COVID-19 News and Discussions

[wjfox]

It's about money!!!

Nothing to do with waning immunity, then?

[R8Z]

It's about money!!!

Nothing to do with waning immunity, then?

Yes, also probably related to effectiveness from the "safe and effective" motto.

---

More and more people are starting to question why such authoritarianism was rampant these last years given several fake or misleading premises:

[weatheriscool]

Large City-Wide Brazilian Ivermectin Study Finds 44% Lower Infection
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/03/l ... ffect.html
March 14, 2022 by Brian Wang

A study of Ivermectin invited the entire population of Itajaí, Brazil. In the absence of contrain indications, ivermectin was offered as an optional treatment to be taken for two consecutive days every 15 days at a dose of 0.2 mg/kg/day. This was a very small dose. The positive indications from this study are even stronger because of the low dosage. In cases where a participating citizen of Itajaí became ill with COVID-19, they were recommended not to use ivermectin or any other medication in early outpatient treatment. Clinical outcomes of infection, hospitalization, and death were automatically reported and entered into the registry in real-time.

This very large study found 44% lower infection and 68% lower deaths rates from twice a month usage of low dose Ivermectin.

[wjfox]

Large City-Wide Brazilian Ivermectin Study Finds 44% Lower Infection
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/03/l ... ffect.html
March 14, 2022 by Brian Wang

A study of Ivermectin invited the entire population of Itajaí, Brazil. In the absence of contrain indications, ivermectin was offered as an optional treatment to be taken for two consecutive days every 15 days at a dose of 0.2 mg/kg/day. This was a very small dose. The positive indications from this study are even stronger because of the low dosage. In cases where a participating citizen of Itajaí became ill with COVID-19, they were recommended not to use ivermectin or any other medication in early outpatient treatment. Clinical outcomes of infection, hospitalization, and death were automatically reported and entered into the registry in real-time.

This very large study found 44% lower infection and 68% lower deaths rates from twice a month usage of low dose Ivermectin.

Already debunked here:

viewtopic.php?p=16014#p16014

Can we please stop posting garbage about Ivermectin.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Pfizer CEO says a fourth booster shot 'is necessary'
Source: The Hill

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Sunday that a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be necessary to continue to help keep hospitalizations manageable and sicknesses more mild.

"Right now, the way that we have seen, it is necessary, a fourth booster right now. The protection that you are getting from the third, it is good enough, actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths," Bourla said while appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"It's not that good against infections, but doesn't last very long. But we are just submitting those data to the FDA and then we will see what the experts also will say outside Pfizer," he added.

In August, the Food and Drug Administration fully approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for people at least 16-years-old or older. A third dose of Pfizer's vaccine has been granted emergency use authorization.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AAV0vIL

It's about money!!!

I knew there would be more than 1 shot. I wonder how many the actual series will have. When the final age group is accounted for I imagine things will be very different since there has been quite a bit of COVID tech advances in just the past 2 years.

[caltrek]

...

More and more people are starting to question why such authoritarianism was rampant these last years given several fake or misleading premises:

The Efficacy of Lockdown Against COVID-19: A Cross-Country Panel Analysis
by Vincenzo Alfano and Salvatore Ercolano


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3249506 ... mentation.

Extract:

Results: Our results show that lockdown is effective in reducing the number of new cases in the countries that implement it, compared with those countries that do not. This is especially true around 10 days after the implementation of the policy. Its efficacy continues to grow up to 20 days after implementation.

Conclusion: Results suggest that lockdown is effective in reducing the R0, i.e. the number of people infected by each infected person, and that, unlike what has been suggested in previous analyses, its efficacy continues to hold 20 days after the introduction of the policy.

[R8Z]

...

More and more people are starting to question why such authoritarianism was rampant these last years given several fake or misleading premises:

The Efficacy of Lockdown Against COVID-19: A Cross-Country Panel Analysis
by Vincenzo Alfano and Salvatore Ercolano


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3249506 ... mentation.

Extract:

Results: Our results show that lockdown is effective in reducing the number of new cases in the countries that implement it, compared with those countries that do not. This is especially true around 10 days after the implementation of the policy. Its efficacy continues to grow up to 20 days after implementation.

Conclusion: Results suggest that lockdown is effective in reducing the R0, i.e. the number of people infected by each infected person, and that, unlike what has been suggested in previous analyses, its efficacy continues to hold 20 days after the introduction of the policy.

