEATHS IN THE U.S. THUS FAR
May 4, 2022
COVID deaths in U.S. becoming more prevalent in elderly, vaccinated or not
May 2, 2022
I had hoped that COVID might quietly slip away with the exception of what we see in China. Those drastic measures (such as in Shanghai) are because the goveernment hopes to reach a point of zero new cases, something highly unlikely with this virus.
In the U.S. and according to an article in the Washington Post today, COVID deaths in the 75 and older age group have surpassed those in the 50-74 year old group. Of course, you can “massage” the data to fit a pre-conceived assumption–or conclusion–based on how you define the cohort (what if the two categories were 50-65 and 66 or older, for example?). But the point the author makes is a valid one: As people age, their immunity wanes. Vaccines and boosters help, but it is not uncommon for the efficacy of a vaccine or booster to wear off sooner than later in the elderly even as the virus continues to mutate. Then, too, seniors tend to have more underlying health issues as well.
April 3, 2022
Almost exactly a year ago it seemed like we’d seen the worst of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and then it came roaring back in the U.S. with the Delta and Omicron variants. Now, once again, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are dropping in the U.S. (though not elsewhere in the world.) Nor are there any new Variants of Concern (VOC) on the WHO’s website. Once again, I’d like to risk a pause in this post.
“Taking all this together, we expect SARS-CoV-2 will continue to cause new epidemics, but they will increasingly be driven by the ability to skirt the immune system. In this sense, the future may look something like the seasonal flu, where new variants cause waves of cases each year. If this happens, which we expect it will, vaccines may need to be updated regularly similar to the flu vaccines unless we develop broader variant-proof vaccines.”
We haven’t heard the last of COVID by any means, because it will continue to evolve and mutate. However, are we go on, the virus is running into some hard realities for the future
In an essay published by the New York Times last week (We Study Virus Evolution. Here’s Where We Think the Coronavirus Is Going), virologists Sarah Cobey, Jesse Bloom, Tyler Starr peek into the future of this virus based on science and what we know.
They examine the R0 factor (the ability of a virus to spread from person to person.) Omicron was more transmissable than Delta, and Delta was more transmissable than Beta. But they point out that there are limits here. According to Pharmatimes, “The basic reproduction number (R0) for BA. 1 is about 8.2, making R0 for BA. 2 about 12 . . .” That means a person with the BA.2 variant of Omicron can hypothetically spread the virus to a dozen other people. Measles is still more infectious with a R0 factor of 18. But you likely won’t see over time an R0 value of 63, or 157. Cobey, Bloom et al. use the example of a cheetah, perhaps the fastest land animal on the planet. Cheetahs can run 60 MPH, but they won’t continue to evolve significantly in terms of speed. There will never be a cheetah that breaks the sound barrier. Yet, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can improve in it’s ability to evade or escape our immunity which is achieved on having acquired–and survived–previous versions of the COVID disease, or from receiving vaccines and booster, which we haven’t heard the end of by any means.
The authors of the Times article conclude “Taking all this together, we expect SARS-CoV-2 will continue to cause new epidemics, but they will increasingly be driven by the ability to skirt the immune system. In this sense, the future may look something like the seasonal flu, where new variants cause waves of cases each year. If this happens, which we expect it will, vaccines may need to be updated regularly similar to the flu vaccines unless we develop broader variant-proof vaccines.
My parting words (for the moment) as a Christian who is not a physician is for everyone who has not been vaccinated or boosted to check with their doctor (i.e., their primary care physician, pediatrician, oncologist, immunologist or cardiologist) to see if vaccination is recommended. Unless a person has some health-related issue, I’m fairly certain their physician will encourage them to be vaccinated. But there may be valid exceptions there as well.
p.s. I received my second boster yesterday. It is God who ultimately preserves me according to His will. But this same God has provided us with a vaccine. Why would I tempt God to heal me?
After a relatively peaceful six weeks, cases tick upwards again thanks to BA.2
March 25, 2022
With more than 975,000 deaths in the U.S. to date from COVID, the BA.2 variant started to spread rapidly and is crowding out the previous Omicron variant and the remains of the Delta variant. Milder than the previous iterations but easier to spread, cases are again begining to rise just as mask mandates have ended in many parts of the country. A number of states no longer report or track their new cases which doesn’t make it any easier.
Is the end of the pandemic near?
February 10, 2022
Not with 2,400 deaths a day from COVID you might say (914,000 deaths in the U.S. alone from the virus), but deaths always follow hospitalizations and hospitalizations lag behind actual cases, both of which have been falling. Meanwhile, there are no other SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern “out there” in nature and it appears that the deadly delta virus has little place to go between people who have been vaccinated and those who acquired some degree of immunity the hard way. Even the “blue states” are relaxing their mask mandates.
The situation is becoming difficult to monitor, at least from a contact tracing perspective. More and more people are testing at home, and I for one have very little confidence in the test kits sent out by the government, because they are so temperature sensitive. It’s been well below freezing for almost six weeks where I live, and an hour, or ten hours in the mail box would make the kit worthless.
First entry for 2022
Riding the surge, hospitals in crisis, ICU’s filling rapidly, ped admissions up, deaths approximate 2k/qd.
Like a tsunami overflowing a beach, the Omicron illness sets record highs almost every single day in most states. Tuesday is higher than Monday, Wednesday higher than Tuesday, etc. ICU’s are close to 90% full in most hard hit areas. Fox people who have been vaxxed, the illness from Omicron is generally mild to moderate, unless there are complicating factors. However, aggregate data indicate that there are more seriously ill patients (i.e., people in ICU’s) who are unvaxxed, than vaxxed, and therefore deaths are higher in that cohort. HIPAA restrictions sometimes prohibit knowing exactly which mortality was or was not vaccinated, but the overall consensus among medical professionals is that it is better to be vaccinated than not.
Another point is that pediatric admissions are rising as well, more so than in the past.
The daily death rate from COVID (Mondays-Fridays) approximates two thousand people per day. It is much lower on weekends, because many states do not report on those days.
A good q & a on the current status on Onicron can be found here.
Last entry for 2021. Hope on the horizon!
December 31, 2021
Tomorrow is New Years Day, and even as Omicron washes over the country like a tidal wave (only five weeks or so from the first case in the world was reported), there is good news. One item of good news is that it seems to be relatively mild, particularly to those who have been vaxxed. More importantly, there are currently no new variants of interest (VOI) or variants of concern (VOC) that the WHO is monitoring. Now that Delta is being crowded out, perhaps the pandemic will end before long? Please remember all who have been stricken or who have died from this plague. Please get vaxxed if you are not and your physician concurs and please wear masks around other people. You may feel invincible or immune, but your family, friends and neighbors are not.
Here is an excellent article in “Scientific American” that explains why some viruses or variants (like Omicron) spread like wildfire.
Happy New Year everyone!
Infections spiraling out of contro, CDC stuns medical practitioners with revised Q policy suggesting that public policy is winning out over science
December 3, 2021
Over 380,000 new cases of COVID (mostly of the Omicron variant) were reported yesterday in the U.S. alone. This is in addition to 1,207 deaths. Yesterdays case count was a daily record in the U.S. since the pandemic began, and it was not a surprize. What was a surprize was a change in the CDC’s policy that reduced the quarantine time. Since the pandemic began, the length of the quarantine has been reduced from fourteen days, to ten days, to seven days and now to five days assuming the person is asymptomatic. Two factors seem to have influenced the CDC to further reduce the quarantine time. The first factor is the relatively mild illness associated with Omicron, plus secondary variables such as the vaccination rate. The second factor is economic and perhaps political as well, since a more rigorous Q period might shut down airlines, cruise ships and other businesses. The political element (first seen during the Trump administration) deals with the President’s lagging opinion poll numbers and the public’s demand (perhaps unreasonable) that the administration end this ordeal. While many health care workers are, by this point, shaking their heads as they anticipate even more cases because of this reduced Q policy, some policymakers (and of course, many antivaxxers) are advocating that we press on with business as usual, opening restaurants, schools, etc. letting the chips fly as they may, since a zero tolerance policy as China is seeking will not succeed in this country. People in quarantine are those who have had close contact with an infected person. Isolated persons are those who actually have the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At least 821,302 Americans have died of the virus since the pandemic began.
