Doc Robinson
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The study I linked above clarifies that the effectiveness of the vaccines is measured using a control population who have no evidence of a earlier Covid-19 infection.
Since the vaccines were found to work no better than the natural immunity conferred by a prior Covid-19 infection, this could slanted to mean that the vaccine effectiveness at preventing a Covid infection is zero percent (0%) in a population that has previously been infected.
• One Dose Of Pfizer Or Oxford Jab Reduces Covid Infection Rate By 65% (G.)
One aspect of that study, not mentioned in any of the news articles I’ve seen about it, is that the fully-vaccinated people were not protected against Covid-19 infection to a higher degree than the unvaccinated people who previously had a Covid-19 infection.
“There was no evidence of a difference in odds of new SARS-CoV-2 infection for individuals having received two vaccine doses and with evidence of prior infection but not vaccinated… This could be an important consideration during policy development over COVID-status certification or “COVID passports”, and supports considering both prior PCR/serological testing and vaccination data for this.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.22.21255913v1.full.pdf
“[Boris] Johnson also announced the creation of a new antivirals taskforce to help with the search for new medicines… He said the treatments could include a tablet that would stop people with Covid-19 becoming severely ill, or a pill to prevent someone contracting the virus from close contacts who are infected.”
OMG, another “solution” for the public to patiently await, after the previous “solution” didn’t work as hoped.
Boris is more than a year late in creating an “antivirals taskforce”. But if an effective antiviral treatment was recognized last year, Big Pharma wouldn’t have been able to get emergency authorizations for their investigational mRNA injections.
democritus: “If you’re worried about RNA or clotting you had better make sure you never get sars-cov2.”
The clotting risk from a Covid infection has been found to be “significantly higher among patients with a history of cardiovascular diseases, specifically cerebral/precerebral artery stenosis/occlusion, and intracranial hemorrhage.”
The clotting risks from the Covid vaccines appears to affect people with no such history or comorbidities. (The details for these cases seem to be withheld from publication.)
[The above quote was from the study referenced in the article “Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca’s: study“]
Cerebral venous thrombosis: a retrospective cohort study of 513,284 confirmed COVID-19 cases and a comparison with 489,871 people receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
https://osf.io/a9jdq/@ chettt
Obesity seems to be more of a factor regarding severity and outcomes of Covid cases. I haven’t found anything that links obesity to the likelihood of getting a Covid infection (and the Japan graph is just showing numbers of cases or infections).
Looking at diabetes, however, the prevalence of diabetics among Covid cases was estimated to be 9.65% which is approximately the same as the prevalence of diabetics in the general population of the US.
Diabetes was more prevalent among fatal cases [24.89%] compared to total cases [9.65%].
COVID-19 and comorbidities: a systematic review and meta-analysis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32573311/Mr. Roboto: “Well, the Japan graph is the best argument against the effectiveness of masking I’ve seen so far. If any country in the world had near-universal compliance of correct mask-wearing, that would be Japan.”
That graph for mask-compliant Japan has a dramatic peak in daily new cases, but the similar peak for the USA was about 20 times higher, when looking at the number of cases per million population. Hmm…
From that pandemic scenario document (linked above by Dr. D), it’s clear that they’ve been thinking about these issues for some time. It seems like “enabling people to make their own informed decisions” (about the vaccine) has been dropped since then.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How might federal health authorities avoid people possibly seeing an expedited SPARS vaccine development and testing process as somehow “rushed” and inherently flawed, even though that process still meets the same safety and efficacy standards as any other vaccine?
2) How might federal health authorities respond to critics who propose that liability protection for SPARS vaccine manufacturers jeopardizes individual freedom and wellbeing?
3) Once the vaccine becomes broadly available (see the chapter, “Head of the Line Privileges”), how might public health communicators implement the “best practices” principle of enabling people to make their own informed decisions about whether to accept the novel SPARS vaccine?
4) What are the potential consequences of health officials overreassuring the public about the potential risks of a novel SPARS vaccine when long-term effects are not yet known?
https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spars-pandemic-scenario.pdf
Pandemic? The UK government statistics for England and Wales have been updated today, and “this is the fifth consecutive week that deaths have been below the five-year average.”
Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in only 280 of the 9,098 total registered deaths (in the most recent data, week ending 9 April).
In Week 14, the number of deaths registered in England and Wales was 11.7% below the five-year average (1,207 fewer deaths); this is the fifth consecutive week that deaths have been below the five-year average…
Of the 379 deaths involving COVID-19 in Week 14 in England and Wales, 280 had this recorded as the underlying cause of death
Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 9 April 2021
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latestI just noticed this site today:
The NIH Covid Treatment Guidelines website is “an official website of the United States government.”Supplements
Last Updated: February 11, 2021Summary Recommendations
Vitamin C
There are insufficient data for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin C for the treatment of COVID-19.Vitamin D
There are insufficient data for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin D for the treatment of COVID-19.Zinc
There are insufficient data for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of zinc for the treatment of COVID-19.
The Panel recommends against using zinc supplementation above the recommended dietary allowance for the prevention of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (BIII).https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/supplements/
The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for Zinc is only 11 mg for adult males (and less for females unless pregnant or lactating).
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/Meanwhile, the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance recommendations, for prevention of Covid-19, include 30-40 mg of Zinc per day, plus Vitamins C & D…
Looking at who is in the panel making these recommendations, it’s clear that many if not most of them have financial relationships with a pharmaceutical company.
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/panel-financial-disclosure/The Sputnik V vaccine is similar to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as they both use non-replicating human adenoviruses to carry a fragment of Covid spike protein. Sputnik V uses two different adenoviruses, one for each shot, while the J&J uses only one for one shot. (AstraZeneca uses a chimpanzee adenovirus.)
A hospital in Argentina has been looking at adverse reactions to the Sputnik V vaccine given to health workers.
Among local reactions, 54% reported pain at the injection site, 11% redness and swelling. Among systemic reactions 40% reported fever, 5% diarrhea and 68% new or worsened muscle pain. Five percent had serious adverse events that required medical evaluation and one inpatient.
ESAVI [events supposedly attributable to vaccines and immunization] rate was higher among females (65.4% vs 50%; HR 1.38, 95%CI 1.13-5.38) and in younger than 55 years-old (72.8% vs 32%; HR 2.66, 95%CI 1.32-1.68).
Conclusion
Active surveillance on safety for vaccines with emergency approval is mandatory. This study shows high rates of local and systemic reactions however early serious events were rare. Short term safety is supported by these preliminary findings. Studies on long term safety and efficacy, accoding sex and age, are needed.ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE OF THE SPUTNIK V VACCINE IN HEALTH WORKERS
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.03.21251071v1Looks like the mRNA vaccines have been causing shingles in people having autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIIRD).
“Little has been known about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines among patients with rheumatic diseases, because immunosuppressed individuals were not included in the initial clinical trials“
1.2% of the people having those rheumatic diseases got a case of shingles after getting vaccinated, compared to zero in the control group.
Conclusion: More safety studies are needed for the mRNA-based vaccines.
Conclusion
Epidemiologic studies on the safety of the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in patients with AIIRD are needed to clarify the association between the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination and reactivation of zoster.Herpes zoster following BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccination in patients with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases: a case series
https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/rheumatology/keab345/6225015The semantics concerning the word “vaccine” haven’t swayed (in either direction) my opinion of the safety and risks of the mRNA injections.
Arguing semantics can just be a distraction from the more substantive issues.
Blood clotting is linked to the Covid spike proteins, according to a recent medical study quoted today by Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker. This helps explain how the Covid vaccines could cause blood clots.
Here we study the effect of isolated SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 subunit as potential pro-inflammatory inflammagen sui generis. We investigate the potential of this inflammagen to directly interact with platelets and fibrin(ogen) to cause fibrin(ogen) protein changes and blood hypercoagulation. We also determine if the spike protein may interfere with blood flow, by comparing naïve healthy PPP samples, with and without added spike protein, to PPP samples from COVID-19 positive patients (before treatment). We conclude that the spike protein may have pathological effects directly, without being taken up by cells.
