Covid-19 News

    Just for Fm1;


    Decoding the Israeli 40% of patients have been vaccinated versus 15% who have had previous infections.


    Sounds as though previous infections protect you 40X better than vaccination, doesn't it? Wrong!


    for a start you need factor this by the number of people vaccinated, versus the number known to have been previously infected. newspaper article does this if you read beyond the headline:


    With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID.

    By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave.


    Ok - so that means you are still 6.72X more likely to get reinfected after vaccination than after infection? Wrong!


    two factors skew these figures. One is very powerful - one less so.


    • The population of those infected previously will be skewed towards those less at risk because those more at risk will have taken isolation more seriously, had fewer contacts. And those least at risk, young adults, have been shown in other countries to have a very high infection rate because of more contacts. This effect is not easy to judge.
    • The population of those vaccinated is strongly skewed towards those who are at risk. if you look at any country that has completed vaccination the rate of non-vaccinated, not surprisingly, goes up as risk goes down (younger age). countries that have not completed vaccination will mostly be doing this in phases not allowing low risk people to get vaccinated until high risk rollout has finished.


    The figures below are out of date but give some idea of both these effects. Risk of needing hospital, whether vaccinated or not, will scale exponentially with age doubling every 6 years or so.



    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Japan just switched to delta. The mortality is going down dramatically.

    Mortality in Japan is going down because many older people have now been vaccinated. The vaccination campaign was slow getting started, but they have now vaccinated 31% of the population, including all medical personnel and most elderly people. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists I personally know were vaccinated months ago.


    India has also managed to vaccinate 23%, which is a significant portion of the population.


    Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations - Statistics and Research
    Our vaccination dataset uses the most recent official numbers from governments and health ministries worldwide. The population estimates we use to calculate…
    ourworldindata.org

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Ok - so that means you are still 6.72X more likely to get reinfected after vaccination than after infection? Wrong!

    Our vaccine death cult warrior is crying! Give him a beer.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Even then, using the correct less dramatic figure of 6X (which you understand, and is given in the article) this does not prove anything because the group of vaccinated Israelis are a very selected population - selected for those at most risk of COVID and therefore much more likely to end up in hospital even after vaccination - which is only 93% or so effective against hospitalisation.

    54% of all Israeli are vaccinated. Really that's a very narrow selected group. And the study looks just at the known recovered not at the real infected that usually are 3x larger.

    It's hard to digest a real good anti vaxx argument...

    Quote from JedRothwell

    That is nonsense. Many variations of the coronaviruses and influenza have been driving into extinction in humans. Most recently SARS and MERS. The 1918 influenza no longer exists.


    SARS/MERS were not very contagious - only by droplets. 1918 influenza today would be far, far less deadly because we a trained with this and other flu virus what was 1918 not the case. Also secondary infections could not be treated with antibiotics.

    CoV-19 will stay and reoccur because it can infect to many different animals too.

    Quote from Fm1

    And your delta delta delta, without evidence isn't sensational headlining here. I post the science and all you ever do is ask for more. Never satisfied, vitamin D, recent posts of successfull hydroxychloriquine trials and yet you continue with Delta and vaccine. You lost creadability a while back with one little phrase. (But not with Covid) when referring to ivermectin safety studies. Can you produce those same studies for the vaccine regarding Covid?

    No you can't.

    FM1 - my perceived credibility probably varies according to the views of the person reading my posts.


    Which vaccine studies do you want? Safety? Efficacy?


    and why is there this apparent (in your mind) battle between vaccines and drugs? We need both!


    The only thing is that you seem much more interested in the pop drugs (repurposed and very cheap and claiming miracles) then the drugs, both cheap and expensive, that are currently being used and reducing death rates (Dexamethazone - cheap).


    For example I'm holding my breath for PRINCIPLE results: Favipiravir / Invermectin / Colchicine / standard care. It will give definite and trustable results.


    Thus far it has given red light to azithromycin and doxycyclin https://www.principletrial.org…-19-shows-principle-trial

    And found budesonide effective: https://www.principletrial.org…ed-patients-with-covid-19

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I read somewhere that experts are not sure whether this is a descendant of the 1918 variant, or whether it came from an earlier, less virulent strain. They said the extremely deadly forms tend to go extinct.

    Yes I just read a BBC article. extinction thru mutation is more common than one would think. What I find strange, it doesn't address a waiting reservoir in contact animals

    1. Your cread. agree

    2. Studies. All

    3. Battle, agree but ...... I vaccinated because their is no early approved outpatient treatment had there been vaccination would be a choice not a necessity

    4. Dexamethazone. Not an early treatment! Hospital phase use only. Based on the recommendation of the WHO, India dispensed dex to population, result, black fungus. Dex should be used only after viral phase based on the I-MASK + PROTOCOL

    And yes Thomas I'm more interested in cheap inexpensive drugs and so isn't the more poorer people of the world!