I'd love to see studies on the effectiveness and side effects of a prolonged lockdown most countries went through. Note that you shared a very outdated article from the beginning of the pandemic. Mental effects, economic effects, child raising effects. So many side effects.

Nevertheless even if it was effective saving one or several grannies it was still an authoritarian policy which went against people's will, like most were these last few years. Nothing unexpected at this point I suppose but I want to make that clear that no percentage would justify limiting people's rights, independently if the dictatorship of the majority (democracy) has decided so.

[caltrek]

I'd love to see studies on the effectiveness and side effects of a prolonged lockdown most countries went through. Note that you shared a very outdated article from the beginning of the pandemic. Mental effects, economic effects, child raising effects. So many side effects.

Nevertheless even if it was effective saving one or several grannies it was still an authoritarian policy which went against people's will, like most were these last few years. Nothing unexpected at this point I suppose but I want to make that clear that no percentage would justify limiting people's rights, independently if the dictatorship of the majority (democracy) has decided so.

Well, being of the grannie generation, I should take deep offense at your cavalier attitude toward the lives of such people. Moreover, although us elderly were most impacted, Covid19 struck across all generations and took victims in all age groups. Failures to contain the virus helped it to spread, leading to mutations that proved harder to control. Some of these mutations also proved to be more deadly to youth that had not yet reached adulthood. Yes, there were economic effects of the lockdowns, but there were also economic and substantial health effects of the failure to contain or at least minimize the negative effects of Covid19. I think the approach which recognizes that it must first and foremost be addressed as a public health concern also makes a great deal of economic sense. Failure to address it as a public health concern results in obvious economic consequences. Consider, for example, the impact on the health care system. In case you haven't heard, health care costs money.

Edicts to protect the public health do have an authoritarian aspect about them. Still, consider the nature of a disease like Covid. It does not proceed on ideological grounds. At its worse, it kills in manner which equals or exceeds that of the most tyrannical of dictators. It is an enemy that is utterly ruthless not out of intent, but simply in the nature of its existence. One can fight it, or one can advocate policies that intensifies its destruction. A lot depends on one's initial philosophical orientation. If one has the priority of protecting lives, that leads to one set of conclusions. If one cares more about "freedom" at the expense of all other considerations, then that leads to another set of conclusions.

In addition to economic considerations, there is the question of good science versus junk science. Junk science is often embraced by those who foster a deep sort of denialism. This same sort of denialism can be seen in such issues as global warming, environmental protection versus introducing poisons into the environment, smoking of tobacco, drug abuse, etc. I would caution you not to fall into the denialist camp. For purposes of this forum, you may very well gain a reputation as a purveyor of junk science.

[R8Z]

Large City-Wide Brazilian Ivermectin Study Finds 44% Lower Infection
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/03/l ... ffect.html
March 14, 2022 by Brian Wang

A study of Ivermectin invited the entire population of Itajaí, Brazil. In the absence of contrain indications, ivermectin was offered as an optional treatment to be taken for two consecutive days every 15 days at a dose of 0.2 mg/kg/day. This was a very small dose. The positive indications from this study are even stronger because of the low dosage. In cases where a participating citizen of Itajaí became ill with COVID-19, they were recommended not to use ivermectin or any other medication in early outpatient treatment. Clinical outcomes of infection, hospitalization, and death were automatically reported and entered into the registry in real-time.

This very large study found 44% lower infection and 68% lower deaths rates from twice a month usage of low dose Ivermectin.

Already debunked here:

viewtopic.php?p=16014#p16014

Can we please stop posting garbage about Ivermectin.

Can you define "garbage" in the scientific literature? Why would you say a peer-reviewed article is garbage? It might contain flaws, issues with data, prejudices and conflicts of interest, etc. But most of the scientific literature, specially in medicine, would be garbage if we considered all these as that. A reminder, look at how weak was the evidence for FDA approval of another drug (tip: CTRL+F/search for "statistically"):
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-h ... d-efficacy

I personally can't wait for the peer-review of the following article which is a follow-up of the "debunked" one where it looks like, from a brief scan of the pre-print, all flaws pointed by the "fact"-checker were corrected wherever feasible.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... study_of_a

All in all, the biggest bummer for studies about covid and the bright side for everyone is that covid barely kills, it's an extremely mild disease judging by deaths alone... just look at the above article on how many people died during the study and you see it's hard to find any pattern in the data when the control isn't actually getting hurt by the disease: they start the study with 220k+ people and in the end they are comparing 2 to 11 deaths between different groups.