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 induces fibrin(ogen) resistant to fibrinolysis: Implications for microclot formation in COVID-19
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252960v1.fullI’d like to see a well-researched, and widely-read, article listing reasons “Why my children won’t be getting a Covid vaccine.”
Sadly, some parents probably won’t question the dominant narrative until a number of healthy children (who otherwise would have a 99.99% chance of surviving Covid) end up dying or getting long-term health problems from a Covid vaccine.
• And Now Proof: Covid Vaccines Are More Dangerous Than Covid (Denninger)
The subtitle of that article is “for the nonmorbid.” Denninger concludes that “the FDA must immediately revoke the EUAs for all of them in any person who does not have a pre-existing morbidity that materially raises their risk above baseline…” He also calls for antibody tests before vaccination to check for existing immunity (which would change the risk-benefit analysis for the individual since the potential benefits of the vaccine would be reduced, while all the risks of the vaccine would remain.)
To this I will add the following conclusions that can be drawn from CDC data about the vaccines (details appear in the comments to yesterday’s Covid Rattle):
Vaccinated people who later come down with a symptomatic case of Covid tend to have more severe infections than those who are not vaccinated.
The younger people (under 60) have a disproportionately larger share of the number of breakthrough cases.
From the Business Insider article I linked above:
The risk of a breakthrough infection might not be equal among everyone who’s been vaccinated. The CDC said about 40% of the breakthrough infections reported had been discovered in people over 60, a demographic in which vaccines are often less effective.
“It is likely that elderly individuals, particularly if they are frail and have underlying conditions, might not have responded as well to the vaccine,” Fauci said.
That’s B.S.
That doesn’t address why 60% of the breakthrough infections were discovered in people under 60.40% of the breakthrough cases were in people over 60, but more than 40% of the vaccinated people are over 60, according to the CDC numbers (linked below).
If the older people didn’t respond as well to the vaccine as the younger people, as Fauci claims, then the number of breakthrough cases should be skewed toward the older people, but they’re not.
The younger people (under 60) have a disproportionately larger share of the number of breakthrough cases!
CDC: Out of 75 million fully vaccinated Americans, 5,800 got COVID-19, and 74 died
‘The vaccine is working as expected‘
https://www.businessinsider.com/infected-after-covid-vaccination-cdc-numbers-breakthrough-infections-2021-4Hold on a minute. We were told to expect that if we got vaccinated and later got infected by Covid, the infection would be less severe than if we didn’t get vaccinated. However, the CDC numbers show otherwise.
From the above article, the CDC says there were 5800 breakthrough infections (among those who were fully vaccinated), and 29% of them were asymptomatic. This means that 71%, or 4118 of them, were symptomatic. The percentage of symptomatic cases that were severe enough to be hospitalized was 400/4188 = 9.7% for those who were vaccinated.
The latest report from the CDC about the Covid disease burden (updated Jan 19, 2021) estimates that there were 70.4 symptomatic cases (unvaccinated), of which 4.1 million were hospitalized. The percentage of symptomatic cases that were severe enough to be hospitalized was 4.1/70.4 = 5.8% for those who were not vaccinated.
5.8% vs 9.7% is a significant difference in the percentage being hospitalized. This indicates that vaccinated people who later come down with a symptomatic case of Covid tend to have more severe infections than those who are not vaccinated.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
Quote from “It Was All Wrong” article linked above:
It has occurred to me we are somehow “waiting” for someone to call this nonsense off.Yet that person, or rather those people, are to be found not outside the window, but dauntingly, though, definitely in the mirror.
Stanford begins testing Pfizer vaccine in babies and young children
As I recall, young children will be used to test different doses, to see which dosage doesn’t give too much adverse reactions. The luckier children in the trials will just get a placebo.
Pfizer says,
“Children younger than 6 months of age may subsequently be evaluated…”A good question, followed by a non-answer from Pfizer:
Do children need to be vaccinated in order for the world to reach herd immunity against SARS-CoV-2?
