Covid-19 News

Yesterday, NHE (Japanese National TV) reported on data from Israel. They showed that far fewer than 1% of the vaccinated population has gotten sick or died. The vaccines were both measured at 95% efficiency before deployment. The new data from Israel shows they are much better than that.

Since vaccinations began, all of the new infections and deaths in Israel have been in the remaining unvaccinated population, and among people not previously infected. That is ~54% of the population (40% vaccinated plus 6% previously infected). Infections are not increasing. If the rest of the population is vaccinated, the epidemic within Israel will go extinct. If a more virulent strain spreads before the rest of the population can be vaccinated, the numbers of infections and deaths might increase, but this increase will not be caused by a problem with the vaccine.

Here is the data for Israel. The rate of decrease is disappointing. Perhaps this indicates the more virulent strain is circulating:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/

In the U.S. the virulent new strains might kill ~300,000 more people, unless we increase the use of masks, social distancing, testing, and we vaccinate more quickly. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0…ion/new-covid-strain.html

Quote:

“What we need to do right now is to plan for the worst case scenario,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told me. “And when I say ‘worst case,’ I’m potentially talking about the most likely case. Let’s not wait until we wrap the car around the tree to start pumping the brakes.”

The website Our World In Data now includes COVID-19 vaccination data.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Note the checkbox on the top right: "COUNT" which is "Per 100 people" or the absolute number.

Note that in the list on the left, "Type or add a country. . ." you can add "World."

This site has good graphs. Flexible, easy to use, easy to read.

Quote from JedRothwell

They showed that far fewer than 1% of the vaccinated population has gotten sick or died. The vaccines were both measured at 95% efficiency before deployment. The new data from Israel shows they are much better than that.

I scrambled up the description there. Those are two separate data points.

I should have written down the numbers from the broadcast. I am pretty sure they said that 0.01% of vaccinated people got the disease. (My wife also thinks that's what they said.) 4.25 million people have been vaccinated, so that's 425 cases. I suppose some of the people who got sick were already infected when they got the vaccine, or they were infected a few days later before the antibodies developed.

They said 0.01% and they also said efficacy is better than originally estimated from the double-blind tests.

To determine efficacy, you need to compare a vaccinated group to an unvaccinated group. That's a separate analysis. 95% efficacy does not mean you would expect 5% of vaccinated people to get sick! Some fraction of both groups get sick. You compare the numbers and find the percent of vaccinated people is 20 times lower than the unvaccinated group. That's what 95% efficacy means. That's elementary, but it confuses me at times.

Vaccinations began on Dec. 23, 2020. Since then, Israel has had 231,912 infections. However, you cannot easily use this data to estimate efficacy based on the 425 cases, because the pool of unvaccinated people on Dec. 23 was 100% of the population, and now it is 60%, so the arithmetic is complicated.

Article on Hand Sanitizers.

https://www.lifehack.org/28854…se-hand-sanitizer-anymore

Vaccinating the World.

Quote from Shane D.

As Gerold said though, the effectiveness of all these mitigating home measures does not seem to be widely known.

The effectiveness would difficult to measure. You don't have double-blind tests or careful monitoring. You don't have troops of nurses and medical researchers coming into your house taking notes on the outcome of home measures. You don't do one measure at a time, to sort out the efficacy from the others. The environment from one house to the other is drastically different. Some houses are highly exposed to the virus, such as multigenerational houses with people going to work every day at meatpacking plants and other highly infectious jobs. Others houses have practically no exposure. The only way to estimate the effect of mitigating home measures would be to monitor tens of thousands of households. It would be best to do double blind tests, where you give one household an actual home remedy, and the other a bottle of water, and neither you nor the family knows which is which. Obviously, such tests cannot be done! The whole scenario is out of the question.

We are left with mainly anecdotal evidence. I do not disparage anecdotal evidence as much as some people do, but I think we can all agree it is weak, and it has be to bolstered with carefully measured data from thousands of cases.

Also, in general, home measures and folk medicine do not work. Or they barely work. A lot of these measures were discovered long ago. Things like medicinal plants for example. If these things worked well, we wouldn't need modern medical science. Our ancestors would not have gotten sick and died in appalling numbers -- which they did. In 1900 it was normal to lose a child to illness. My family did, and so did my wife's family. They had all kinds of home remedies, but the remedies did not work. (Neither family had access to good doctors back then. My side was poor, and my wife's family has lived in the middle of nowhere since records began in the 18th century, only now they can be reached with medevac helicopters.)

