Here is a non-expert, conservative writer who makes a good case that obesity is the cause of varying death rates in different countries. There are few deaths in Africa not because they use one drug or another, or genetics, but because obesity is rare.

https://thebulwark.com/covid-19s-big-fat-non-surprise/

COVID-19’s Big Fat Non-Surprise

Tip-toeing around the linkage of coronavirus mortality and obesity doesn’t do anyone any favors.

. . . People who are overweight or obese are more likely to get severely ill and to die of COVID-19 even after controlling for factors such as sex, ethnicity, and income.

In his New Yorker piece puzzling about international disparities, Murkerjee raises the examples of Mexico and India, noting that they are quite close in age distribution, yet India’s death rate is only about one-tenth of Mexico’s. He continues: “So perhaps other populational features are significant. Take, for instance, the structure of an individual family and its living arrangements: who cohabitates with whom?”

But wait, do we need to ask that? The World Obesity Federation provides country-by-country breakdowns of overweight and obesity. According to their data, the percentage of India’s adult population categorized as obese is 3.9. In Mexico, it’s 28.9.

The author says, "The World Obesity Federation provides country-by-country breakdowns of overweight and obesity. According to their data, the percentage of India’s adult population categorized as obese is 3.9. In Mexico, it’s 28.9."

Strangely, the World Obesity Federation pegs obesity of Pakistan men at 42 percent and women at a whopping 72 percent. Yet their Covid death ratios are apparently lower than even that of India : 60 per million vs 114 per million (Worldometers)

Much to learn we still have.

Quote from Mark U

Strangely, the World Obesity Federation pegs obesity of Pakistan men at 42 percent and women at a whopping 72 percent.

I believe you got those numbers wrong. The World Obesity Federation data for Pakistan shows men at 12.1% and women at 21.8%. See:

https://data.worldobesity.org/country/pakistan-167/

Where did you get those numbers? What URL?

Quote from JedRothwell

I did not miss them. I said there are three groups: those who get sick, those who get vaccinated, and those who are never exposed because of herd immunity. People who do not get appreciably sick are still sick. They are lucky, but sick. There were people in 1918 who had very mild cases of the Spanish flu. They still had it.

Duck dodge and hide.

Those who are asymptotic

Quote from JedRothwell

Murkerjee raises the examples of Mexico and India, noting that they are quite close in age distribution, yet India’s death rate is only about one-tenth of Mexico’s. He continues: “So perhaps other populational features are significant.

India’s death rate is only about one-thirteenth of Mexico’s.

Maybe the widespread use of Ivermectin in India is a factor in India's death rate.

especailly in two states Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.. total population 330 million,

Uttar Pradesh 37 deaths per million

Bihar 16 deaths per million

India 114 deaths per million

Mexico 1482 deaths per million

"https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/coronavirus-pandemic-covid-vaccine-tracker-uttar-pradesh-7107756/"

"Let me also discuss two strategic interventions, out of many, which we have taken.

The first is the widespread use of the drug, ivermectin, not just for treatment of cases but also as a prophylactic. The state government provides free medicines to all patients in home isolation or in government COVID-19 facilities, which have more than 1.5 lakh beds.

We have used the combination of ivermectin and doxycyclin to successfully treat over three lakh home-isolated patients with mild symptoms so far.

This combination has also been used by the hospitals across the state for admitted COVID-19 patients. But what is more interesting is the state’s successful use of ivermectin as a prophylactic."

Death rate 64% higher with B117 COVID variant, study finds

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/new…covid-variant-study-finds

The 28-day risk of death for the B117 COVID-19 variant was 64% higher than for previously circulating strains in people older than 30 years, a UK study finds.

The study, led by University of Exeter researchers and published today in BMJ, involved community-based testing and death data from 54,906 matched pairs of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 from Oct 1, 2020, to Jan 29, 2021.

Of the 109,812 total participants, 367 (0.3%) died. Of the 54,906 participants infected with B117, 227 (0.4%) died, compared with 141 (0.3%) infected with other strains.

The hazard ratio (HR) for death by 28 days after diagnosis was 1.64 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.32 to 2.04) for patients infected with the B117 variant, compared with previously circulating SARS-CoV-2 strains.

While the HR for death was not significantly higher in those infected with B117 up to 14 days after diagnosis, it rose to 2.40 (95% CI, 1.66 to 3.47) during days 15 to 28. Participants who died were older (mean age, 66.9 vs 46.3 years) than their peers, and more were men.

"In this comparatively low risk group, this represents an increase in deaths from 2.5 to 4.1 per 1,000 cases," the authors wrote. "The increased hazard ratio between 1.32 and 2.04, higher than for other variants, translates to a 32% to 104% increased risk of death, with the most probable hazard ratio estimate of 1.64, or a 64% increased risk of death. The absolute risk of death in this group of community identified participants, however, remains relatively low."