Between matched groups of non-users and strictly regular users (n=289 in each group), mortality rate was 3.8% among non-users (11 deaths) and 0.7% (two deaths) among strictly regular users, a 90% reduction in mortality rate (RR, 0.10; 95%CI 0.02 – 0.45; p = 0.003)

[wjfox]

covid barely kills

Oh, okay then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics

https://nationalcovidmemorialwall.org/

https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/

it's an extremely mild disease

Except, you're objectively wrong, and it clearly isn't.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59895598

[Cyber_Rebel]

the dictatorship of the majority (democracy) has decided so.

So... we do or don't support democracy then? I mean, I've posted polling data earlier which clearly demonstrated a majority of Canadians supported restrictions/mandates, even if they personally felt fed up with them, due to an adherence for public safety. It's been shown long covid even in mild cases is undesirable, as well as new mutations which evade current vaccines, requiring the boosters people are unsurprisingly complaining about now. It wasn't just to protect a few grandmas, but also many immuno-compromised people who were at risk.

As cynical/harsh as this might be to say, I really don't support too many restrictions anymore going forwards. It may be best to let nature take its course, and then the rational people left can just mop up the rest. The same people skeptical and conspiracy minded about the pandemic will be even more so when it comes to the climate crisis. That doesn't mean let people who take it seriously or at risk to die, but the anti-vaxxers & conspiratorial should be left on their own, even if it means no longer getting health-care. A lot of deaths caused were actually due to them overflooding hospitals and preventing care to others who required it, so no longer.

[R8Z]

covid barely kills

Oh, okay then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics

https://nationalcovidmemorialwall.org/

https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/

it's an extremely mild disease

Except, you're objectively wrong, and it clearly isn't.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59895598

0.1~1% adds up when you multiply it by big numbers... nevertheless I was talking about the scientific studies quoted and context matters in this case. Also I was talking about deaths which you forgot to include in your quote.

COVID is bad, we all know about it, it fucks primarily with your blood (ACE2) that later causes damages to several organs, fucks your T-cells (the so-called HIV genetic inserts acting, maybe?) that will let you weak for a prolonged amount of time and let other diseases hurt or kill you. Luckily this isn't such a big deal as we now have therapies for dealing with the disease (including the shiny mRNA ones) and it has mutated to much weaker strains: media is now saying that Omicron was 80-90% less mortal than the original strain, which I am glad was the one that infected me a few months ago. At least so far, here in the western world, it's a worry of the past for most with acquired immunity (injected or viral).

By the way, bad taste sharing that website about people that have died because they didn't want to partake in the biggest medical experiment ever and unfortunately paid the price for caution. Maybe go ahead and also share the ones that died taking the mRNA experimental therapy to balance the discussion. It would be specially interesting to see the ones that were forced to take the injection (or would face the destruction of their families by job loss or lack of travel) and then died because of that, these would be the best ones to crack a laugh at, I suppose.

Or maybe share some names of the people that still consciously shares unfounded claims on effectiveness while dismissing its (now obvious) side effects and lack of effectiveness without a constant influx of gene therapy boost doses (you all know my take: no thanks, I am not signing for that without reading the fine print).

People aren't informedly consenting to this drug. They haven't seen the studies (most are here in this thread, for the curious) and they are driven by fear and false promises (if everyone vaccinate the disease will go away, I remember!). Studies that go contrary to what is the "trustable" science get [removed] from almost every platform..

Ironically as the disease has been such an easy one on (most) younger people I now know much more people that are have been injured (maybe for life? who knows) by the experimental drugs than by the disease itself. Personally I know only a single guy that has been injured by COVID, the first strain, poor guy, he was fit, didn't have any comorbidities and had to struggle while recovering for a few months before being par with what he was before the disease. Meanwhile I know of several that had the several problems: mini-stroke (guy crashed his car after taking his 2nd mRNA dose, luckily slowly and didn't kill himself), another with hearth issues (palpitation and pain) after 3rd mRNA dose (in the UK), another guy that can't keep the same pace as before while running, most probably a heart issue as well (constant fatigue), after 2nd mRNA dose as well.

Only someone that really "trusts the science", in the age group of <40, would willing take a gene therapy drug that didn't even have its (emergency) approval documents released yet (remember: they've asked for 75 years to release them), a drug which by now we know that if by mistake gets into your bloodstream would completely f*ck up your heart and (probably) your brain (again, study has already been shared in this thread).