To be sure, folk medicines often worked better than nothing. If you were injured, sick, or in childbirth in 1900, or 1600, or even 1000 BC, you would be more likely to survive with the help of a skilled doctor. But nowhere near as likely to survive as nowadays. There was no way prevent viral diseases before vaccines were invented. There still is very little you can do to prevent most viruses. You can only reduce the severity. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so vaccines are the best thing in a pandemic.

Quote from Fm1

A team of World Health Organization experts is due to begin field research into the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, where COVID-19 was first recorded in late 2019, after completing two weeks of compulsory hotel quarantine.

The first documented people that did contain CoV-19 (August 2019) did live in Italy- early corona Italy la stampa15112020.pdf from La stampa 15.11.2020.

Quote from JedRothwell

ince vaccinations began, all of the new infections and deaths in Israel have been in the remaining unvaccinated population, and among people not previously infected.

Where did you get this nonsese?? Independent data did show that the vaccine is only 33% effective after one shot for people odler than 60 years. There is no at least 33% decline in cases albeit their should one. Even the death rate stays constantly high. Is there a JED version of worldometer ??

If you don't get the 33% then ask us why?

The pharma mafia already attacked the doctor that leaked the true data as he was a tick faster than the mafia news. I guess they had to diner first...

Why the hell do you believe Pfizer stopped vaccine production??

„....Pfizer stopped vaccine production??„

It seems I missed this announcement. Can you again link your source? Thx

Quote from zorud

„....Pfizer stopped vaccine production??„

It seems I missed this announcement.

You missed it because it did not happen. As usual, Wyttenbach pulled this nonsense out of . . . thin air.

Wyttenbach must think the readers here are gullible idiots. Anyone can see he is lying! Everyone knows that if Pfizer had stopped production, it would be BOLD HEADLINES in every newspaper and news website on earth. Yet there is no sign of such news.

Do a search and you will see Pfizer temporarily reduced vaccine delivery to Europe because they are expanding a production line:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/1…deliveries-to-europe.html

. . . the temporary reduction in deliveries was “in connection with an upgrade of production capacity.” “The temporary reduction will affect all European countries . . .

Pfizer later confirmed the disruption to deliveries in a statement. “As part of the normal productivity improvements to increase capacity, we must make modifications to the process and facility that will require additional regulatory approvals,” it explained.

Quote from zorud

It seems I missed this announcement. Can you again link your source? Thx

Just google for Belgium Pfizer, factory etc.. . That's what kids normally do. This by mere coincidence happened at the same time for Moderna & Astra Zeneca too...

Official news: Reforming/rearranging production...correct would be add one more peptid line...

Why it takes 2 shots to make mRNA vaccines do their antibody-creating best – and what the data shows on delaying the booster dose

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

With the U.S. facing vaccination delays because of worker shortages and distribution problems, federal health officials now say it’s OK to push back the second dose of the two-part vaccine by as much as six weeks.

As an infectious disease doctor, I’ve been fielding a lot of questions from my patients as well as my friends and family about whether the COVID-19 vaccine will still work if people are late receiving their second dose.

Why you need two doses 3-4 weeks apart

Two doses, separated by three to four weeks, is the tried-and-true approach to generate an effective immune response through vaccination, not just for COVID but for hepatitis A and B and other diseases as well.

The first dose primes the immune system and introduces the body to the germ of interest. This allows the immune system to prepare its defense. The second dose, or booster, provides the opportunity for the immune system to ramp up the quality and quantity of the antibodies used to fight the virus.

In the case of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, the second dose increases the protection afforded by the vaccine from 60% to approximately 95%.

Why the CDC decided receiving the second dose within 42 days is OK

In the clinical trial, the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine was administered as early as day 19 and as late as day 42 to 93% of the subjects. Since protection was approximately 95% for everyone who was vaccinated within this time “window,” there is little reason not to allow some flexibility in the timing of the second dose 2.

As more vaccine becomes available, the timing of the second dose should be close to four weeks for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But the good news is that even while supplies remain limited, the science suggests that there’s nothing bad about getting a second dose as late as 42 days after the first.

Quote from Fm1

With the U.S. facing vaccination delays because of worker shortages and distribution problems, federal health officials now say it’s OK to push back the second dose of the two-part vaccine by as much as six weeks.

Quote from Fm1

Why the CDC decided receiving the second dose within 42 days is OK

In the clinical trial, the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine was administered as early as day 19 and as late as day 42 to 93% of the subjects. Since protection was approximately 95% for everyone who was vaccinated within this time “window,” there is little reason not to allow some flexibility in the timing of the second dose 2.

That's good news! That's what I figured would be the case. That's what I have been telling my wife.