Children under the age of 15 account for 26% of the global population. We believe successfully vaccinating children will contribute to protection against COVID-19 if the vaccine proves to be effective in that population.
https://www.pfizer.com/science/coronavirus/vaccine/additional-population-studies
Two different headlines about the same study:
Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca’s: study
Oxford study shows higher clotting risks from COVID than vaccines
Most headlines about this study are like the second one. It boosts confidence in the vaccines at a time when there are questions about potential problems with blood clots. The underlying message is that if you’re worried about blood clots, then get the vaccine because a Covid infection will give you a much higher risk of blood clots.
Well, it depends. What if the only people getting blood clots from a Covid infection are those with certain preexisting conditions (like “cerebral/precerebral artery stenosis/occlusion, and intracranial hemorrhage”), while people can get blood clots from the vaccine even if they have none of those preexisting conditions?
I found the study and looked at the details, but some specific data I wanted to see was missing from the report. There were some hints, but no indication of how many, if any, of the Covid patients with blood clots had none of the related comorbidities.
Results
513,284 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in this study (54.8% females, mean [SD] age 46.6 [21.4]; Of these, 20 were diagnosed with a CVT [cerebral vascular thrombosis] in the two weeks following their diagnosis (absolute risk: 39.0 per million people, 95% CI 25.2–60.2). The risk was significantly higher among patients with a history of cardiovascular diseases (Table 1), specifically cerebral/precerebral artery stenosis/occlusion, and intracranial hemorrhage.Table 1 gives some interesting details about the preexisting “comorbidities at baseline” for the 20 Covid patients (out of more than half a million) who got Cerebral Vascular Thrombosis (CVT):
4 already had (Pre-)Cerebral arterial stenosis/occlusion
3 already had Intracranial haemorrhage
3 already had CVT in the past
5 already had Ischemic heart diseases
4 already had Arterial diseases
2 already had Cardiac failure
(These are some of the comorbidities which had a much higher prevalence in the 20 Covid patients who got Cerebral Vascular Thrombosis.)I’d like to see the numbers for how many people (out of a million) who have none of the related preexisting comorbidities but end up getting CVT from the vaccine, compared to the number of people getting CVT from Covid while having none of the related preexisting comorbidities. This data would be useful for weighing the risks to a currently healthy person who is contemplating whether to get the vaccine or not. The data is available, and the study could have mentioned these numbers, but it did not.
Cerebral venous thrombosis: a retrospective cohort study of 513,284 confirmed COVID-19 cases and a comparison with 489,871 people receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine
https://osf.io/a9jdq/• Idiocy: Experimental Vaccines And Spike Proteins (Denninger)
On the topic of blood clots caused by the Covid vaccines (and not just AstraZeneca’s):
Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca’s: study
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blood-clots-as-prevalent-with-pfizer-and-moderna-vaccine-as-with-astrazenecas-report-2021-04-15madamski: “…what sound bites/memes will cross the authoritarian trust layer and stick in people’s heads in a way that stands out for them more, and sticks in their mind more, than the steady drivel coming from trusted authorities via the media?”
Aye, there’s the rub. Grassroots are up against authorities aided by teams of psychologists, public relations firms, and media.
Mr. House posted the link to this justifiably angry (in my view) rant by Kurt Denninger. Some samples:
“It ought to be obvious that playing parlor tricks on your body’s cells to produce the “spike protein” — not introducing it directly into your body which is incidentally the actual definition of a vaccine, but tricking your cells to produce it instead (and which has now been magically redefined to count as a “vaccine”) is inherently dangerous. You’d think that a decade or more of both animal and human trials, with very close follow-up on every single human so-exposed, with all of the data written up and presented to the world in public would be required to know if this sort of malarkey has unknown but severe danger associated with it. Among other risks doing this could result in cells in very unpleasant places (e.g. your heart, spleen, etc.) taking up said “instructions” and being damaged, leading to an immune response in a very bad place that could injure or kill you, or it might lead your body to target your own cells since by definition the cells that take up said “programming” and produce the protein are diseased. If either of those things happen then the very same thing that kills you when Covid goes badly might kill you as a result of the vaccine either immediately or somewhere down the road when challenged either by the original virus — or some other as yet not-identified stimulus.”