B117 was first identified in the United Kingdom in October 2020 and quickly became dominant, triggering a national lockdown and igniting concerns about possible increased transmission and disease severity.

Absolute risk remains low

Those diagnosed as having B117 infections had higher viral loads at diagnosis than those infected with other variants, which the authors said could be attributed to a variant trait or to the tendency of these participants to seek care when they were most contagious.

The researchers cautioned that their results may not apply to other settings and age-groups, because their study included only about 8% of COVID-19 deaths in England over the study period. Only 26% of COVID deaths occurred in the community during that time, and data on B117 status were available for only 30% of those deaths. "Whether the increase in mortality from community based testing is also observed in elderly patients or in patients admitted to hospital remains to be seen," they said.

Leon Danon, MSci, MSc, PhD, senior study author from the University of Bristol, said in a University of Exeter news release, "We focussed our analysis on cases that occurred between November 2020 and January 2021, when both the old variants and the new variant were present in the UK. This meant we were able to maximise the number of 'matches' and reduce the impact of other biases. Subsequent analyses have confirmed our results."

B117 is thought to be highly transmissible owing to mutations in parts of the virus genome that code for the spike protein responsible for binding to human cells, but the effects of those mutations on disease severity, outcomes, and death rates remain unclear. Future research, the authors said, could help inform better resource allocation and vaccine distribution and identify optimal times to ease public health restrictions.

"Healthcare capacity planning and national and international control policies are all impacted by this finding, with increased mortality lending weight to the argument that further coordinated and stringent measures are justified to reduce deaths from SARS-CoV-2," the researchers concluded.

Danon added in the news release, "SARS-CoV-2 appears able to mutate quickly, and there is a real concern that other variants will arise with resistance to rapidly rolled out vaccines. Monitoring for new variants as they arise, measuring their characteristics and acting appropriately needs to be a key part of the public health response in the future."

Denmark has suspended AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine over concerns about blood clots

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

Denmark has stopped using AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because of potential serious side effects.

The country has halted use of the coronavirus vaccine for at least 14 days after several cases of blood clots among vaccinated people, the Danish health authority said Thursday.

One of these cases was related to a death in Denmark, it said.

Magnus Heunicke, the Danish health minister, said that it wasn't yet clear whether the clots were linked to the vaccine.

In a statement, the Danish health ministry said that there was good evidence that the vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, was both safe and effective, but that it must react to reports of serious side effects.

People who had received their first dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine would have to wait for their second dose while the suspension lasted, the health authority said.

It was waiting for the results of an investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), it added.

The vaccine has been granted conditional marketing authorization or emergency use in more than 50 countries, including the UK and across the EU. It has not yet been issued emergency use authorization in the US.

Aspirin may protect against COVID-19, Israeli research finds

People who take small doses are 29% less likely than others to test positive, researchers say; those who do get COVID recover faster, and with reduced aftereffects

https://www.timesofisrael.com/…9-israeli-research-finds/

Aspirin, one of the oldest and most widely used drugs, is preventing COVID-19 infections, Israeli scientists have claimed in “exciting” findings.

In the peer-reviewed research, they found that in a sample of Israeli PCR tests, patients who take small doses of aspirin were 29 percent less likely to test positive. They cross-referenced 10,477 results with medical records covering what preventive drugs patients take.

It's a year since COVID was declared a pandemic. Did WHO act too late?

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

Exactly one year ago, during a cramped media briefing that would look out of place today, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic.

Some say that declaration came too late, a precursor to the chaos and difficulties that would follow throughout the next year, with half of humanity under virus restrictions a mere month later.

"In early January we knew that this was a pandemic and many of us were saying it publicly," said Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"The moment that we saw that the virus was spreading across all of East Asia, Southeast Asia and into the Middle East all within weeks of it first being discovered, we should have declared it as a pandemic virus. We didn’t; the world didn’t and that to me was the beginning of inaction as a response," he added.

By the time COVID was declared a pandemic last March, there were more than 118,000 confirmed cases of the virus in 114 countries and more than 4,000 deaths. Many European countries locked down the same week amid rising hospitalisations.

Exactly a year later, there are more than 117 million cases and 2.6 million deaths globally, representing a 99,000% increase in the number of infections.

But the declaration on March 11, 2020, was without fanfare, with the WHO director-general warning that they did not use the word "pandemic" lightly.

“Pandemic is not a word to be used lightly or carelessly,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, defending their call because cases had increased 13-fold in two weeks and the number of impacted countries had tripled.

It’s a word that if misused can cause unreasonable fear or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.”

Now many experts have said this is likely the worst pandemic in a century, as it has upended people's lives globally and drawn comparisons to the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic responsible for tens of millions of deaths.Some experts have decried a global complacency to address COVID-19 as a pandemic from the beginning.