I do not know much about biology, but I did study it in college. Especially I took part in hands-on behavioral experiments with guppies and squirrels in Japan. (Messing with guppies did not take as much language skill as, say, history courses.) What the professors emphasized again and again is that animals are variable. Their response is all over the place. The profs and medical docs used to tell me: "Given the exact same conditions of light, air, food and stimuli, organisms will do whatever the hell they feel like doing." The way patients react to many drugs is highly variable. 3 to 4 weeks may be the ideal gap for a booster shot, but it seems likely a longer gap will also work, because animals are so resilient. They can recover from illness even with drastically suboptimal treatment.

In other words, we should make the gap 3 or 4 weeks if possible. Do what the doctor says. But if we can save many lives while risking a longer gap, and not lose too many patients to the longer gap, it is worth the trade-off.

Why Vaccines Might Not Be Able to Eliminate Covid-19

https://www.bloomberg.com/news…minate-covid-19-quicktake

The road to eliminating Covid-19 is long and paved with uncertainty. Many countries are counting on vaccines to build sufficient immunity in their populations so that SARS-CoV-2 isn’t able to find susceptible people to infect, causing transmission of the coronavirus to slow and eventually stop. But even with the rollout of highly effective vaccines, immunization coverage may not reach that level -- the so-called herd immunity threshold -- anytime soon. For one thing, it’s not known what level of immunity is required and whether vaccines will be potent enough to achieve it. There’s also the threat of emerging coronavirus variants that may weaken the effectiveness of immunizations.

Coronavirus variants demand a tougher response

https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

New, more contagious coronavirus variants threaten the U.S. response to COVID-19 just as the best tools to fight it are becoming available.

Why it matters: As our response to COVID-19 evolves and improves with the introduction of vaccines, so does SARS-CoV-2 itself, with new variants emerging. The next few months will demand harsher measures to control the pandemic at the very moment when exhaustion is peaking.

Driving the news: On Monday evening, Minnesota reported the first confirmed case of the P.1 Brazilian variant of the novel coronavirus in a Twin Cities resident with a recent travel history to Brazil.

P.1 is one of four variants — mutated strains of SARS-CoV-2 that seem to spread more efficiently than the original coronavirus — the CDC is watching with concern.

That includes the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the U.K., which has now been detected in more than 20 states and which British scientists warn is both more contagious and potentially more deadly than the original strain.

CDC officials project the U.K. variant could become dominant in the U.S. by March, which would drive more cases without a tougher response.

Details: The emergence of the new variants has driven governments to reimpose some border controls in an effort to stop their introduction, while scientists are pushing for more restrictions and hardier protective equipment.

Germany last week proposed strict, temporary bans on travel to the EU — including EU citizens returning to their nations — from countries where variants are prevalent, like Britain.

President Biden quickly instituted a ban on travelers coming into the U.S. from more than 25 countries, including all the nations in Europe's free-travel Schengen Area — though the order does not include U.S. citizens, a loophole that minimized the effectiveness of earlier bans.

In light of the more contagious variants, NIAID director Anthony Fauci told NBC's "Today," it "makes common sense" to wear more than one layer of mask. Even better would be an N95 medical-grade mask, but even a year into the pandemic, supplies remain so low that the CDC still says they should be reserved for health-care workers.

Quote from Fm1

Since protection was approximately 95% for everyone who was vaccinated within this time “window,” there is little reason not to allow some flexibility in the timing of the second dose 2.

This is hand waving with no underlying data. There is no chance to see this with the reduced data from the trials. We just face next human trial... It could go both sides and will interfere with the less covered UK/RSA/Brazil strains protection. Could then be a cheap excuse...

Quote from Fm1

For one thing, it’s not known what level of immunity is required and whether vaccines will be potent enough to achieve it.

Fauci estimated 70% before, but lately he said he thinks it might be closer to 80%.

Some people think COVID-19 might become endemic, meaning we have to keep giving vaccines indefinitely. That's not good, but it does not seem catastrophic to me. Not like having the 1918 influenza circulating indefinitely. I say that because I have read the mutations are slower than seasonal flu, and the present formulation should continue to work even after the virus mutates. The UK strain that is more virulent can probably be prevented with the present vaccine. That's what most experts say in the mass media. So, if it becomes endemic, we will have to keep making vaccines, but only at about the same rate as we make shingles vaccines for adults, or measles vaccines for kids. One or two per lifetime. That is not a huge economic burden. It is cheaper than a new flu vaccine every year. Even an annual flu vaccine is not a huge burden in a first-world country.

Once you reduce the incidence to a small percent of the population, the mutations slow down. You don't have to worry as much about a resistant strain, or a highly contagious strain emerging.

Also, adjusting the formula should be cheaper than developing it in the first place.