Country feels the blast from Omicron, Trump urges people get vaccinated. Signs of exodus of health care workers?
December 24, 2021
Omicron is now in all fifty states. A daily death rate again approaches 2,000 (3.287 on December 23 alone accouding to The NY Times), and hundreds of holiday passengers risk being stranded as flights are cut back and test kits are in short supply. While many other travelers are sick, combative, or frustrated, former President Donald J. Trump is once again promoting the vaccines which were developed under his presidency, something we should all be thankful for. In an interview with Candace Owens on “The Wire,” as reported by The Hill, Trump said:
Technically, and true to form, not everything Trump said was accurate A few of the many vaccinated people in ICU’s do have serious breakthrough infections. And, if you take the vaccine, you are then not “protected” from getting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but rather immunized again serious outcomes (including death) in most cases. But again, there are caveats. It’s essentially a matter of odds. The odds of a fully vaccinated person winding up in an ICU with COVID is very low. The odds of a person who chose not to get vaccinated, but who then gets seriously ill with COVID and who winds up in an ICU is fairly high.
As one might surmize based on the boo’s Trump received recently at an event where he told the audience that he has been vaccinated, this message is too little and too late. The last year of Mr. Trump’s presidency was one of promoting unproven, fantastic, or quack cures ranging from “do nothing” to “do anything.” And that behavior has firmly taken root in the minds of many people.
“‘The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine. But it’s still their choice. And if you take the vaccine, you’re protected,’ Trump told [Candace] Owens.
DONALD J TRUMP AS QUOTED IN “THE HILL”
‘Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it’s a very minor form,’ Trump continued. ‘People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.’”
Meanwhile, the gallant health care workers are finding their lives forever changed as they struggle from day-to-day with patients who believe that some anonymous poster on social media knows more about how to treat COVID that the doctors do. We might as well be reading tea-leaves or looking for bird-signs. We may see serious consequences long after the pandemic, according to the American Medical Assoication which reports in that “1 in 5 physicians and 2 in 5 nurses intend to leave their current practice within 2 years.”
At this point, I cannot locate any other emerging variants of concern (VOC) on the horizon.
Omicron in almost every state, accounts for most SARS infections
December 21, 2021
The Omicron variant is in almost every state now as hospitals continue to be stressed, even with the assistance of the National Guard. While many fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections are visiting emergency rooms, most of the patients in ICU’s and of those who succumbed to the virus appear to be unvaccinated. Even former President Trump is encouraging his supporters to get vaccinated.
Now that Omicron is crowding out Delta and Delta Plus, what next. For a good discussion, see the recent Atlantic article here. Also from The Atlantic, “What to do when you get an Omicron breakthrough infection,” found here
Omicron sweeps the country
December 11, 2021
Twenty-two states have Omicron cases, and the anecdotal evidence suggests that vaccinated people are being stricken more sothan others. This may very well be because vaccinated people are in the majority in thiscountry (69-70%.) Fortunately, the impact of the disease is mild to moderate. But Omicron has yet to crowd out Delta.
An excellent article on Omicron and Delta can be found here.
Waiting for Omicron
December 1, 2021
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel came out yesterday and warned that their vaccination may not be effective against Omicron. Pfizer’s CEO was more optimistic, however. And then there is the Merck pill which, if approved by the FDA, would be taken like Tamiflu. Omicron is presumed to have arrived in the U.S., but as of yesterday, no cases have been reported or confirmed. Scientists and epidemiologists have taken a “wait and see” approach to Omicron since there is very little data on the signs and symptoms and prognoses of people stricken with the strain.
Very interesting dynamic simulation of SARS-CoV-2 can befound here.
Republican Senators such as Tom Cotton, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz continue to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci, with Cotton and Paul pointing out that he is nothing more than a “bureaucrat” or, in the case of Cruz, an “unelected technocrat.” (Republicans have shown over the years to have less appreciation than Democrats for dedicated, career civil servants, whether these employees work in the postal service, in public education, regulatory agencies, or other federal and state departments. My generalization can be borne out if you search and compare the respective party plaforms for the two parties over the past fifty years, bearing in mind that the GOP’s platform no longer has the relevance or ideological principles it once had.
Why global vax rates are so low
November 27, 2021
With a new strain of COVID spreading rapidly around the world, third and fourth world countries are again criticizing why the West has such high vaccination rates when they cannot get enough vaccine to even begin a credible vaccination program in their own countries. It should be understandable (though perhaps not fair) that the vaccines were developed only with large capital infusion (tens of billions of $US) from the developed countries. In return, these investor countries were prioritized when it came to receiving their share of the vaccine. Without this capital investment, there might be any vaccine today for anyone. Axios reports that a lack of the vaccine, itself, is not the only problem. There are a number of additional hurtles, or challenges in distribution.
- “The challenges range from shortages of supplies like syringes or health care workers to utilize them, issues with the “cold chain” needed to transport and store Pfizer and Moderna doses, vaccine hesitancy, or inadequate logistical planning.
- In countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 0.1% of the population has had the first dose, it can be all of the above.
- Deliveries can also be unpredictable or arrive with little time before doses are set to expire. Among the 92 lower-income countries being supported by COVAX, half have used less than 75% of the doses they’ve received, according to an analysis from the COVID Global Accountability Platform.”
Having fifty million doses of a vaccine for a country of fifty million people is not necessarily a good thing if that vaccine sits in a warehouse in that country until it expires, or it spoils for lack or refrigeration, or there are no sryinges because of supply chain issues which impact even the U.S., or there are not enough health care workers who, in some coutries, are targeted by terrorists or militias, or people do not get the word that they need to receive a vaccine and to report to a certain place and time to receive it. Perhaps warloads seize the vaccine to extort the central government for money it does not have? Then, six weeks later, repeat this for a second dose. The logistics seem unsurmountable.
World, meet Omicron
November 26, 2021
A new strain of the Coronavirus classified as B.1.1.529 and dubbed “Omicron” has gotten the attention of epidemiologists, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Dow Jones which dropped 900 points by late Friday afternoon. Originating quite possibly a person with untreated HIV in Botswana or South Africa, the virus has quickly spread to Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong as well.
The WHO quickly classified the Omicron virus as a “VOC” or variant of concern and while little is known about it, Omicron has evolved well beyond the other know variants to justify concern that the current vaccines may not be able to defend against it. At least one victim was fully immunized with the Pfizer vaccine.
Warnings of fifth COVID-19 wave underway
November 15, 2021
With “vaxxers” rushing to get their boosters, 900,000 children ages 5-11 who have gotten their first dose, and “anti-vaxxers” remaining as intransigent as ever, it looks like the cold weather is ushering in a new wave of cases as daily deaths are once again more than 1,000 per day. States currently with the highest increases in the number of cases include Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and California. In addition, numerous EU countries seemed poised to impose lockdown protocols once again. And while the MU variant in now classified as a VOI (Variant of Interest), the infections are coming from delta and delta plus.
COVID deaths in U.S. pass three quarters of a million (754,000) as new surge on horizon eyed.
November 10, 2021
The Washington Post reported today that COVID deaths in the U.S. have now passed 754,000.
According to a press release from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a major public health institution in the fight against COVID, there are worrisome signs on the horizon. Epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo who works with Johns Hopkins noted as follows, in a recent briefing:
Through September and October, cases declined week over week but then plateaued just in the last two weeks—and the baseline remains higher than it was back in the summer.
“That’s worrisome for two reasons,” Nuzzo says, “One, because we like to see the declines continue, but also because where we’re stalling is at a level of weekly case numbers that are still well above what we saw at the lower periods at the end of June and early July.” Nuzzo also says that while hospitalizations and deaths aren’t increasing, that’s because these numbers tend to be “lagging indicators” that may tick up in the weeks to come.
Overall, “there are some early signs that we’re headed in the wrong direction,” says Nuzzo, and the most immediate fix is to increase initial vaccinations. “We seem to be doing a lot more third doses than first and second doses,” she notes.