    5. Trial. You'll still ask for more!

    6. azithromycin. I said over a year ago it was wrong based on it interaction with hydroxychloriquine. This is where cardiac issues rose, doxy is harmless unless allergic

    7. budesonide. Hopeful but not holding my breath. Mixed studies so far.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    I think the forum reset itself this morning- on another channel people are complaining abiut being logged out -as I was today.

    I think there was a change to the blocking option. (A couple of people commented about it). A certain person's posts started showing up again!


    O Do Not Block

    O Block Direct Contact

    X Block Direct Contact and Hide Created Messages

    Make sure the third option is selected. Then log out and log back in again.

    Now Thomas I spent some time answering you questions concerns and ramblings, don't you think you should answer my question a few pages back on why the sudden drop in cases in India, you must of missed it. Now at the time 4% were vaccinated, and you are not convinced that ivermectin works. So why such a sudden drop. I bet now you'll use herd immunity!

    Quote from Alan Fletcher

    I think there was a change to the blocking option

    Quote from Fm1

    Now at the time 4% were vaccinated, and you are not convinced that ivermectin works. So why such a sudden drop. I bet now you'll use herd immunity!

    In the case of THH this is just identical to the behavior of the group he represents. Just ignore all facts that are not covered by the FM/R/J/B play book. The agenda always has one target: Just communicate our view. Ignore facts that cannot be refuted. Try to downplay facts with bias or just with wrong=new facts... See problems with undergrad math...

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    1918 influenza today would be far, far less deadly

    You are the World's Leading Expert in Everything, so perhaps that is true, but experts say the 1918 flu virus would be extremely dangerous. They say it would kill millions. For that reason, they decided to keep the genome a closely guarded secret. But what do they know? Nothing compared to you.

    I really didn't want to wade into the graphehe debate but I found this. Pulmonary issues? Sound familiar?



    Live Imaging of Label-Free Graphene Oxide Reveals Critical Factors Causing Oxidative-Stress-Mediated Cellular Responses

    Sandra Vranic, Artur Filipe Rodrigues, Maurizio Buggio, Leon Newman, Michael R. H. White, David G. Spiller, Cyrill Bussy*, and Kostas Kostarelos*


    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.7b07734


    The interest in graphene and its translation into commercial products has been expanding at a high pace. Based on previously described pulmonary safety concerns for carbon nanomaterials, there is a great need to define parameters guiding interactions between graphene-based materials and the pulmonary system. The aim of the present study was to determine the importance of two critical parameters: lateral dimensions of the material and coating with proteins in relation to each other and their pulmonary impact. Endotoxin-free materials with distinct lateral dimensions, s-GO (50–200 nm) and l-GO (5–15 μm), were produced and thoroughly characterized. Exploiting intrinsic fluorescence of graphene oxide (GO) and using confocal live-cell imaging, the behavior of the cells in response to the material was visualized in real time. Although BEAS-2B cells internalized GO efficiently, l-GO was linked to higher plasma membrane interactions correlated with elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, pro-inflammatory response, and greater cytotoxicity, in agreement with the oxidative stress paradigm. For both GO types, the presence of serum alleviated lipid peroxidation of plasma membrane and decreased intracellular ROS levels. However, protein coating was not enough to entirely mitigate toxicity and inflammatory response induced by l-GO. In vitro results were validated in vivo, as l-GO was more prone to induce pulmonary granulomatous response in mice compared to s-GO. In conclusion, the lateral dimension of GO played a more important role than serum protein coating in determining biological responses to the material. It was also demonstrated that time-lapse imaging of live cells interacting with label-free GO sheets can be used as a tool to assess GO-induced cytotoxicity.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    You are the World's Leading Expert in Everything, so perhaps that is true, but experts say the 1918 flu virus would be extremely dangero

    Your posting is based on emotions. I explained exactly why! So please tell us why the facts I gave are wrong. H1N1 today would be much more harmless, than in 1918 for the same reason why we can treat Cov-19 patients better today and last: Ivermectin also kills the flu virus...

    But these are facts not emotions....

    Quote from Fm1

    Now Thomas I spent some time answering you questions concerns and ramblings, don't you think you should answer my question a few pages back on why the sudden drop in cases in India, you must of missed it. Now at the time 4% were vaccinated, and you are not convinced that ivermectin works. So why such a sudden drop. I bet now you'll use herd immunity!