It would be great if this effort leads to general improvements in vaccine technology. Especially if it helps develop something like a 1-time vaccine that stops all forms of influenza for life. I have read that some researchers think that is possible. If this improves the state of the art, then all the money we rushed into the production of the COVID-19 vaccine, and all the duplicate effort, will pay for itself in improved flu vaccines. Needless to say, that money will pay for itself already, this year, if it greatly reduces the severity of the pandemic and lets us get back to our lives. But it would be wonderful if it continues to pay dividends into the future. Improved technology usually does continue to benefit mankind . . . for centuries, or forever. As Francis Bacon put it:

". . . the introduction of great inventions appears one of the most distinguished of human actions, and the ancients so considered it; for they assigned divine honors to the authors of inventions, but only heroic honors to those who displayed civil merit (such as the founders of cities and empires, legislators, the deliverers of their country from lasting misfortunes, the quellers of tyrants, and the like). And if anyone rightly compare them, he will find the judgment of antiquity to be correct; for the benefits derived from inventions may extend to mankind in general, but civil benefits to particular spots alone; the latter, moreover, last but for a time, the former forever. Civil reformation seldom is carried on without violence and confusion, whilst inventions are a blessing and a benefit without injuring or afflicting any."

The pace of vaccinations in the U.S. seems to be picking up, thank goodness. I hope in other countries too.

See the ongoing vaccination count in WaPost, not behind a paywall:

https://www.washingtonpost.com…tates-distribution-doses/

In the last week, an average of 1.16 million doses per day were administered, a 30% increase over the week before.

Three new items from RFK,Jr's "The Defender" ---

Did CDC Deliberately Mislead Public on Allergic Reactions to Moderna Vaccine?

The CDC had more accurate and up-to-date data that it could have used to calculate the rate of

severe allergic reactions to Moderna’s COVID vaccine — why didn’t it?

https://childrenshealthdefense…eactions-moderna-vaccine/

‘This Week’ With Mary + Polly: Glamorizing mRNA Vaccines + COVID Shots for Pets

+ Paying Employees to Get Vaccinated + More

In “This Week” with Mary Holland, Children’s Health Defense vice chair and general counsel,

and Polly Tommey, co-producer of “Vaxxed,” Mary and Polly discuss the latest COVID

vaccine-related headline news, including forcing COVID vaccines on nursing home patients

over family members’ objections … and more.

https://childrenshealthdefense…employees-get-vaccinated/

Cardiothoracic Surgeon Warns FDA, Pfizer on Immunological Danger of COVID

Vaccines in Recently Convalescent and Asymptomatic Carriers

Dr. Hooman Noorchashm says FDA, Pfizer and Moderna must consider the danger COVID

vaccines pose to the recently convalescent or asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2

— especially the elderly, frail or anyone with significant cardiovascular risk factors.

https://childrenshealthdefense…nt-asymptomatic-carriers/

Is this an CNA alarmist? or should his warning be heeded?

WARNING: NURSING HOME WHISTLEBLOWER, "PATIENTS DYING LIKE FLIES AFTER VACCINE"

https://www.bitchute.com/video/8V5wAp4BYoXH/

More vaccine concerns --

SARS-COV-2 VACCINES- INTERVIEW WITH JUDY MIKOVITS

https://www.bitchute.com/video/OtrXxlBk4j6m/

Quote from Wyttenbach

Just google for Belgium Pfizer, factory etc.. . That's what kids normally do. This by mere coincidence happened at the same time for Moderna & Astra Zeneca too...

Official news: Reforming/rearranging production...correct would be add one more peptid line...

Thanks, now can you teach me how to find the inofficial but correct news?

Jus do like WYTTENBACH says - he's usually correct ignore my previous posts as being arrogant indignation but I am raising the cash by record sales - so nothing's sacred in this life - we want de - volution not re - volution you so and so's! When I have sufficient cash I will plough the proceeds into buying the precious metals required for COLD FUSION! So that's my masterplan I am certainly no Evangelist!!!!!

SARS-CoV-2 Reacts to 2003 SARS Virus Antibodies

https://www.contagionlive.com/…003-sars-virus-antibodies

The investigators were not surprised to see that antibodies generated from a virus from almost 2 decades ago provided a defense, however small it was, due to the fact that estimated mutations occur 1 to 2 times per month. They indicated that further research needs to be done to determine the lasting efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

"I don't think there is any one size-fits-all vaccine," Fikadu Tafesse, senior author on the study and assistant professor of molecular biology and immunology at the OHSU School of Medicine said. "Although the vaccines coming out now may break the momentum of the virus and end the pandemic, they may not be the end game."