Johns Hopkins CRC
It appears obvious (at least to me) that there are three “camps” in the U.S. (1) Those who trust epidemiologists, ER doctors and the overwhelming number of physicians (excluding for this example some homeopaths and chiropractors) and people in this first group got their vaccines and booster shots as soon as they became available; (2) those who mistrust government, “Big Pharma” or conventional medical thought and refuse to get immunized, citing their civil liberties, concern for fetuses, or belief in some conspiracy theory such as 5G technology or vaccines containing Luciferase, and (3) those Americans who are undecided and put off vaccination (sometimes until it is too late to help them.) Also in this third group are adults who might be vaccinated themselves, but have not vaccinated their children. This last reason may be a fair concern if this family promotes good infection control procedures with their children, including masks as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and/or local health departments. In this last group are people who may feel the vaccines have been rushed out, that they are not truly certifiably “safe” and so on. I suspect that those in the second “camp” also refuse to wear masks, but I’ve seen no data to support that assertion.
I also suspect that any future developments with the Virus (another “wave” worse than any before, a gradual or abrupt decline in cases ending the pandemic, and so on) will be viewed and interpreted by these polar groups through their own unique lenses. Thus, the public opinion as it relates to the response to COVID seems to be part of the greater “Culture War” we see in the U.S. at the moment.
Pfizer approved for children ages five thru eleven, U,S, COVID deaths approach 750,000 (748,932 according the NBC News but 742,000 in Washington Post), Mu upgraded to Variant of Interest status, mass firings of public workers who refused inocculations, personal testimony on Moderna booster.
October 31, 2021
The FDA on Friday gave Pfizer Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine on children ages five through eleven. There are still a few procedural steps to go. Meanwhile, in the U.S. COVID cases (currently 45,944,148 including pop singer Jon Bon Jovi) and COVID deaths continue to continue to climb albeit at a slower pace than earlier this year. However, winter is fast approaching and it is predicted that COVID will once again thrive, but to what extent? There is a wide disparity in the number of deaths reported by equally reliable sites. Part of this deals with how, when and if states are reporting data to Washington. In cases like this, it is best to avoid the outlier numbers (lowest or highest) and settle for an average of the two.
The WHO has upgraded the Mu variant, also known as Delta Plus, to VOI status. The WHO defines a Variant of Interest as a virus
“with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; and identified to cause significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries, with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.”
U.S. cities such as New York and Chicago are terminating noncompliant public workers, specifically police and fire, sanitation, teachers, and health care workers who refuse COVID immunizations. Twenty-six companies of the FDNY have been shuttered so far. These terminated workers in many cases will not be eligible for unemployment. A similar case in Maine had reached the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled in favor of the mandate after the case arrived as an emergency appeal to the high courts docket.
Personal testimony: As someone who is 72 and in reasonably good health, I elected to take the Moderna booster last Wednesday around 4:00 p.m. Both of my previous shots were also Moderna. The next morning I felt a bit unwell (beyond the pain and swelling at the injection site.). By late that afternoon I felt terrible; gastritis, terrible headache, arms, fingers, hips all ached, eyes burned, etc. Fell asleep at 5:00 p.m. and slept with minor interruptsions until 9:00 a.m. the next morning. Felt sicker than I had in years. However, I was thankful to have the shot, understanding that the if this was just a minor immune response, contracting the live Virus otherwise would have hit me like a train.
Moderna, J&J approved for boosters, U.S. deaths at all time high, “delta plus” variant in England emerges
October 24,2001
The FDA and the CDC have approved (1) booster shots for Moderna and J&J and (2) “mix and match” combinations. Currently, more than 733,000 Americans have died from COVID or COVID related complications. Delta plus (AY.4.2) appears to be more transmissible according to studies in England, but there is as yet no information on whether it causes worse illness for patients. However, the WHO has not yet classified AY.4.2 as a Virus of Interest, yet alone a Virus of Concern. A small number of delta plus cases are also present in the U.S.
Cases continue to drop, supply chain disruptions get worse
October 13, 2021
According to the Wasington Post, new cases of COVID in the U.S. are down 12% while COVID-related deaths in the U.S. are down 7% at 716,000 (though Dr. Fauci believes the actuall COVID related death count for the entire pandemic is higher than that.)
Meanwhile, supply chain disruptions are getting worse and the SARS-CoV-2 virus is primarily to blame. See discusson on my blog here.
The Washington Post has an interesting series of simulations showing dynamically how endemics end.
COVID case numbers drop steadile, but deaths are still high. Good news from Merck?
October 7, 2021
The Washington Post reports the death toll from yesterday due to COVID was 2,233, bringing the U.S. total to 706,364.
According to Medpage, “Merck said its investigational oral drug for COVID-19, molnupiravir, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 50% in a phase III trial of outpatients with mild to moderate disease.” The thought of treating the SARS-CoV-2 virus with a oral medication similar to Tamiflu is very appealing (and convenient) to Americans, according to first impressions.
Life is reported as almost back to normal in Italy, at least for those Italians who have the necessary Green Pass to move freely in public. “Vaccination or frequent testing” is required to be eligible for the pass.
Death count from COVID in U.S. passes 700,000.
October 3, 2021
The death count in the U.S. from COVID has passed 700,000 people and now stands at 700,932 according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The good news is that except for several “hot spots” in the country, the infection rate has been slowly dropping the past few weeks. Assuming no additional variants of concern appear or break out, this coming Spring may be quite different than the past two Spring seasons.
New York State terminating employees in select fields who refuse to be immunized from COVID.
September 30, 2021
New York State began terminating noncompliant employees in the Health Care industry, threatening to mobilize the National Guard to fill any gaps. The administration has also mentioned that fired employees may not be eligible for unemployment benefits in most cases.
COVID deaths reveal an increasing partisan element with a greater percent of dyingpatients in “Red states” than in “Blue.”
September 30, 2021
The New York Times recently published a story with a series of charts showing the partisan effect of COVID. The chart shows the death rate per 100,000 cases is states that went for Biden in 2020 and those that went for Trump. The chart, and the data speak for themselves.
Credit: NY Times (Red Covid) Published Sept. 27, 2021
R. 1 variant receiving increased attention
September 25, 2021
The R.1 variant is getting increased attention as this week ends. Newspapers and television news across the country are mentioning it.
R.1 emerged last spring at a nursing home in Kentucky, where one in four vaccinated residents and staff were infected, and one died. R.1 appears to have the ability to “overpower” acquired antibodies in a person, as well as to make more copies of itself. R.1 is getting attention because of the many mutations in this particuar variant, which does not necessarily suggest that it is more lethal. At the moment, R.1 is being “crowded out” by delta which limits its ability to infect people in the general population in large numbers, though it is still crossing the country. One of my favorite researchers and journalists, William Haseltine (@WmHaseltine) goes into greater detail in a story in this week’s Forbes magazine. Unlike his other stories in Forbes and elsewhere, this article is a bit technical. The best precautions for your personal safety and that of your familiy is to follow CDC guidance, including wearing masks when required, and getting vaccinated if your doctor advises that you do so.
More than 685,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 as of midnight last evening. Almost 43,000,000 cases have been reported (ibid) as of the same time period.
FDA approves Pfizer booster for seniors, Americans with underlying co-morbidities
September 24, 2021
The FDA approved use of a Pfizer booster for seniors and Americans with immunodeficiencies, positive HIV status status-post organ transplants and (for) several other select health issues.
Florida has adapted some additional and concerning health policies in contradiction to CDC/Public Health guidelines. Now, parents are given the discretion to decide whether their asymptomatic children who have been in contact with a COVID-19 positive person need to quarantine or not. The concern is that parents will keep their exposed children in school until they develop COVID-typical symptoms (or not) while these contacts potentially infect other children, teachers, bus drivers, and staff.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s daily CV-19 death toll in the U.S. was 3,236 with a total of 683,198 dead since February 29, 2020, according to The Washington Post.
Deadly milestone reached today
September 15, 2021
One in every five hundred Americans has died from COVID-19 as of today.