---

Nevertheless, this wasn't really the discussion. I shared an article which you claimed was garbage, maybe it is, but it's now almost 100 garbage articles stating that IVM works, working best if taken before infected (just like mRNA treatments). Maybe the science isn't so settled like people would love to believe.

(btw, remember that I said that it doesn't matter to have N people saying the same thing as science is not a matter of majority? bs will still be bs independently of how many people agree with it. So I am already killing my own argument above here, just for a helping hand for the next post).

[R8Z]

the dictatorship of the majority (democracy) has decided so.

So... we do or don't support democracy then? I mean, I've posted polling data earlier which clearly demonstrated a majority of Canadians supported restrictions/mandates, even if they personally felt fed up with them, due to an adherence for public safety. It's been shown long covid even in mild cases is undesirable, as well as new mutations which evade current vaccines, requiring the boosters people are unsurprisingly complaining about now. It wasn't just to protect a few grandmas, but also many immuno-compromised people who were at risk.

As cynical/harsh as this might be to say, I really don't support too many restrictions anymore going forwards. It may be best to let nature take its course, and then the rational people left can just mop up the rest. The same people skeptical and conspiracy minded about the pandemic will be even more so when it comes to the climate crisis. That doesn't mean let people who take it seriously or at risk to die, but the anti-vaxxers & conspiratorial should be left on their own, even if it means no longer getting health-care. A lot of deaths caused were actually due to them overflooding hospitals and preventing care to others who required it, so no longer.

Personally I am not a fan of democracies as crowds aren't really as wise as we tend to believe. I respect democracy, but I like it consistent (which is similar to how I like/respect any political alignment that is logically and rationally consistent): for example, a sane democracy is one where if people agree on harsh measures they've to be followed and the dissent minorities silenced or driven away to greener pastures that accept their minority views.
The middle-of-the-road democracy that pretends that everything is flowers is lame because in the end it's just a bunch of screams from most people and nothing ever gets accomplished, all of that pretending to be the will of the people and that the dissent doesn't exist (but crushing them nevertheless, like they did with the minority dissenters in Canada). This isn't even discussing the fake sentiment of partaking in decisions this pseudo-democracy gives to people and effectively puts them out of the political game by them not even trying.

[weatheriscool]

Senate votes to repeal travel mask mandates in bipartisan rebuke of Biden administration policy
Source: CNN

The Senate on Tuesday passed a resolution from Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to repeal the federal travel mask mandates on public transportation, in a bipartisan rebuke to the Biden administration's policy.

Despite the resolution succeeding in the Senate, it is unlikely to move in the Democratic-led House and would likely be opposed by President Joe Biden. The White House had issued a veto threat against the proposal earlier Tuesday.

The final vote was 57-40, with eight Democrats joining Republicans in favor of the resolution. One GOP senator voted against the measure: Mitt Romney of Utah.

The Democrats who voted to rid of the mask mandate are: the senators from Nevada, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto; the senators from Arizona, Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema; Michael Bennet of Colorado, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Jon Tester of Montana.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AAV6utq

[caltrek]

Before we get too far off the subject of ivermectin, I thought I would cite the slightly dated article below. While it may be a little early to conclude that the "science is settled" on the matter, I think it definitely shows where the consensus is heading. At least as of September 2021.

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

Extract:

(Vox) (Ivermectin’s)…fans have wildly overstated its benefits and assailed overwhelmed doctors and nurses who refuse to give it to patients. Ivermectin enthusiasm on social media has propelled some into anti-vaccine, anti-Western medicine conspiracies, with some posters even going so far as to warn members against going to the emergency room — because “they fear nurses are killing them on purpose.”
…
Early in the pandemic, ivermectin, along with several other drugs repurposed to fight Covid-19, showed promise in small trials. But it’s very common in such trials for promising results to occur by chance. And while extremely high doses of ivermectin work against Covid-19 “in vitro”— that is, in petri dish samples in laboratories — that tells us practically nothing about how well the drug works against the disease in live patients.
Indeed, the doses of ivermectin that kill Covid-19 in in vitro settings are higher than are achievable in the human body.