University of Toronto Professor says Ontario now has two Pandemics.

https://apple.news/AaMHxJG6GQVeC4ZDF8H-BCA

Quote from JedRothwell

I believe you got those numbers wrong. The World Obesity Federation data for Pakistan shows men at 12.1% and women at 21.8%. See:

https://data.worldobesity.org/country/pakistan-167/

Where did you get those numbers? What URL?

Go to https://data.worldobesity.org

and you should see a rotating map.

Click on the menu that says Overview and select the 2nd of over 30 possible options : Obesity prevalence

After selecting for Adults and Females you'll see that Pakistan is in red. Hover your cursor over the country and it shows 71.9%

Quote from Fm1

Denmark has suspended AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine over concerns about blood clots

Why do they go on with Pfizer that so far produced >1000 deaths from blood disorder??? Most officials possibly are bribed by the

Ivermectin high dose

Quote from Fm1

Ivermectin high dose

Since the Egypt study it is clear that only 2x..4x (total 8-12x) dose of Ivermectin helps for severe cases. With only 2% mortality left!

To many mass murders live on the planet. This includes all western leaders so far.

Recurrent deletions in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein drive antibody escape

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6534/1139

Eluding detection

Influenza viruses evade immunity initiated by previous infection, which explains recurrent influenza pandemics. Unlike the error-prone RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and related viruses contain polymerases with proofreading activity. However, proofreading cannot correct deletions, which during a long-term persistent infection could result in the generation of viruses showing alteration of entire stretches of amino acids and the structures they form. McCarthy et al. identified an evolutionary signature defined by prevalent and recurrent deletions in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 at four antigenic sites. Deletion variants show human-to-human transmission of viruses with altered antigenicity.

Abstract

Zoonotic pandemics, such as that caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), can follow the spillover of animal viruses into highly susceptible human populations. The descendants of these viruses have adapted to the human host and evolved to evade immune pressure. Coronaviruses acquire substitutions more slowly than other RNA viruses. In the spike glycoprotein, we found that recurrent deletions overcome this slow substitution rate. Deletion variants arise in diverse genetic and geographic backgrounds, transmit efficiently, and are present in novel lineages, including those of current global concern. They frequently occupy recurrent deletion regions (RDRs), which map to defined antibody epitopes. Deletions in RDRs confer resistance to neutralizing antibodies. By altering stretches of amino acids, deletions appear to accelerate SARS-CoV-2 antigenic evolution and may, more generally, drive adaptive evolution.

Utah Medical Examiner says 39-year-old mom’s death 4 days after taking COVID vaccine is ‘temporally related’

Kassidi Kurill received her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, Feb. 1

https://www.foxnews.com/us/uta…ne-temporally-related.amp

The family of a 39-year-old Utah mother who died just four days after taking her second dose of the COVID vaccine believes her death may be directly connected to the vaccine. But medical experts are cautioning the public not to jump to conclusions until all the facts are collected.

Kassidi Kurill received her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, Feb. 1. Over the next few days, she became sick, and her condition worsened. By Friday, Kurill was dead.

We don’t have any evidence that there are connections between the vaccines and deaths at this point," he said. "We don’t have any indication of that."

Christensen said side effects from the vaccine are to be expected. But how an individual responds to the vaccine, he said, will ultimately be determined by their biology.

"Certainly, there are side effects of a vaccine that are directly linkable to the vaccine and what’s going on in your body," Christensen said. "You know, the pain in the arm ...the fever-like symptoms related to your immune response to what was put into you. Those kinds of things clearly happen."

Different Covid-19 variants caused simultaneous infection in two cases, Brazil study suggests

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/0…infection-intl/index.html

(CNN)Scientists in Brazil have identified two cases where people were simultaneously infected with two different variants of Covid-19, according to a new study.

Both cases were women in their 30s who had typical mild-to-moderate flu-like symptoms and did not become severely ill or require hospitalization. In one case, the two variants identified had been circulating in Brazil since the beginning of the pandemic. In the other case, the person was simultaneously infected with both an older strain of the virus, and with the P.2 variant first identified in Rio de Janeiro.

The findings, based on analysis of genomic sequencing from 92 samples taken from Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state, will appear in April's edition of Virus Research, a scientific journal.

Quote from Fm1

Kassidi Kurill received her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, Feb. 1. Over the next few days, she became sick, and her condition worsened. By Friday, Kurill was dead.

We don’t have any evidence that there are connections between the vaccines and deaths at this point," he said. "We don’t have any indication of that."

for(n=1,10^8, administervaccine() ; if(death && daysaftervaccine <28, perform_autopsy = 0 ;

print("We don't have evidence that there are connections between the vaccines and death at this point");

print("We don't have any indication of that.")))

Far more than 1000 deaths from vaccines after 100 mio. doses. In Switzerland alone we had about 180 severe incidents with less than 1 mio. doses. Pfizer vaccines cause CoV-19. Thus we have an unaccounted number of people that dies from vaccine induced CoV-19. Some 100 in Israel alone.