POTUS announces sweeping and mandated measures to deal with unvaccinated
September 10, 2021
As the number of C-19 dead in this country (656,000) exceed the number of Americans killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan put together, President Biden came up with the following plan:
- Requiring All Employers with 100+ Employees to Ensure their Workers are Vaccinated or Tested Weekly
- Requiring Vaccinations for all Federal Workers and for Millions of Contractors that Do Business with the Federal Government
- Requiring COVID-19 Vaccinations for Over 17 Million Health Care Workers at Medicare and Medicaid Participating Hospitals and Other Health Care Settings
- Calling on Large Entertainment Venues to Require Proof of Vaccination or Testing for Entry
- Requiring Employers to Provide Paid Time Off to Get Vaccinated
The goal is to give the SARS-CoV-2 virus no (unvaccinated) person to infect and mutate into a more deadly variant and to free the overwhelmed health care system. At the moment, vaccinated patients with other issues such as the need for immediate heart surgery, cancer surgery, general surgery, car accident victims, etc. must compete with unvaccinated patients with COVID for ventilators and ICU beds. If the overwhelming majority of Americans were fully vaccinated, this would not happen assuming the prevailing variant is no worse than delta. True, vaccinated Americans are still being hospitalized, but the demand for ventilators among otherwise healthy vaccinated SARS-CoV-2 patients is not that great vis-à-vis unvaccinated SARS-CoV-2 patients.
Republican candidates, officals call for lawsuits, civil disobedience
GOP candidates and politicians have pronounced Biden’s measures an unconstitutional abuse of power, but there are two U.S. Supreme Court cases which seem to empower POTUS to do exactly as he promised. One is Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) and the other Zucht v. King (1922.). In Jacobson, the Court allowed for mandated smallpox vaccinations, using the police power of the states. In Zucht the Court essentially restated what they had ruled in Jacobson.
Breakthrough infections and overwhelmed Idaho starts to ration health care.
September 8, 2021
A story in CNN today on breakthrough infections reported that the majority of COVID infections in fully vaccinated adults occurred in older individuals. The article noted:
“As of August 30, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of 12,908 severe breakthrough cases of Covid-19 among fully vaccinated people that resulted in hospitalization or death. For the more than 173 million people who were fully vaccinated by that date, that represents a less than a 1 in 13,000 chance of experiencing a severe breakthrough case of Covid-19. About 70% of breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization were among adults 65 and older and about 87% of breakthrough cases resulting in death were among adults 65 and older, the CDC data suggests.”
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/08/health/severe-breakthrough-cases-cdc-studies/index.html
The story from Idaho covered by NPR says that some regions of the state will start quantifying each patient admitted (for COVID or otherwise) and, based on their expected longevity were they to recover, will be ranked and prioritized as far as who gets intensive nursing care, who gets access to a ventilator and so on. Does this mean (hypothetically speaking), a middle age male in ICU who refused to get vaccinated would receive a ventilator if needed while an older, fully vaccinated male (or female) might not if only one machine is available?
*** COVID-19 vaccines and fetal stem cells ***
September 4, 2021
I’m aware that some Christians might be reticent to get vaccinated because of the use of human fetal stem cells from aborted fetuses in producing these vaccinations. I am providing information from pro-life denominations and groups that address these concerns.
“Most COVID-19 Vaccines Do Not Use Fetal Cells for Production; Several Used Abortion-Derived Cell Lines in Testing; Experts Urge All Vaccine Developers to Use Noncontroversial Alternatives.”
SUSAN B. ANTHONY LIST
Hyperlinked below are policy statements or press releases on the ethics of taking the vaccines.
From the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod
From the National Association of Evangelicals
From the Roman Catholic Church
From the Southern Baptist Press
World Health Organization designates Mu variant as a variant of interest.
September 2, 2021
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated the Mu variant as a “variant of interest,” one step below the “variant of concern” classification that the delta mutation now enjoys. Little is known about Mu at the moment, but what is alarming is the sheer number of mutations to this variant, and the complexity of these mutations in Mu which “may” render current vaccines ineffective. Currently, it is circulating in the U.S. in small numbers, but given the intransigence of many Americans to follow CDC guidlines concerning COVID-19 (or at least the recommendations of their family physicians), there is little reason to think that it will not eventually spread as the Delta variant has.
North Carolina releases COVID-19 mortality data (i.e., death rates) among vaccinated and nonvaccinated state residents.
September 1, 2021
I’m using one state (North Carolina), a southern state with a Democrat for Governor but with a Republican-controlled legislature. North Carolina is a state that takes public health issues much more seriously than others (partly because it records–and reports–COVID-19 health data in such detail.) Their findings state:
“The age-adjusted mortality rate among unvaccinated individuals was 3.6 cases per 100,000 unvaccinated population and the age-adjusted mortality rate among vaccinated individuals was 0.23 per 100,000 vaccinated individuals for the four-week period ending August 21, 2021.”
“The age-adjusted mortality rate ratio compares the risk of dying between two groups. The age-adjusted mortality rate ratio for unvaccinated individuals getting COVID-19 is 15.6 This means that unvaccinated individuals were 15.4 times or 1,540% more likely to die of COVID-19 as vaccinated individuals.”
The term “age-adjusted” refers to weighing date among age groups (e.g., patients under one year of age, ages one through four, ages five through fourteen, etc. through eighty-five years of age and older.) The total of all ages should equal 1.00000. Usually, the 2000 or 2010 (or perhaps the 2020) census data is used to determine the percentages of people of a certain age among all the residents of the state.
North Carolina is not typical of all states, of course, but all states are showing some rise in cases courtesy of the Delta variant, and many states are at record highs.
Meanwhile, the CDC director is discouraging travel this Labor Day among unvaccinated U.S. residents and requesting vaccinated residents to reconsider travel plans, themselves.
Delta continues to reap deadly harvest
August 31, 2021
The death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. is now being variously reported as 638,711; 638,604 and 639,081 depending on the news source and the cutoff date. Every few days, the news reports on a prominent convervative talk show host, or an anti-vaxxer activist or church leader who has died from the Virus. Some post regrets that they were never inoculated while others are in denial to the end. Many are in the prime of their life and leave young children behind, forcing their widows (the deceased are usually male) to open GoFundMe pages to help with funeral costs.
The U.S. Department of Education’s CIvil Rights Division is investigating bans on mask mandates for school children in five different states. This sets up a textbook conflict between civil rights and civil liberties as politicians and constituents see mask mandates as a violation of their civil liberties.
As someone who has read eyewittness accounts of major plagues going as far back as the Justinian Plague (541 B.C.), I see little change (or hope) that society will be any different when the next pandemic approaches. I fear that government will not be prepared for it, that skepticism and conspiracies will trump science, and that society will be more violent and uncooperative than ever in the outbreaks of the future.
Deadly harvest predicted
August 27, 2021
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington is predicting 100,000 COVID-10 deaths (or more) in the U.S. by December 1st assuming the current assumptions remain unchanged. That would raise the overall COVID-19 death toll in this country to 738,776.
Residents in Tampa Bay, FL are being asked to cut back on watering their lawns and washing their cars to allow an ample supply of fresh water for the production of hospital grade oxygen for COVID-19 patients hospitalized in that area. The liquid oxygen shortage nationwide is also forcing SpaceX to cutback on their launch schedule as fighting the COVID pandemic has a higher priority.
Meanwhile, the political battle (especially in Texas and Florida) over protective masks continues.
Headcount
August 17, 2021
According to Medpage Today, “as of Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. EDT, the unofficial COVID-19 toll was 36,891,023 cases and 622,437 deaths, increases of 210,911 and 802, respectively, versus this time a day ago.”
Also, the Biden administration plans to announce to Americans the need for a booster shot approximately eight months from their second shot (Pfizer and Moderna.). Pfizer will be seeking FDA approval for their booster shortly.
Meanwhile, in Texas, five mobile morgue are being initially deployed to San Antonio.
Weekend update
August 14, 2021
As of Thursday, 1,785 children with suspected or confirmed cases of covid-19 were sick enough to be hospitalized nationwide according to The Washington Post. In Dallas,TX, there are reportedly no available pediatric ICU beds and the lambda virus is starting to circulate in the Lone Star with unknown consequences at this point. Also, there are several different variants of the delta virus going around as well.
Texas slammed by Delta variant
August 13, 2021
The Dallas Morning News reported today that there are no more ICU beds available for pediatric patients in the DFW Metroplex. A total of 343 COVID-19 patients in the DFW area are on ventilators. Presumably, these are not all pediatric patients.