Over the last year…studies of ivermectin have been accumulating — and a pattern has emerged. Careful, large, well-conducted studies tend to find modest benefits or no statistically significant benefits for Covid-19 patients who took ivermectin. “The confidence intervals span both modest benefit and modest harm,” says Meyerowitz-Katz. In other words, the results that the studies have found are small enough that they’d be plausible if the drug works — and also plausible if it actively has negative effects.
…
To be clear, the research community studying therapeutics has been careful, in their public statements, not to rule ivermectin out, and to emphasize that current evidence is inconclusive — which is not the same as saying it definitely doesn’t work. The truth is that high-quality research suggests that benefits, if there are any at all, will be small, and that treatments that work better exist and are just as cheap. In the meantime, there’s high-quality ongoing research that should help clear up the remaining uncertainty about ivermectin.

Edit: Link added and typographical errors corrected.

[wjfox]

Covid infections surge to record high for over-70s in UK

Oliver Barnes and John Burn-Murdoch in London yesterday

The surge in infections has already begun to contribute to increased hospitalisations. As of March 17, there were 14,671 Covid patients in hospitals across the UK, an increase of 38 per cent in the past fortnight.

https://www.ft.com/content/b4bf71b1-0b6 ... 13379a270c

[weatheriscool]

Shanghai Disneyland closes as virus rises, Shenzhen reopens
Source: AP

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) — Shanghai Disneyland closed Monday as China’s most populous city tried to contain its biggest coronavirus flareup in two years, while the southern business center of Shenzhen allowed shops and offices to reopen after a weeklong closure.

Meanwhile, the cities of Changchun and Jilin in the northeast began another round of citywide virus testing following a surge in infections. Jilin tightened anti-disease curbs, ordering its 2 million residents to stay home.

China’s case numbers in its latest infection wave are low compared with other major countries, but authorities are enforcing a “zero tolerance” strategy that has suspended access to some major cities.

The government reported 2,027 new cases on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, up from the previous day’s 1,737. That included 1,542 infections in Jilin province, where Changchun and Jilin are located.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/covid-health ... b40df3e3a7

[caltrek]

Largest Study Yet Shows Ivermectin Failed to Reduce Covid Hospitalizations
by Noah Y. Kim
March 19, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... lizations/

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Antiparasitic drug Ivermectin became a partisan battleground during the Covid-19 pandemic, as anti-vaccine influencers and Republican politicians hawked it as a miracle cure, to the widespread skepticism of infectious disease experts.

A peer-reviewed study recently presented by Dr. Edward Mills, a professor of health sciences at McMaster University in Canada, offered significant new evidence that ivermectin was coronavirus snake oil all along.

In the largest trial yet analyzing the effectiveness of ivermectin on treating the coronavirus, Mills and his fellow researchers found that Covid-19 patients at risk of severe illness who received ivermectin did no better than those prescribed a placebo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

“This is the first large, prospective study that should really help put to rest ivermectin and not give any credibility to the use of it for Covid-19,” Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told the Journal.

[erowind]

.

[R8Z]

the dictatorship of the majority (democracy) has decided so.

As cynical/harsh as this might be to say, I really don't support too many restrictions anymore going forwards. It may be best to let nature take its course, and then the rational people left can just mop up the rest. The same people skeptical and conspiracy minded about the pandemic will be even more so when it comes to the climate crisis. That doesn't mean let people who take it seriously or at risk to die, but the anti-vaxxers & conspiratorial should be left on their own, even if it means no longer getting health-care. A lot of deaths caused were actually due to them overflooding hospitals and preventing care to others who required it, so no longer.

Letting this happen will kill people in almost every population group. 9/10 Americans are covid deniers now it seems. No one wears a mask. No one social distances. No on cares. It's not a matter of letting, "rational people" work it out. Unless a person is a hermit they will be exposed as literally every contact around them will endanger them. Personal action is only so effective when collective action is nonexistent! We need restrictions and they won't come. Everyone's so up in arms about China forcing quarantines and here I am wishing our governments would do literally anything at all.


Now to post what I came here for. If the case counts in the US and Canada don't start curling up soon I will become convinced that they are simply not being counted or that the statistics are otherwise rigged. Even if they do curl up if they don't match european data rest assured we are being lied to. **** this hell.

In the field I work there's this thing about risk: you can fix the underlying problem, mitigate the risk or accept the risk. Depending on the percentage of it happening and the amount of damage you might pick different strategies and sometimes a combination of them. For a substantial amount of people it's clear the the risk has been accepted and life goes on. For those who still are afraid, I suppose a self imposed lockdown and other precautions should do the trick if they worry for themselves. If these afraid are worrying for others which aren't afraid anymore, then I am afraid there's nothing do to.