COVID-19 News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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CDC study finds Moderna vaccine is best at preventing Covid-19 hospitalization
Source: MSN/Politico
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is the most effective at protecting against Covid-19 hospitalizations, according to a study published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An analysis of more than 3,600 adults hospitalized at 21 U.S. facilities from March to August found that vaccine efficacy against hospitalization was 93 percent for the Moderna vaccine compared to 88 percent for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

The effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine declined significantly after 120 days, the CDC’s report said, although it still provided strong protection against severe disease.

The Moderna vaccine also produced higher post-vaccination antibody levels than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the study found.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medica ... hp&pc=U531
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caltrek
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The Dubious Rise of Ivermectin as a Covid-19 Treatment, Explained
by Kelsey Piper
September 17, 2021

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2266 ... s-evidence

Introduction:
(Vox) On June 22, Joe Rogan’s wildly popular podcast dropped a new episode in which the host and guests Bret Weinstein and Dr. Pierre Kory talk about the pandemic — and a drug that they said would defeat it.

The drug is called ivermectin, and their message was that it was a stunningly good Covid-19 treatment — “good enough to end the pandemic at any point you wanted,” said Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist and now podcaster associated with the intellectual dark web movement. But they argued that the powers that be are trying to keep word from getting out, preferring instead to push a profitable Big Pharma vaccine.

The weeks that followed the episode saw a massive surge of interest in ivermectin as an alternative Covid-19 treatment. The CDC reports that 88,000 prescriptions were written in a single week in mid-August, up from 15,000 in the week before Rogan’s podcast and 3,600 a week before the pandemic began.

That surge of interest is despite the fact that the evidence base on ivermectin is shockingly shoddy. The studies finding massive effects are “probably fraudulent,” says Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia who has looked into the ivermectin literature extensively. Higher-quality studies suggest it may have mild benefits or may do nothing at all — and there’s not enough evidence yet to rule out that it causes any harm.

But the debate has, in many ways, moved past the evidence entirely. Ivermectin — as its starring role on a Joe Rogan episode suggests — has become subsumed into our forever culture war.
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caltrek
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I know that the article below is sounding very redundant, yet the core message still does not seem to be getting through for a sizable portion of the population.

Anti-vaxx Couple Dies of Virus After Claiming They Survived Pandemic Despite Being Unvaccinated
by Aysha Qamar
September 20, 2021

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/anti-vax-2655063431/

Introduction:
(Alternet) Another day, another anti-vaxxer death. As the delta variant continues to spread across the country, anti-vaxxers are not only filling up hospitals but facing death. Almost every day, news of a popular anti-vaxxer being hospitalized or dying as a result of COVID-19 seems to make headlines.

In the most recent incident, two YouTubers from Alabama who were popular for online resale tips died as a result of COVID-19 days after they posted a video confirming they would never get vaccinated, AL.com reported. "We are ALIVE and still Reselling on eBay," the couple said in their last video.

The couple, Dusty Graham and Tristan Graham, known as "Alabama Pickers," posted quite a few videos on their YouTube channel denying COVID-19.

The channel has since then been taken down, but their last video remains online reposted through other accounts, including the channel "Vaxx Mann." That channel belongs to the website sorryanitvaxxer.com, which is dedicated to resharing social media posts from people who publicly opposed the COVID-19 vaccine only to later die from the virus.

According to a GoFundMe page set up by their children, Dusty died Thursday after battling COVID-19 for three weeks. His wife had "passed suddenly in her sleep" weeks earlier due to coronavirus complications on Aug. 25.
Caltrek's comment: Just yesterday, I was waiting in line with some one who asked me if I knew that the vaccine was only for the original strain and that it "caused other strains" to emerge. He claimed a friend or relative had explained this to him who had a background in microbiology, use of CRISPR, etc. I tried to explain to him how other more vaccine resistant strains can emerge. He cut me off by saying "I hear you" then muttered something into the air about all of the "bullshit" being spread, and how people were just "afraid of the unknown." I left it at that since he no longer seemed to be addressing his comments at me in particular and did not seem interested in any further actual discussion. He was not wearing a mask, while I was.
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andmar74
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He claimed a friend or relative had explained this to him who had a background in microbiology, use of CRISPR, etc.
It's really fascinating. I had some family visiting which I hadn't seen for a long time. We started talking about Covid, of course, and there was all sorts of "facts" and opinions. Some was true and some was false.

The problem is very complex. There's a lot of data you have to take in and process. I spent countless hours last year reading about Covid, from different reliable sources. You have to try to be objective and critical in your thinking, but not too critical were you don't trust any experts. Even so, some experts got it wrong, so you have to find the "right" experts.
Furthermore, you need to know the limit of your knowledge, there's stuff you don't know even if you have read a lot about it. Do not try to make a guess.

Most people will fail. I have a master's degree in astrophysics, which helps with the complexity, I believe, but I do not have much knowledge of biology.
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caltrek
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If it were just a matter of the anti-vaccine crowd heightening their own risk without impacting upon others, that would be one thing. However, the virus itself spreads from those who could have prevented it to those who are forced by circumstances to be exposed despite their best efforts. Moreover, as the article below makes clear, there are others who don't even contract Covid19 who are still victimized by its spread.


A Boy Went to a COVID-Swamped ER. He Waited for Hours. Then His Appendix Burst.
by Jenny Deam
September 15, 2021

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-bo ... ndix-burst

Introduction:
(ProPublica) What first struck Nathaniel Osborn when he and his wife took their son, Seth, to the emergency room this summer was how packed the waiting room was for a Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The Florida hospital’s emergency room was so crowded there weren’t enough chairs for the family to all sit as they waited. And waited.

Hours passed and 12-year-old Seth’s condition worsened, his body quivering from the pain shooting across his lower belly. Osborn said his wife asked why it was taking so long to be seen. A nurse rolled her eyes and muttered, “COVID.”

Seth was finally diagnosed with appendicitis more than six hours after arriving at Cleveland Clinic Martin Health North Hospital in late July. Around midnight, he was taken by ambulance to a sister hospital about a half-hour away that was better equipped to perform pediatric emergency surgery, his father said.

But by the time the doctor operated in the early morning hours, Seth’s appendix had burst — a potentially fatal complication.
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To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
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Covid-19 Toll in U.S. Is About to Surpass 1918 Pandemic Deaths
Source: Bloomberg
The U.S.’s Covid-19 pandemic could surpass the number of dead in the 1918 influenza pandemic as soon as Monday, a milestone many experts say was avoidable after the arrival of vaccines.

The U.S. has reported 673,768 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data -- just shy of the 675,000 that are estimated to have died a century earlier. The toll has increased by an average of 1,970 a day over the past week.

The deadly mark approaches despite the widespread availability of Covid-19 vaccines, which were developed in record time in a display of the extraordinary advances in medical science in the past century. The inoculations have been passed up by some 70 million eligible Americans, many of them encouraged by Republican politicians and conservative media.

“To have so many people who have died with modern medicine is distressing,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Research Institute, who noted there were no ventilators or vaccines in 1918. “The number we are at represents a number that is far worse than it should be in the U.S.”
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... mic-deaths
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