Texas and Florida
August 9, 2021
Yesterday the Governor of Texas issued a call for out-of-state medical workers to come to assist the growing COVID crisis in Texas. Governor Abbot’s call will be processed using staffing agencies in outher states. This comes as Austin is down to six available ICU beds to service a greater metropolitan area od 2.4 million people. Meanwhile, ermergencies rooms in Texas are starting to close. Rockwall North and Hunt Regional are closing their ER’s according to the Dallas Morning News. It appears from the notice on the Hunt Regional Website (see below) that in some situations they either cannot handle more patients, or critical staff must be deployed elsewhere. People with medical emergencies are urged to dial 911. The delta variant is not as transmittable as chicken pox, but is still more than earlier versions.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is threatening to withhold salaties of school principals and board members who will require children to wear masks in school. DeSantis says he is doing this to defend “the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s education and health care decisions.” What the governor fails to understand is that if I as a Floridian and parent want my child to go maskless regardless of all the C-19 stricken children in the area, my child could then become a “spreader” and make other children sick. What about the rights of parents to keep their children healthy? Also, in Florida, people with sick family members are “shopping around” the state for hospitals that have available ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machines to save their sick relatives. There is a premium and limited supply on these expensive, last line of defense, life saving devices. According to Google, one person every .51 seconds (i.e., more than sixty people per minute) searchs for the term ECMO.
And apparently it is not just Republicans anymore that are keeping the Virus alive. President Obama’s birthday party was shameless and arrogant (in my opinion) as are other Democratic social events (weddings, etc.) The fact that half a dozen democratic legislators who flew from Texas on a private plane several weeks ago sans masks came down with C-19 should have sent everyone a message that the Virus does not respect one party over the other.
Cases soar, but vaccination rates climb as well.
August 8, 2021
Daily COVID-19 cases (mostly the delta variant) have climbed above 100,000 for the first time since last November. Particularly hit hard are Florida and Texas. Computer models predict that unless more people get vaccinated soon, the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will surpass last winter’s totals. Meanwhile, the Epsilon variant has been detected in Texas. Not enough is known of this mutation to tell if it will be more or less contagious/deadly than existing variants roaming the country. A good source of information on the different variants in chart form can be found on Axios.
Regrets over not getting vaccinated; This wave may peak in early fall; Mask mandates once again
July 29, 2021
People who have discouraged others from being vaccinated for Covid or who have refused to be vaccinated themselves are being inturbated and in some cases, dying. Conservative talk show hosts, committed Christians, and ordinary Americans are learning a lesson too late. But many millions of others have not learned this lesson, so unfortunately there will be more illness and more deaths to follow. Even those who choose to be vaccinated are in some cases wearing a disquise in fear that their family and friends will find out and ostracize them. This behavior is consistent with human behavior and civil unrest in the past.
During the past year we’ve seen everything from racial demonstrations, to left wing rioting to a right wing insurrection. People have been shot in this country or brutalized daily. This violence and paranoia is how society in the past has responded to deadly illness and how we will respond to the next pandemic. Writing about the cholera epidemics in nineteenth century England, Dr Katrina Navickas recalls:
“Mortality from cholera was high and people died soon after being infected. Makeshift hospitals were set up in most major cities but there was resistance to this state intervention: riots broke out and doctors were attacked. People were suspicious of medics, who they had to pay for treatment, and afraid of their bodies being taken for dissection if they died. Dr Katrina Navickas, a historian of 19th-century protest at the University of Hertfordshire, says corpse-related horror stories also added to a climate of fear. ‘People didn’t trust the doctors, they didn’t trust the government, and they were wound up by body snatching stories in the press.'”
Also:
“More recently, in 1917 one of the worst race riots in U.S. history erupted in East St. Louis and lasted to 1919.In February that year, a general strike was called in Seattle, and in the autumn the famous Boston police strike sparked class hatred and collective violence, with Harvard athletes and Brahmin businessmen forming the ranks of strike breakers. In 1921 whites destroyed an entire black town adjacent to Tulsa (Greenwood), burning nearly 4,000 houses and killing as many as 400 blacks, women and children included – a horrific event of U.S. history that until recently remained hidden from official histories. From 1918 to 1920 terrorist bombings, cries against Bolsheviks, and a hysterical red scare spread across America.“
For the record, I don’t wish that anyone would get sick, certainly not die. Not Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. This SARS-COV-2 virus makes me humble. I do believe that God uses medicine (St. Luke was a physician and the apostles did not have a problem with that.) I also believe that God expects us to act prudently. That means find a job if we are capable of working–don’t expect God to pay your freight. It means cooking your chicken some more if it’s red or pink on the inside. It means not handling snakes to prove to yourself or your friends that you are immune from venom as a Christian or that God loves you, and it means getting vaccinated–unless you don’t care what happens to you. But don’t expose others in your folly. There will be a much deadlier variant than delta in the future before this pandemic is over, and it will develop inside someone who refused to be or could not be vaccinated, and others will suffer the consequnces. A virus depends on people to reproduce. If a virus were intelligent and able to speak, it would plead with you not to get vaccinated, because then it would die out. This is not “Truth or Dare” or some Tik Toc game. It’s deadly serious.
A common misperception among people is that vaccines do not work. I’ve heard dozens of people over the years say that they got the flu vaccine and it did not work, because they contracted the flu in spite of it. What they don’t understand is that the flu vaccine does not prevent the flu. You are not magically immune to the flu after a flu shot. What the flu vaccine is designed to do and what it does is to produce antibodies in body so that when you are exposed to the flu, you do not get as sick as you otherwise would be.
Former FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb believes that the current wave of Covid cases may peak in late August or September. States like Florida, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas are being hit particularly hard. Dr. Gottlieb admits that because some states are not aggregating necessary data as they have in the past, it will be harder to predict.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated their mask policy to recommend that no one be exempt from wearing masks indoors in those areas of the country that have a high Covid infection rate. This sets up additional battles between people who support wearing masks per professional medical advice and those who prefer not to wear masks in support on their individual civil liberties.
One member of Congress has died from COVID-19 (Republican Ron Wright of Texas.) Another (Republican Luke Letlow of Louisiana) died before he could be seated in the House. A total of 126 other members of Congress as a minimum have contracted COVID since the pandemic began. This week, acting on the advice of the physician of the House of Representatives and given the sheer number of new cases in several states of the Union, masks were again mandated on the floor of the House. In reponse to this medical advice, a number of Republicans delegates deliberately walked through the Capitol maskless and mingled with members of the U.S. Senate. If these leaders of our country recklessly risk infecting other people in the midst of a worldwide pandemic in the halls of Congress, can their constituents be held to a higher standard?
What?!! What?!!
July 22, 2021
Dire warnings are being issued on the Delta variant from authoritative sources such as the Mayo Clinic. Front line physicians are also sharing the heartache and human tragedy from this virus, once (prematurely) thought to be defeated. Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are urging unvaccinated Americans to get their shots quickly or the country may face another lockdown this fall. Even (at least some) commentators at Fox seem to have caught on.
I’m noticing anecdotally, more references to “lung transplants” due to the “honeycomb-like damage” that accompanies the Delta variant in the current news and medical literature, along with the caveat that donor lungs are not available in sufficient numbers to help. As a personal appeal, I urge everyone not currently vaccinated who reads this, to immediately consult with their family doctor about the advisability of getting vaccinated.
Daily cases/deaths on the rise again
July 14, 2021
A leading pediatrician in Tennessee has been terminated because she has advocated that children receive vaccines against COVID-19. This according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP.) The AAP issued a statement which read (in part) “Dr. Michelle Fiscus was terminated as the State Medical Director of Vaccine-Preventable and Infectious Diseases at the Tennessee Department of Health, apparently because she was encouraging eligible adolescents to get vaccinated.” Even more concerning is the state’s intention to stop promoting all anti-viral vaccines, including polio, measles, etc. as far as children go. One of the state’s leading newspaper described her removal and the rollback in policy as political.
Approximately one hundred vaccinated sailors on the HMS Queen Elizabeth have contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Sailors on other ships in the Carrier Strike Group have also contracted the virus. No information is presently available as far as which strain of the virus is present, nor how sick the sailors are.