    You had better ask it again, with detail so I don't answer the wrong question - indeed I missed it.


    I can give you a broad brush answer in absence of any idea what you are asking:


    sudden drop - change in social distancing/lockdown/case definition or availability of testing/ epidemic saturates (herd immunity)


    if you think Ivermectin is the cause of this we should look precisely at the timing of the Ivermectin rollout, and also how you would expect it to impact case figures to see if that fits?


    Are you sure you are not applying magical thinking to this discussion? You sound as though you think all these things are weights you can throw onto the scales to win - only it is not fair if you use them too many times?

    W. I'm going to give you an example so that you can understand how this works.


    54% are vaccinated therefore this is not a narrowly selected group.


    The point here is that almost all of the high risk people are within this 54%. therefore the selection bias for high risk is large. Got it? for example (I can't believe I'm doing this) if you take a pack of cards and cut it into two haves:


    • 54% of it (the vacinated) which is strongly biassed to contain red (high risk) not black (low risk) cards . The 54% contains all 24 red cards and 2 black cards.
    • The 46% unvaccinated contains 24 black cards and 2 red cards.


    Now select, from the whole pack in its two halves, a subset of cards (the people who catch COVID again).


    From the 54% we select 13% (let us say) and from the 46% we select 26% (say) because natural immunity is less protective than vaccination (I don't actually know whether it is or not). This is just an example.


    However because most of the 54% are red, we end up with 3 red cards. Because most of the 46% are black we end up with 6 black cards.


    The low risk (black cards) do not end up in hospital. The high risk (red cards) do.


    We see only 3 red cards from the 54% and no cards from the 46%.


    We see 100% of patients were form the vaccinated group - 0% from the unvaccinated group.


    in the real case we know that people who are high risk, nearly all, do get vaccinated. those who are low risk do not bother so much. In any case the lowest risk do not even get offered the vaccine - I'm not sure whether that applies to these figures because i have a vague newspaper article not a detailed paper.


    And the study looks just at the known recovered not at the real infected that usually are 3x larger.


    True. How does that change anything? They are not considered.


    It's hard to digest a real good anti vaxx argument...


    if you really think this is a real good anti-vax argument, since it is so obviously (probability theory) wrong, it does not say much for the others?

    • Official Post

    An article that says something not new, how VAERS registry is abused by manpilators...

    How Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and anti-vaxxers misrepresent the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to scare people about COVID shot ‘dangers’
    Convincing a parent that vaccines won't harm their children can be a near-possible task these days. As pediatric infectious disease specialist Paul Offit
    geneticliteracyproject.org


    It is denounced since years, much before Covid... anyway good to remember as the tricks still works.

    Hope this helps.

    NIH COVID-19 Panel member received massive windfall from ivermectin non-recommendation


    NIH COVID-19 Panel member received massive windfall from ivermectin non-recommendation
    Note that views expressed in this opinion article are the writer’s personal views and not necessarily those of TrialSite. The NIH COVID-19 Treatment
    trialsitenews.com


    The NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel updated its recommendation on ivermectin for COVID-19 on January 14, 2021. In the update, the NIH removed its recommendation against the use of ivermectin in COVID-19. However, the Panel also declined to recommend ivermectin for use in COVID-19.


    A Freedom of Information Act request was made to determine the process that was followed by the NIH in reaching its recommendation. In particular, in a FOIA request on January 25, the NIH was asked if a vote had been held on the update to the ivermectin recommendation:


    “On January 6, 2021, the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel met to consider updating their recommendation on the use of Ivermectin in COVID-19. Please answer the following question. As of today, has that Panel taken a vote on whether to change its recommendation? (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/06/2021 To 01/25/2021)”


    The NIH declined to answer that question:


    “Please be advised that the FOIA is not intended to answer questions, but rather it is meant for the public to request specifically identified and searchable Federal records that are already in existence, i.e. a record cannot be created in response to a FOIA request.”


    An alternative FOIA request was formulated to answer the same question. That FOIA request was submitted on January 28, 2021:


    “All updates to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines that were endorsed by a vote of the Panel. (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2021 To 01/28/2021)”


    The NIH was unable to respond to that request within 20 days not including weekends and federal holidays. As a result, that FOIA request is now the subject of a protracted legal confrontation in federal court. The case is ongoing but it is safe to say there was no vote on the ivermectin recommendation and that there was an intent to deceive. The NIH is not functioning as a trusted public health authority, to say the least.


