COVID-19 News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

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

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

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.

[caltrek]

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.

[andmar74]

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.

[caltrek]

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.

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

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

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[Yuli Ban]

[weatheriscool]

Second dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine increases protection against covid-19, maker says
Source: Washington Post

A second shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine boosts protection against symptomatic and severe covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the drug company announced early Tuesday. Those booster shots also generated additional antibodies, molecules churned out by the immune system to help fight off infections.

“It’s very exciting news,” said Vanderbilt University Medical Center infectious-diseases and preventive-medicine professor William Schaffner, though he cautioned that not all the data had been seen and that information must be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration before recommendations can be made. “The people who received J&J have been a little concerned that they’ve been left in the shade when it comes to repeat vaccination,” Schaffner said. These results, as presented, seem to signal that those vaccine recipients might “expect a booster in their future,” he said.

Under the FDA’s emergency use authorization, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is given as a single dose, unlike the two shots required for full immunization with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines. Results published this summer indicate that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine generates lasting amounts of antibodies able to target the delta variant and other variants of concern. In June and July, when delta was ascendant, the effectiveness of the one-shot vaccine was 78 percent against observed covid-19, according to a report published Thursday that has not yet gone through peer review.

A second dose, given 56 days after the first, further improves protection, the company said in a news release Tuesday. According to the company’s Ensemble 2 study, a Phase 3 randomized clinical trial, efficacy was 100 percent against severe or critical covid-19 when assessed at least two weeks after the booster. Efficacy against symptomatic disease was 94 percent in the United States and 75 percent globally. “We now have generated evidence that a booster shot further increases protection against covid-19 and is expected to extend the duration of protection significantly,” Johnson & Johnson chief scientific officer Paul Stoffels said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ster-shot/

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Brazilian minister tests positive for Covid after meeting maskless Johnson

Wed 22 Sep 2021 11.05 BST

Brazil’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, has tested positive for Covid and gone into isolation, 24 hours after meeting a maskless Boris Johnson and other British officials in New York.

Queiroga, who sat close to Johnson and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday during their meeting with Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, announced his positive test on Twitter on Tuesday night.

Soon after, the Brazilian news website Metrópoles reported that Brazil had decided to abort its participation in the UN general assembly as a result of what was the second confirmed case of Covid in its delegation.

Queiroga, 55, a cardiologist, was filmed shaking hands with Johnson and patting the prime minister on the arm during Monday’s gathering at the consulate general’s house in New York.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ss-johnson

[weatheriscool]

Microneedle patch delivers COVID-19 DNA vaccine, doesn't require cold storage
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-microneed ... ccine.html
by American Chemical Society

More than 2 billion people worldwide are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, many who live in resource-limited countries haven't been able to get vaccines, partly because these areas lack temperature-controlled shipping and storage facilities. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a microneedle patch that delivers a COVID-19 DNA vaccine into the skin, causing strong immune responses in cells and mice. Importantly, the patch can be stored for over 30 days at room temperature.

To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized three vaccines for use during the COVID-19 pandemic: one based on protein, and two on RNA. All of them must be kept refrigerated or frozen, which limits their distribution to remote or resource-limited areas. In addition, the vaccines must be administered by a healthcare worker as an injection into a muscle. Because immune cells aren't typically found in muscles, scientists have investigated various ways to deliver vaccines into the skin, which contains abundant antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and could therefore generate a stronger immune response. Hui Li, Guangjun Nie, Hai Wang and colleagues wanted to develop a microneedle patch that efficiently delivers a COVID-19 vaccine under the skin, causing potent and durable immunity without the need for a cold chain or painful injections.

[caltrek]

Right-wing Breitbart Writer Thinks Democrats are using ‘Reverse Psychology’ to get Trump Voters Killed
Alex Henderson
September 21, 2021

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/anti-v ... 655070502/

Introduction:

(Alternet) Veteran shock jock Howard Stern, now 67, has grown increasingly fed up with far-right anti-vaxxers, noting all the MAGA radio hosts who railed against COVID-19 vaccines before dying from COVID-19. And Breitbart News' John Nolte has come up with a very imaginative conspiracy theory, claiming that Stern — along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — is using "reverse psychology" in the hope of keeping "Trump supporters" unvaccinated.