Those pockets in the U.S. where vaccination rates are among the lowest are continuing to see infected people, often young adults, showing up in local Emergency Rooms. The course of the virus (largely the delta variant) proceeds very quickly, creating serious illness in these unvaccinated individuals, and also occasionally and to a less extent, older adults who have been vaccinated. This is a reminder that, like with the influenza vaccine, there is no guarantee that the vaccinated person will not get sick, but the presumption remains that if a person vaccinated against the current flu variant, then that person’s illness will not be serious.
Marking time
July 8, 2021
At the moment, we’re in a bit of a pause, perhaps like being in the eye of a hurricane, as the vaccination rate stalls in the U.S. at sixty percent, and as new variants such as Delta start to move among the population. What we see now are a few states (notably Missouri) and some individual counties in other states that are at particular risk. For example, four counties in South Dakota have less than five percent of their population fully vaccinated. Most of the hospitalizations for Covid-19 today are people who have not been vaccinated. Except for those wearing masks and practicing social distancing, there is nothing to prevent these remaining unvaccinated holdouts from getting sick (perhaps gravely ill) save God’s mercy and grace. But like masks, getting vaccinated (or not) often depends on your politics, and to a less extent, your religion, age, peer groups, race, etc. Liberals were often the first in line to be inoculated after front-line workers, and some liberals often continue wearing masks long after completing their vaccinations. Most conservatives, fortunately, understood the need for a vaccine all along, and have received their inoculation long ago. The remaining holdouts in the general public are either confused about the vaccines, prefer getting the shots from their family doctor, or are getting dubious information from some politicians, talk show hosts, or on social media that this whole program is just an experiment, or that the vaccines are not safe (confirming their bias), or there is no such thing as the novel coronavirus (“It’s just the flu.”) These are the vulnerable people that the Virus depends on to proliferate and mutate. Unfortunately, there are enough unvaccinated people in this country to allow the Virus to do just that.
Are the vaccines safe? The answer is, they are safe as far as we know at this point in time, less than a year after they were developed. Scientists don’t know if we will have side affects a year after getting the vaccines, of five or twenty years later. But if we withheld the vaccines and waited that long to see, millions of Americans might have died. Research scientists don’t think we will have more than the predicted and statistically probable complications, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had to rush the approval process, and the drugs were approved under “emergency use” authorization rather than after a full vetting process like the FDA conducts on my new meds. Because that would have taken several years. The vaccine controversy persists even in the military. My personal opinion Is that military members should take the same vaccines we do unless their physician believes it to be unsafe for the service member given their particular circumstances. Failure to do so could cause widespread outbreaks like we saw on the USS Theodore Roosevelt last year, and this could impact our readiness posture. Military members cannot normally pick and choose which shots to receive when everyone is subject to worldwide deployment. I don’t see why this is any different.
The CDC just deployed a surge team to Springfield, Missouri which is getting slammed by Delta, while the CEO of the Missouri Health Care System sent out an urgent message asking for qualified respiratory therapists (RT) across the nation to travel to Missouri to assist the overwhelmed RT teams in that state. Over three dozen from across the country have responded.
“We continue to believe that it is likely, based on the totality of the data we have to date, that a third dose may be needed within six to twelve months after full vaccination.”
– Pfizer
Just released research by Israeli scientists suggests that those who have been vaccinated with the Pfizer preparation have a significant chance to experience a breakthrough illness from the Delta variant. As far as the Delta virus goes, Pfizer protects only sixty-four percent compared to the overall efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine (ninety-four percent.) Pfizer apparently accepts the data and said last evening that they might need to produce a booster shot. However, the same study suggests that those who received the Pfizer doses and get sick with the Delta variant do better than those who have no acquired immunity at all. Meanwhile, the Lambda variant which is yet to reach our shores may be the greatest threat so far, because of the composition of its “spike protein.” Spike proteins are those parts of the virus that allow it to attach itself to human cells. Lambda has spike proteins that might negate or circumvent the defenses provided by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J&J. There is not much data on this new variant, and many scientists are not yet concerned, but it could be a bear if early reports are true. And, speaking of bears . . .
Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated
June 27, 2021
The headline in an AP story last last week read “Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated.” According to the AP, only 0.8% of more than 13,000 deaths in May were among fully vaccinated individuals. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, “as of 6 a.m. EDT June 24, a total of 151,252,034 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 45.6 percent of the country’s population.” They cite CDC data. That’s less than half of all Americans, though many more have had at least one shot.
My personal opinion is that no more than seventy percent of the people in this country will ultimately become fully vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus if they have a personal choice about it. This disappointingly low rate can be attributed to several reasons. First of all, individuals in our society (politicians, talk show hosts, etc.) have muddled the message. Masks are no longer a barrier against the spread of infections diseases (of which SARS-Cov-2 is just one), but rather a statement of whether you are a conservative or liberal, friend or foe. Disinformation is another reason for the low rate. Some people who have survived the COVID virus think they are now immune. The science says “No!” And actually, the degree of acquired immunity from having had the disease is not as high as the immunity conferred by the vaccines. True, there are side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines (see below), but there are side effects from any vaccine. Some wonder whether there might be long term consequences to having taken the shots and that is a fair question. Only time will tell, but absent the vaccines, easily over a million Americans would have died by now.
Continuing, some Americans see vaccines as inherently dangerous in any event, while still others see vaccines (and masks) as an assault on our civil liberties. There are also the people caught up with conspiracy thinking (that the government is implanting computer chips, or the “Mark of the Beast” in people, or that it is trying to secretly sterilize us.). The sad and shameful fact that our government has, in fact, secretly experimented on our citizens, such as during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study which only ended in 1972, is an historical precedence to this and no doubt fuels the paranoia.
I have read the professional literature and first-hand personal accounts of people who witnessed some of the worst outbreaks inhibitory (e.g. the Justinian Plague [541-542 AD], the Black Death [1346-1353 AD], the Spanish Flu [1918], and numerous cholera and Ebola outbreaks, etc.) Most of the population during a pandemic or epidemic is compliant with governmental attempts to extinguish the the disease, but the fear factor is very high, leading some to flee, which spreads the disease from place to place, and others to flagrantly disregard all restrictions established to protect the common good. We can see this behavior in the past, we’ve see it today, and will see it the next time we have an outbreak.
No male infertility associated with COVID-Vax says MedPage
June 21, 2021
Rumors that men who took Pfizer, Moderna or J&J vaccines suffered lowered sperm counts has been somewhat squashed according to a recent study conducted and released by the University of Miami Health System. Said study coauthor Ranjith Ramasamy, MD writing in JAMA, “People should not be concerned. The vaccines are very safe.” However, the study included only 45 men, hardly sufficient to extrapolate findings to the general population. The real risk to infertility in men comes from the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself. Researchers have noticed lower sperm count in men following recovery from the virus, though they note that many viral infections temporarily drive down the number of viable sperm.
Infertility in men is defined by Johns Hopkins Medicine as “a man [who] has a problem with his reproductive system. It means you cannot start a pregnancy with your female partner.” It is possible for infertile males (those who have low sperm counts) to fertilize an egg in vitro (under glass) however.
CDC concludes cases of myocarditis/pericarditis higher than expected in males under thirty who get vaccinated.
June 15, 2021
The Centers for Disease Control concluded that males under thirty are at some risk for myocarditis or pericarditis following an emergency examination of the data. According to The Hill, “The CDC said that among the 220 patients recovering, more than 80 percent of them got better on their own. Most cases of myocarditis can be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, and in some cases, IVIG, an intravenous medication.” Of these 220 parients, fifteen remained hospitalized as of this week, while three remain in intensive care. The “vast majority” of the young men (including teenagers) who presented at the Emergency Room were sent home. Pre-existing co-mobities do not seem to be a major risk factor. No deaths were reported from the complication and there is no evidence at present whether the inflammation may return later in life.
Myocarditis is an inflammation of the muscles in the heart, while pericarditis is an inflamation of the membranous sac that encloses the heart. It is usually treated with medication and rest.
The CDC promises futher scrutiny of this association. According to NBC News, “Until definitive links are made, health officials overwhelmingly recommend Covid-19 vaccinations for everyone ages 12 and older.”