    At around the same time, a second FOIA request was made to the same federal agency. This FOIA request was to confirm that that meeting had been held on January 6, 2021 to consider updating the NIH recommendation on ivermectin:


    “Meeting agenda, National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treat­ment Guidelines Panel, January 6, 2021 (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/06/2021 To 01/06/2021)”


    The NIH provided an email with the agenda. The names of two recipients of the email were given, Adaora Adimora and Timothy M. Uyeki; both Panel members. However the names of other recipients of the meeting-agenda email were redacted. According to the NIH, the names were redacted because their release “would cause a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”


    The explanation for withholding the identifies of the contributors to US national policy on ivermectin is not credible or reasonable. The US public should know who is setting the national policy on a COVID-19 treatment option. The public can then form their own opinion on the possible biases or influences on those individuals. What is the purpose of providing an extensive list of relevant financial relationships of Panel members if the identities of the relevant Panel members are not disclosed? Since those identities are not disclosed we, the public, are left to speculate.


    About two months after the NIH meeting on ivermectin, the NIH announced the award NOT-TR-21–024; funding of ACTIV-6 to study the use of repurposed drugs in COVID-19. Duke University was the only institution in the country that met the criteria for the study, according to the NIH. Funding was thus distributed on a sole source basis. The “initial investment” in the trial was later announced to be $155 million. The principal investigator of the trial was not identified initially but, in a later announcement, was identified to be Susanna Naggie, who is also a member of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel.


    The two positions Naggie holds clearly represent a conflict of interest. A positive recommendation on the use of the drug in COVID-19 would effectively end the clinical trial. The NIH award also raises the question of whether the prospect of the award played a role in the current recommendation on ivermectin.


    The question was addressed to Naggie by email if she was the author of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines recommendation on ivermectin. She has not responded to that question.


    The review process of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines is beyond suspicious. The NIH needs to provide the unredacted agenda to the January 6 meeting on ivermectin so that the identities of those responsible for the ivermectin recommendation are disclosed. Most importantly, we need to know if there was improper influence on the ivermectin recommendation.

    Answer the question

    And yes Thomas I'm more interested in cheap inexpensive drugs and so isn't the more poorer people of the world!


    Yes, and UK trials have found one for them already - dexamethasone.

    For much of the world it is hospitals and hospital beds that are expensive. So the cost of drugs (used in hospital) is not as significant as you might think. That was the rationale behind using remdesivir. If it really cut down days in hospital significantly - as that not very convincing small RCT indicated - it is worth a high cost because it allows stretched hospitals to serve more patients, and otherwise (when hospitals have capacity) reduces the overall treatment cost.


    I was (on this thread, at the start) interested in both HCQ and IVM. And anything else that looks likely. The only difference between you and me is that you take into account low quality evidence that is likely biased and I view them as being of much less value than the high quality evidence.


    If IVM were really the miracle drug some people claim - single-handedly changing the course of the epidemic in many countries - then it would have a much clearer indication from the large number of high quality studies.


    It is still possible IVM has use. I asked a while back whether you and all the IVM fans would accept the result of the PRINCIPLE at-home study. I will. And I hope it shows IVM helps, because it is very low overhead to take at home and even a small help is worthwhile.


    I hope also that you accept that maybe all those apparently convincing studies written up on trialsite are in fact not convincing as most of the objective research scientists say, and accept it if IVM proves, disappointingly, to be of no help.


    What trials do vaccines have?


    You will maybe be surprised that I have the same standards for vaccines. i would not believe claims a vaccine worked without a high-quality observer-blinded randomized sequential (so that the control and active groups have identical distribution of all possible confounding factors). Just one example (many more trials for that one vaccine):


    Pfizer and BioNTech Announce Publication of Results from Landmark Phase 3 Trial of BNT162b2 COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in The New England Journal of Medicine | pfpfizeruscom


    The Phase 3 trial is designed as a 1:1 vaccine candidate to placebo, randomized, observer-blinded study to obtain safety, immune response, and efficacy data needed for regulatory review. The trial’s primary endpoints are prevention of COVID-19 in those who have not been infected by SARS-CoV-2 prior to immunization and prevention of COVID-19 regardless of whether participants have previously been infected by SARS-CoV-2. Secondary endpoints include prevention of severe COVID-19 in those groups. The study also will explore prevention of infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.


    And on why blinding is important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_experiment


    if you want evidence that vaccines are safe - that is a lot more complex. But remember, for say Ivermectin, the recommended therapeutic dose is maybe 5-10X the normal dose. Given we have a very good handle on whether the normal dose is safe, we still do not know for sure this higher dose is safe, nor do we know for sure it is safe with COVID.


    I'm not saying therefore we should not consider IVM. I'm saying you cannot have one standard for vaccines and a completely different standard for a take-at-home (everyone who gets COVID will end up taking it) medicine.

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