This conspiracy theory, reporter Matt Gertz stresses in Media Matters, shows the ridiculous and "toxic" lengths Nolte will go to in order to vilify political opponents.

Nolte believes that Stern and others are railing against unvaccinated supporters of former President Donald Trump because they hope that they will be offended, express their displeasure by remaining unvaccinated, get sick with COVID-19 and die from it. Even by Breitbart standards, that conspiracy theory is, Gertz writes, "far-fetched."

In an article published by Breitbart on September 10, Nolte wrote, "Do you want to know why I think Howard Stern is going full-monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus? Because leftists like Stern and CNNLOL and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated."

Nolte went on to say, "If I wanted to use reverse psychology to convince people not to get a life-saving vaccination, I would do exactly what Stern and the left are doing…. I would bully and taunt and mock and ridicule you for not getting vaccinated, knowing the human response would be: Hey, f*ck you, I'm never getting vaccinated! And why is that a perfectly human response? Because no one ever wants to feel like they are being bullied or ridiculed or mocked or pushed into doing anything."

caltrek's comment: Actually, if this helped to convince some to get vaccinated, it would not be an entirely bad thing. Of course, it doesn't help to otherwise build trust.

Edit: Of course, now I suppose I will be accused of trying to use reverse psychology...

[weatheriscool]

Breakthrough COVID-19 cases expected to become more common in coming months
Source: Roll Call

Mild cases of COVID-19 among vaccinated individuals are becoming increasingly common as the highly contagious delta variant barrels through communities, but physicians and public health experts say that shouldn’t be a cause for significant concern.

A breakthrough case of COVID-19 occurs when a person contracts COVID-19 at least two full weeks after the final dose of the vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks only breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death, as these incidences are both serious and very rare.

COVID-19 cases are up to five times more common in unvaccinated individuals compared with the vaccinated, according to the CDC. But state-level data shows that milder breakthrough cases that do not result in hospitalization are on the rise among the fully vaccinated as virus transmission increases and vaccine efficacy decreases. And they’re expected to keep increasing.

“It’s likely that everybody will probably get infected with COVID-19 [at some point] because it’s an endemic respiratory virus. The goal is to make sure that at that time, that infection occurs after you’ve been vaccinated so it’s mild,” said Amesh Adalja, a doctor and infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Read more: https://www.rollcall.com/2021/09/22/bre ... ng-months/

[caltrek]

African Leaders Condemn Vaccine Apartheid as an 'Indictment on Humanity'
by Jake Johnson
September 24, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/ ... t-humanity

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) The leaders of several African nations on Thursday blasted the system of "vaccine apartheid" that rich countries and pharmaceutical giants have created by hoarding doses and refusing to share key manufacturing technology, opting to prioritize profits and patent rights over ending the coronavirus pandemic everywhere.

Addressing the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video conference, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared that vaccines are "the greatest defense that humanity has against the ravages of this pandemic."

"It is therefore a great concern that the global community has not sustained the principles of solidarity and cooperation in securing equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines," Ramaphosa said. "It is an indictment on humanity that more than 82% of the world's vaccine doses have been acquired by wealthy countries, while less than 1% has gone to low-income countries."

To date, just 3% of Africa's 1.3 billion-strong population has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 people on the continent. World Health Organization officials warned last week that Africa is on track to receive 470 million fewer vaccine doses this year than previously expected, a shortfall that the WHO's Africa director blamed on "export bans and vaccine hoarding."

At the current pace of vaccination, nearly 80% of African nations are set to miss the WHO's goal of ensuring that at least 10% of every country's population is inoculated against Covid-19 by the end of September.

[Yuli Ban]