Evidence of gain of function research published in WSJ.
June 7, 2021
Today’s Daily Mail has a story about research published yesterday by Dr. Stephen Quay and professor of physics Richard Muller at UC Berkley about their research into the original SARS-CoV-2 virus genome sequence. According to the article in the DM:
“‘The CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally. That means the common method of viruses picking up new skills, called recombination, cannot operate here,’ they wrote.”
“‘A virus simply cannot pick up a sequence from another virus if that sequence isn’t present in any other virus.'”
“The essay comes after an explosive study last week claimed that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in the Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats.”
Daily Mail
The CGG refers to the DNA/RNA bases of cytosine and guanine which are two of the four bases in DNA/RNA. The fact that this combination has not been discovered in nature before now in nature is not proof that they are absolutely not present (e.g., black swan.) The researchers conclude: “‘Yes, it could have happened randomly, through mutations. But do you believe that? At the minimum, this fact—that the coronavirus, with all its random possibilities, took the rare and unnatural combination used by human researchers—implies that the leading theory for the origin of the coronavirus must be laboratory escape.'”
If this research is confirmed, it joins a growing body of evidence that indicts China of gain of function attempts on what emerged/escaped as the Coronavirus. What the intentions of the scientists at the Wuhan Institute were is another story.
The Economist weighs in on source of SARS-CoV-2
May 29, 2021
The prestigious Economist magazine provides a healthy caveat as it comments on the search for the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, noting:
“It is possible that the chain of infections which spread SARS-CoV-2 around the world began, as most new diseases do, when an animal virus found its way unaided into humans, whether in field or farm, cave or market. It is also possible that the chain began in a Chinese government laboratory. These two possibilities have been recognized by many of those studying the COVID-19 pandemic for a long time. But the fact that two things are both possible does not mean they are equally likely.”
The Economist, May 29, 2021 edition.
The article does bring out the fact that China has had an inglorious history of lab leaks in the past, however. The article cites just a few (bold and italics are mine.)
Pathogens escape from institutions working on them with depressing frequency. The last known death from smallpox was the result of a laboratory leak in Britain in 1978. sars-cov-1, the virus which causes sars, escaped from labs twice as it spread round the world in 2003, once in Singapore and once in Taiwan; it leaked out of a Beijing lab on two separate occasions in 2004. In December 2019 more than 100 students and staff at two agricultural research centres in Lanzhou were struck with an outbreak of brucellosis, a bacterial disease usually caught from livestock.
The Economist
Most alarmingly, the h1n1 strain of influenza which started spreading around the world in 1977 is now known to have been released from a north-east Asian lab—possibly in China, possibly in Russia. Some Western observers suspected this at the time, but they made little fuss about it, perhaps afraid that doing so would lead to China and/or Russia pulling out of international flu-surveillance efforts, or spark a backlash against virology.
The Economist
Another concern is that China has not always used the appropriate Biosafety Level to contain Coronaviruses, choosing a BSL-2 instead of a BSL-4 with its enhanced precautions and safety mechanisms.
What did China know about COVID and when did they know it?
May 27, 2021
The hypothesis that researchers in Wuhan at the Institute of Virology accidentially spread the emerging virus to the greater community is currently gathering traction in this country. I’m just an average citizen. Fortunately, none of my loved ones died (though some contracted the virus) and no one lost their jobs. In that sense, I don’t have a “horse in the race” or axe to grind. My graduate degree is in bureaucracies, and my post grad work in comparative government and international relations, so I think in terms of Max Weber, Sam Huntington, and Hans Morgenthau. This is how I see things at the moment. . .
President Trump. Donald Trump is a nationalist (America first.) Nationalists generally need a scapegoat to blame policy failures on, and Donald Trump is no exception as he has never accepted responsibility for a mistake–or a defeat. Tagging the SARS-CoV-2 virus the “China Virus” was a convenient way to change the focus and shift the narrative away from his administration’s mistakes in confronting the virus, especially in the early days of 2020. President Trump could have been right when he said (says) China held some responsibility, but Trump’s record of dishonesty made me skeptical and dismissive of his claim–which he never substantiated with fact–and I concluded that this was just more “smoke” in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
China. As an authoritarian country led by Xi Jinping, an authoritarian, China was not about to let people from other countries even with World Health Organization (WHO) credentials in plain sight comb through their files, wander through their labs, and interview their scientists privately. Even if what China said was true (that the virus emerged elsewhere in the city) he would not consent to this intrusion. Nor has the U.S. ever invited the WHO to visit our most secret labs and roam carte blanche as far as I know (though I could be wrong.) Likely, China conducted an internal review independent of the WHO, and if there were relapses in standards and procedures, China quickly but quietly corrected them. They likely instructed their scientists to take a “don’t-volunteer-information” approach to the WHO when the WHO visited. I doubt China intended this pandemic to happen (4,600 Chinese died after all.) If it can be proven–and at the moment I don’t know how that would happen–that China unintentionally allowed the virus to escape the lab, then there would be a real “can of worms” internationally. There could be all sorts of demands from different countries for compensation, international demands of oversight of their program, perhaps sanctions and so on. If the release was intentional, it could certainly lead to conflict, but then why would China release it just down the street from the Institute? The U.S. and China are already facing what in politics is known as a Thucydides Trap. The chances are most Americans (and especially politicians) will not realise the truth to the true origin of SARS-CoV-2 even when it confronts them. Americans may have already made up their minds about what happened and the facts at that point would only confuse them.
The WHO: The World Health Organization along with UNESCO at one time had sterling reputations and approval ratings in the U.S. But the creeping distrust of international organizations (and governments in general) that we’ve see in the U.S. over the past forty or fifty years has tarnished that reputation a bit. I’m not sure the WHO report on the China outbreak which concluded: “it is ‘extremely unlikely’ the pandemic virus occurred through a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China” will silence critics who are increasingly raising their voices in this country. See also here.
President Biden: This might be his first major foreign policy crisis. Is he up to it? I’m not sure. At least diplomacy may have a chance to pay off. Republicans with their eyes on the coming midterm elections and their ears tuned to Bedminster will be sure to do all they can to keep this on the front burner. It puts them on the offensive instead of trying to defend what Donald Trump and the right wing mob did or did not do on 1/6. Democrats might wish to sweep the whole mess under the rug now that the federal treasury is within their grasp. After all, there are bigger fish to fry.
Dr. Anthony Fauci. I kind of like the poor guy. Don’t wear masks/wear masks, this should work (unless it doesn’t.) People need to be reasonable. This virus was first called the novel coronavirus which means new virus. That means, we didn’t know anything about it in January 2020 (including Dr. Fauci and especially President Trump.) And, there’s a lot we still don’t know about it. There was a fairly steep learning curve and only a year ago we had no idea when a virus might arrive and whether it would even work. C’mon–give the poor guy a break (and a medal.) And don’t forget Dr. Deborah Birx. She didn’t deserve to be “thrown under the bus,” either. These two dedicated civil servants and patriots deserve our heartfelt thanks!
p.s. On June 1, 2021 Buzzed published a broad sample of Dr.Fauci’s e-mails. They provide interested insight into this tireless man, extradinary physician, public servant and patriot.
Patient Zero and “Gain of Function”
May 24, 2021
There has been more discussion in Congress, the scientific community and the media in the last week about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Recent news reports of three science researchers in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab who sought medical care in November 2019 for symptoms consistent with both seasonal colds and/or COVID-19 were confirmed. That would suggest that if these three lab technicians had the SARS virus, the outbreak might not have started at the wet market in December, but rather in the lab in November. However, the wet market could easily have allowed the virus to spread to others and likely played an important role in the timeline. But it is critical to find Patient Zero in order to move forward with our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and person cannot be identified with any accuracy at the moment.
The problem is because China has not been completely transparent with World Health Organization (WHO) investigators. According to the concept of political realism, countries act according to their self-interests, and it may not be in China’s interest to seem culpable for an unintended release of a deadly virus given there are almost 3.5 million people dead worldwide from this virus (or its variants.) This is not surprising and nor should the fact that the U.S. administration has done the same concealment or misdirection when it served our interests. Without more information, it is impossible to know the origin of SAR-CoV-2 outbreak with any certainty. But the issue of whether it might have originated in a lab and then accidentally released into the population is something that even Dr. Anthony Fauci now admits to.