“At the same time we also continue to ignore the mountain of evidence that early treatment works; this was known back in the first months of 2020 but of course if you have any early treatment that works then you cannot get an EUA for a vaccine and this would interfere with people making money since they’d have to run said full and normally-expected set of tests first. Of course if you ran the full set of tests you would have also found the problems and thus those people who died from the jab would still be alive and since the therapies in fact do work most of those who died of Covid-19 would also still be alive and, without the fear generated by a big body count that can be splayed all over the media there’d be no market for said vaccines either.”
“We’re talking about a disease that, among non-morbid, is roughly as hazardous as Chicken Pox in a child — a risk anyone older than about 30 was deliberately exposed to by their parents, author included.”
Idiocy: Experimental Vaccines And Spike Proteins
by Karl Denninger
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=242059• Nearly A Quarter Of Registered Covid Deaths Are Not Caused By The Virus (DM)
“The latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)…”The latest data also includes this underreported statement about total deaths from all causes:
“This is the fourth consecutive week that deaths have been lower than the five-year average in England [2015-2019].”Digging deeper into the data for the most recent 4-week period, I found that if you take “Deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia” and add this to “Deaths due to COVID-19” [this will be overcounting the deaths since there is some overlap], the total of these overcounted deaths (including Covid deaths) is still
-
less
than the 5-year average (2015-2019) for “Deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia” during the same 4-week period.
A ridiculous example of Covid restrictions that are just “security theatre” (from Craig Murray):
I am planning to travel to Spain at the weekend to give evidence in the criminal case against UC Global for spying on Julian Assange and his visitors (including me) in the Ecuadorean Embassy… In returning to Scotland, if I fly direct to Edinburgh I have to enter a quarantine hotel for ten days at a cost of £1750. If however, I fly to Heathrow and then get the train to Edinburgh, I don’t have to enter a quarantine hotel and I can self isolate at home for nothing… As it is, the fact that the quarantine hotel is so easily evaded shows that there is no real seriousness of purpose behind the quarantine hotel scheme; it is purely a bit of security theatre, designed to give the impression the government is doing something and protecting us.
“No voter id in the UK either!”
“You turn up at the polling station; you tell them your name and address; they cross you off the list; you vote. No ID expected.”Also, the UK doesn’t require UK citizenship to vote. And the UK allows proxy voting, where someone else votes on your behalf.
You will not be able to vote until you are 18.
You must also be either:
• A British, Irish or European Union citizen or
• A Commonwealth citizen who has permission to live in the UKYou can choose to vote by post or by proxy.
Proxy means allowing someone you trust to vote on your behalf.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-to-vote-if-youre-living-in-the-uk
From the April 9 Debt Rattle, the B117 strain is said to be 67% more deadly.
• B.1.1.7. Now Dominant Strain In US
“Studies found the virus is 60 times more contagious than the current strain and 67 percent more deadly, according to the New York Times.”
[The study data actually showed that “more deadly” meant the survival rate went from 99.7% to 99.6%, as I commented at the time.]In today’s news, two studies indicate the B117 strain does not increase the risk of death, and doesn’t make you sicker.
Two new studies suggest that the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, which was first identified in the United Kingdom, is more transmissible, but the variant does not appear to impact disease severity.
The findings clash with separate research that previously suggested the variant may be tied to a higher risk of dying from Covid-19.
One of the studies, published on Monday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found no evidence in a sample of hospitalized patients that the B.1.1.7 variant is associated with severe Covid-19. However, the variant was associated with increased viral load, which supports the growing evidence that it is more easily transmitted.
The other study, also published Monday in The Lancet Public Health, found no statistically significant association between the B.1.1.7 variant and the types or duration of Covid-19 symptoms people said that they experienced.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/health/b117-variant-covid-19-lancet-studies/index.html
Link to the Craig Murray article I quoted above:
@ upstateNYer
I believe that Craig Murray is mistaken and misinformed about the Covid vaccines, and that he’s wrong about his “immoral” proclamation. I think the underlying assumptions of his position, about the benefits of vaccinating everyone outweighing the risks, are based on shaky to nonexistent evidence. I’m not defending him or his views, but I still respect him highly for his principled actions in other realms.
In the quotation I posted above, he references an earlier article where he laid out his position on the Covid vaccines, so I will quote it here for better context.