This raises one other point that is getting more attention—A concept called “gain of function.” This is when a laboratory takes a pathogen and increases or enhances its potency, its ability to transmit from one person or species to another and its ability to resist the body’s ability to control the pathogen with or without the benefit of a vaccine. Why do this? One reason (a Doomsday Scenario) is to “weaponize” the virus (biological warfare.) For example, the deadly anthrax attacks in the U.S. immediately following 9/11. But, there is a more benign incentive for conducting gain of function research, and that is it helps scientists predict outcomes should a pathogen continue to evolve naturally in a way that could make it more difficult to deal with in the future. And, because many countries conduct their own biological experiments, countries such as the U.S. need to be prepared to counter that work in order to protect our citizens.
Meanwhile, Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab called the story of thew three sick researchers “a complete lie” is a story published by the Global Times. The Global Tmes is a concervative newspaper in China with close ties to the central government.
NY TIMES PUBLISHES MONTHLY METRIC
May 17, 2021
The New York TImes has just published their monthly survey of U.S. epidemiologists. Of all the sources of information on what our response to COVID should be (e.g., the CDC, White House, our Governor, local health department, etc.) this has been the most important for me during the pandemic. Who better knows who the best cardiologist is except other cardiologists? Or, who is the best authority on where you can get the awesome food except chefs who know what good food tastes like? When a politician says we’ll be back to normal by the end of the year, I wonder if it is because he wants to be re-elected? We’ve seen the CDC pressured repeatedly by politicians to paint an unrealistically rosy picture of the future. There have been efforts over the past year to silence Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci with everything from limiting their access to the White House and the to press by politicos in the previous administration, to death threats from the wackos in our society.
According to the 723 epidemiologists who responded to the survey, there are certain variables we should be focusing on, such as the vaccination rate among children, which is only in its very early stages. Epidemiologists are doctors who specialize in the spread of infectious diseases. They are not the same as opthamologists who treat diseases or disorders of the eye, or radiologists who read x-rays, and who in some cases claim to have superior knowledge of, or insight into, infectious diseases.
According to the NY Times, “the true end of the pandemic — when it becomes safer to return to most activities without precautions — will arrive once at least 70 percent of Americans of all ages are vaccinated.” This is what is referred to as “herd immunity.” Currently, we have reached a plateau of around 36 percent, though we are starting to see more and more teenagers vacinated. Nevertheless, according to the survey, “Children are key to ending the pandemic,” said David Celentano, the chair of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.”
“Though children are less likely than adults to develop severe cases of Covid-19, the scientists said their immunity was important because they could be hosts for the virus and a way for it to continue to circulate or develop new variants.”
New York Times
Continuing, the Times noted “Though children are less likely than adults to develop severe cases of Covid-19, the scientists said their immunity was important because they could be hosts for the virus and a way for it to continue to circulate or develop new variants.”
The article again stress the need for vaccinations: “‘In assessing when the acute phase of the Covid pandemic could be considered over, they said vaccinations were more relevant than other metrics like new cases, hospitalizations or deaths (because an effective vaccination campaign would lower those rates . . .)”
To monitor the percent of Americans vaccinated for COVID, click here. Site is courtesy of The New York Times.
USA TODAY/NPR REPORTS INDIA VARIANT OF COVID IN THE U.S.
May 17, 2021
USA Today and NPR have reported in the last day or two that the B1617 variant that has devestated India is now in the U.S. Those who read both sources of news will find one source a bit more alarmist than the other. This is not a contradiction. The difference in tone is because there is an emphasis in one article on vaccinated Americans who presumably have some margin of protection against B1617 vis-à-vis Americans still at risk in the other story. Healthy adults in the U.S. who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID in spite of all sorts of incentives and rewards such as home visits, free crinkle fries, boiled crawfish, and cheesecake from vendors; miscellaneous prizes and other sorts of SWAG; free rides from Uber and Lyft, etc. will be at the mercy of the laws of nature. They will be examples of what Nietzsche said: “Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker” or “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” Those who refuse vaccination are prey to the microscopic predator. If they contract the Virus, they will either survive and enjoy and acquired immunity for a yet undetermined period in the future, or they may succumb to the virus. And between these two polar extremes, there are many other possibilities including long term health related consequences such as heart issues, stroke, and permanent lung damage just to name a few. Lord, have mercy.
MOST COVID-19 INFECTIONS AND HOSPITALIZATIONS ARE IN UNVACCINATED
May 12, 2021
Although many Americans may never have heard of the Cleveland Clinic, it is arguably one of the top twelve hospitals in the United States depending on how it is measured (pediatrics, cardiology, etc.) They have hospitals in several different countries and are considered to have a strong research program and a sound reputation in public education. In mid-May, the Cleveland Clinic released the results of a study announcing that “Most COVID-19 Infections and Hospitalizations are in Unvaccinated”
Unfortunately, the benefits of vaccinations have been lost on many Americans who take their cues from Q or those who believe that dutiful compliance for the sake of the common good is tantamount to surrendering one’s civil liberties. To these Americans, the findings of the study will be lost while those who see the merit of being inoculated will be reinforced in their determination to end the pandemic once and for all.
According to the findings of the study (conducted by the Clinic, itself) and the press release from the Clinic: “Preliminary data . . . suggests most people hospitalized for coronavirus aren’t fully vaccinated.
“From January first to around mid-April,” the Clinic “had around 4,300 admissions to the hospital with COVID. Of those patients, 99% were not fully vaccinated, said Eduardo Mireles, MD, Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit.”
Similar results were noted when the subject of the study involved hospital workers. “Researchers looked at nearly 2,000 hospital workers who had contracted COVID-19. They studied infections in the four months after the vaccine was offered. Results show 99.7% of infections in this group occurred among those who were unvaccinated.”
The mRNA [messenger RNA] vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer and Moderna were found “to be more than 97% effective in protecting against COVID-19” than the vector vaccines manufactured by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
EFFECTS OF PARTISAN POLITICS ON INFECTION, HOSPITALIZATION AND MORTALITY RATES
MAY 12, 2021
Julie VanDusky-Allen, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University and Olga Shvetsova, Professor of Political Science and Economics, Binghamton University, State University of New York have released the findings of a study that tracked the correlation between COVID proliferation and partisan control in the several states. They noted that “Overwhelming evidence suggests that differences between Republican and Democratic officials on health policy have had life-or-death consequences during the pandemic.”
Earlier research by Julie VanDusky-Allen, Shvetsova, et al. indicated that the role of states in the management of the pandemic had a much greater impact on the course of the disease than the federal government had. They note a point which should be intuitively true to all, namely “Democrats have been more likely to favor stricter policies such as prolonged economic shutdowns, limits on gathering in groups and mask mandates. Republicans overall have favored less stringent policies.” And, while pairing Republican states such as Florida against Democratic states like California seemed to suggest that one fared no worse that the other, the researchers claim that based on their findings, taken as a whole, “Looking at states’ COVID-19 case and death rates, researchers are finding the more stringent policies typical of Democratic governors led to lower rates of infections and deaths, compared to the pandemic responses of the average Republican governor.”
“Overwhelming evidence suggests that differences between Republican and Democratic officials on health policy have had life-or-death consequences during the pandemic.“
These trends were confirmed by a study published in the American Journal of Preventitive Medicine (Associations (“Between Governor Political Affiliation and COVID-19 Cases, Deaths, and Testing in the U.S.”) which concluded: “These findings suggest that governor political party affiliation may differentially impact COVID-19 incidence and death rates. Attitudes toward the pandemic were highly polarized in 2020. Future state policy actions should be guided by public health considerations rather than by political expedience and should be supported by a coordinated federal response within the new presidential administration. The management of the pandemic in it’s first year was the complete opposite of this formula as some states taking due precautions were ridiculed by the federal government as were people who wore masks. At it’s low point, public affairs at the White House, itself, became know as superspreader events not to mention the rallies (e.g. Tulsa, OK) of the incumbent President who tested positive for COVID, himself.