I shall myself take the vaccine when offered and urge everybody else to do so, despite myself tending to the view that the risk of death from covid-19, other than to clearly defined vulnerable groups, is extremely small. The risk to those vulnerable groups is acute, so for their sake I hope everybody vaccinates.
I might expand into my general view of vaccines. Being of an age where I can recall people only slightly older than myself living lives in forms twisted by polio, I have always regarded “anti-vaxxers” as deeply misguided. Any vaccine of course carries an inherent risk, as does any instance of putting anything at all in the human body. But for all established vaccines, those risks are very small. In fact, I view those who do not take vaccinations as extremely selfish, because while refusing the vaccination because of a very small risk to themselves, they still benefit from the herd immunity created by everybody else who has taken that tiny risk. I therefore view anti-vaccination as an immoral position; with the caveat that not everything that in my view, or even the state’s view, is immoral should be illegal. We come back again to the right to be different, to the fact that neither the state nor I are infallible judges of personal morality, and that the arm of the state is already too far extended.
upstateNYer” “So … is Craig Murray advocating for the right of individuals to make a decision about getting vaccinated, or is he working to shame individuals into getting vaccinated?”
Craig Murray admitted his opinion (“my view”), without presenting his belief as fact, to let the reader know where he’s coming from. I think this makes the point of his article even stronger, since right after stating his approval of the vaccines, he wrote:
“But I utterly reject the notion of compulsory vaccination or of penalising those who do not wish to vaccinated by limiting their lives.”
Vaccine mandates in the US are said to require the FDA’s full approval, while vaccinating children requires only an EUA for their age group.
Pfizer has already requested an EUA for vaccinating children age 12-15, and it “could be available this summer.” For infants, toddlers, and children from 6 months to 11 years, “health officials have estimated vaccination in this age group could start in late 2021 or early 2022.”
The right to refuse the vaccine begins at age 16, according to this article from the American Association of Pediatrics.
As COVID-19 vaccines inch closer to becoming available for children and adolescents, the AAP is helping pediatricians prepare to administer them…
Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is the only one available for teens as young as 16. However, each manufacturer has been studying its vaccines in adolescents as young as 12, and at least one could be available this summer…
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna also are conducting trials of their mRNA vaccines in children ages 6 months through 11 years. Health officials have estimated vaccination in this age group could start in late 2021 or early 2022…
Adolescents who are at least 16 do not need special consent to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, but pediatricians should inform them about the FDA’s EUA, the potential risks and benefits, their option to accept or refuse and any available alternatives.
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/04/08/covid-vaccine-children-aap-guidance-040821
phoenixvoice: “…how easy it is to transmute a cough still lingering after 3 weeks into scary-sounding long Covid.”
In the past, I have had coughs and fatigue that linger on and on, for months. “Post-viral syndrome” was well known before Covid-19.
What to know about post-viral syndrome
Post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue, refers to a sense of tiredness and weakness that lingers after a person has fought off a viral infection. It can arise even after common infections, such as the flu. People may experience post-viral symptoms, such as fatigue, for weeks or months after fighting off the infection….
Post-viral syndrome may cause additional symptoms, such as:
confusion
trouble concentrating
headaches
aches and pains in the muscles
stiff joints
a sore throat
swollen lymph nodeshttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326619
The UK government statistics I quoted yesterday were based on “two successive follow-up visits with no reported symptoms.” Let’s say someone recovers from Covid, their fatigue and every other symptom goes away, and at a follow-up visit they report no symptoms at all. At their next follow-up visit after that, they happen to have a headache (for whatever reason). If it’s more than 5 weeks (or 12 weeks) since they contracted Covid, they are included in the number of cases of “long Covid.”
The UK report makes it clear that if the assumptions were changed so that “no reported symptoms” was the endpoint, then the percentage afflicted with “long Covid” would be reduced from 13.7% to less than one percent.
Another recent headline in The Guardian warning about the scary Long Covid.
“Long Covid: many will need specialist therapies, says expert”
However, the “specialist therapies” mentioned in the article are related to “post-intensive care syndrome” which is not quite the same as Long Covid.
“The fact is for years patients very ill in intensive care on ventilators often get a prolonged recovery called post-intensive care syndrome… You might have someone in for two to three months and they are coming off a ventilator and are not ready to go home so they would go to a rehab ward … and be kept on ventilation at night but need long-term care but that happens in a small percentage who come to intensive care unit,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/11/long-covid-many-need-specialist-therapies-expertFormer ambassador and whistleblower Craig Murray makes some strong arguments that “Domestic Covid-19 Identity Documents Must Be Resisted.”
Discrimination against people on the grounds of their health status is not acceptable, while the ever increasing reach of the surveillance state is pernicious…Now I have had my first shot of vaccine myself, and urge everyone to take their vaccine… But I utterly reject the notion of compulsory vaccination or of penalising those who do not wish to vaccinated by limiting their lives…
I am genuinely unsure why it causes so much anger to state that those people who are non-geriatric and healthy are only at very slight risk of death from covid-19, when it is an undeniable fact…
Both power-drunk politicians and Stockholm syndrome populaces need to embrace the idea of normal. It is a great deal more pleasant.
An informative page about “long Covid”:
(Update: In a study of 33 long covid patients, treatment with ivermectin resulted in complete resolution of symptoms in 94% of patients. For more on covid treatment, see here.)
Another study about “long Covid”, from the journal Nature, using data from 3 countries (US, UK, and Sweden).
“We analyzed data from 4,182 incident cases of COVID-19 in which individuals self-reported their symptoms prospectively in the COVID Symptom Study app1. A total of 558 (13.3%) participants reported symptoms lasting ≥28 days, 189 (4.5%) for ≥8 weeks and 95 (2.3%) for ≥12 weeks. Long COVID was characterized by symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnea and anosmia and was more likely with increasing age and body mass index and female sex.“
Important note:
2.4% of the “controls” (not infected with Covid) reported symptoms for 28+ days.Attributes and predictors of long COVID
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01292-yFirst, some more of the narrative from The Guardian, reinforced with some statistics about the scary “long Covid“.
“How big are the blood-clot risks of the AstraZeneca jab?
[Blood clotting] may happen in one in 100,000 young adults who get the vaccine.
But this analysis leaves out important potential benefits of vaccination, such as preventing other risks from Covid, including blood clotting. Then there’s long Covid – around 12% of people aged 17 to 24 reported symptoms 12 weeks after infection.”
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2021/apr/11/how-big-are-the-blood-clot-risks-of-the-az-jabI went to the cited study to look at the data behind the claim that “12% of people aged 17 to 24 reported symptoms 12 weeks after infection.”
“Approximately 1 in 5 study participants (21.0%) who tested positive for COVID-19 from a swab sample continued to report a symptom at least 5 weeks after the assumed time of infection. Nearly 1 in 7 participants (13.7%) continued to report any symptom at 12 weeks.”
So, it’s “a” symptom, any symptom, not necessarily multiple symptoms.
“The 12 self-reported symptoms recorded in the CIS at each follow-up visit are: abdominal pain; cough; diarrhoea; fatigue; fever; headache; loss of taste; loss of smell; myalgia; nausea/vomiting; shortness of breath; and sore throat.”
“The most prevalent self-reported symptoms that persisted for at least 12 weeks post-infection were the same as those experienced at 5 weeks: fatigue (8.3%), headache (7.2%), cough (7.0%), and myalgia (5.6%). These estimates should be interpreted with caution because of low numbers of study participants still reporting individual symptoms at 12 weeks.”
“The main assumptions are: two successive follow-up visits with no reported symptoms represents a discontinuation of existing symptoms… If symptom discontinuation is defined as one rather than two successive visits without reporting symptoms, the percentage of study participants who continued to report any symptom at least 12 weeks after the assumed time of infection falls from 13.7% to 0.9%.“
Table 2: Percentage of study participants reporting any symptom at 12 weeks by sex and age group
Age 2 to 11 years 7.4
Age 12 to 16 years 8.2
Age 17 to 24 years 11.5
Age 25 to 34 years 18.2
Age 35 to 49 years 16.1
Age 50 to 69 years 16.4
Age 70 years and over 11.2
Source: Office for National Statistics
