Covid-19 News

    Quote from Fm1

    I'm lucky Thomas, my doctor is also a friend we talk a couple of times a week about everything. He also reads as much as time allows and keeps up with the latest. Nothing is ever off the table. I trust him and he trusts me. He did get a little pissed off at my vitamin D levels a few months ago when it was in the NIH overdose range. After talking he is taking a different view of vitamin levels. So do you plan on attacking vitamin D now. Oh wait you tried and failed!

    FM1 - these things are not about battle nor attack. Your doctor - I am sure - realises that none of these things are certain. He will sensibly give patients quite a say in their treatment as long as that is not in his view dangerous.


    I bet, though, that he has been strongly counselling you to be fully vaccinated, if that is possible, and if not to exercise good biosecurity measures!


    Re vit D. That one Spanish RCT which I like really does seem not to have been properly conducted. The lack of followup is resounding. So current evidence remains negative for vit D as a cure for anything - except obviously you want to keep levels of vit D in normal range. for many pople without supplements they are too low.

    I posted this months ago. The worries of a weekly treatment have been answered by the FLCCC and the I-MASK + PROTOCOL. As for a treatment, it has shown clear early viral clearance and hospitalized are at a bottom minimum

    Early treatment during the viral phase is now the only way to stop Covid as vaccines preventing infection are failing!

    Quote from Fm1

    As for a treatment, it has shown clear early viral clearance and hospitalized are at a bottom minimum

    Early treatment during the viral phase is now the only way to stop Covid as vaccines preventing infection are failing!

    That is very encouraging. Can you point me to the aggregated RCT evidence for that? It was not in the recent FLCC/BIRD meta-analysis once the two fraudulent and obviously unreliable RCTs are removed. Any result which is sensitive to exact choice of RCTs in such a friendly meta-analysis is juts not proven.


    Maybe you can point us to some other evidence since then? I have noticed only one (quite big) negative RCT.


    I'd just reiterate - there are some IVM obsesed groups (FLCC and BIRD) who propagate conspiracy theories in which they believe mainstream science to be at war with the etc.


    Nothing could be further from the truth. Mainstream science continues to be slightly interested in IVM - it would be such a big win if it was helpful - and all those US etc doctors with anecdotes are not completely dismissed. And no-one except FLCC/BIRD thinks that gathering information on best posisble treatments for COVID or anything else is a war.


    I'd suggest you remember that - and wonder why they maintain that it is?


    Quote from Fm1

    Early treatment during the viral phase is now the only way to stop Covid as vaccines preventing infection are failing!

    I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Vaccines prevent severe illness and death. A reformulated vaccine shot each year will on currently indications easily be enough to keep up with variants. Dosing the whole country continuously with a prophylactic seems in principle a bad idea (however safe - do you really want to be on work powder for the rest of your life) and it would be unlikely for that to stop COVID being a serious and endemic disease.


    Early non-prophylatic treatment does not reduce COVID rates since the transmission is before symptoms. I guess you might try to reduce family transmission by worming everyone as soon as one member falls sick? That brings us back to the lack of good evidence that IVM leads to any sort of viral load reduction.

    Facebook poll suggests breakthrough infections are linked to long COVID


    Facebook poll suggests breakthrough infections are linked to long COVID
    Ongoing data from a poll via social media found that almost half of the fully vaccinated people who reported breakthrough infections also reported long COVID…
    www.news-medical.net


    Vaccines have proven effective in limiting the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and reducing the number of severe COVID-19 cases that lead to hospitalization or death. However, how vaccines affect the risk of developing long COVID remains poorly understood.


    Ongoing data from a poll via social media found that almost half of the fully vaccinated people who reported breakthrough infections also reported long COVID symptoms. In the study, one person with long COVID symptoms required hospitalization.

    The study “Breakthrough Symptomatic COVID-19 Infections Leading to Long Covid: Report from Long Covid Facebook Group Poll” is published on the preprint medRxiv* server.


    The study

    The researchers worked with Survivor Corps — an organization providing support and resources to people with long COVID — to construct a public Facebook poll. The poll was first posted on June 2, 2021.


    The poll invited people to report on whether they were infected or uninfected after getting fully vaccinated. The researchers specifically looked for responses on infections after vaccination and long COVID symptoms.

    Some responses were not considered breakthrough infections if people reported infections less than 2 weeks after their second dose. In addition, people who were only partially vaccinated, had asymptomatic symptoms, or adverse reactions had their data excluded.

    The poll is still ongoing. The current study reflects the responses from July 22, 2021. About 1,949 respondents reported being fully vaccinated. About 1,024 people reported getting vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 775 had the Moderna vaccine, and 150 had the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine.


    Of the 1,949 respondents, 44 or about 2% became infected despite vaccination. About 19 people infected had received the Pfizer-BioNech vaccine, 17 had received the Moderna vaccine, and 8 had the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine. Of the 44 infected, 24 people had their COVID-19 illness develop into long COVID. Only 3 breakthrough infection cases in fully vaccinated adults required hospitalization. There was 1 person who had developed long COVID who needed hospitalization.


    Study limitations

    While the team’s survey showed evidence of breakthrough infections in vaccinated people, the researchers clarify that their study does not indicate that vaccines are not working.


    There was a study limitation that warrants further investigation on long COVID symptoms and breakthrough infections.


    The study relied on people volunteering to self-report their symptoms, so it is not likely that data on estimated rates of breakthrough infections or a person’s risk of long COVID could be accurately collected and assessed from the study.


    *Important Notice

    medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.



    :

    Massey D, et al. Breakthrough Symptomatic COVID-19 Infections Leading to Long Covid: Report from Long Covid Facebook Group Poll. medRxiv, 2021. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.23.21261030, https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…101/2021.07.23.21261030v1

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    This is a great example of really bad evidence. It is expected that breakthrough infections will be mild.

    Oh yes - these die very mildly!


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    You are merely restating what (I think) we agree, which is that delta is more serious with a correspondingly higher IFR.

    Not at all. You don't understand anything. CFR will be higher not IFR. May be look once at real data ....

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    It does not make sense that IVM is both a magically good prophylatic and a magically good treatment.

    Please stop posting: You have a children education only. Functional anti virals always work also as prophylactics too. E.g. Remdesivir is not an antiviral its antibodies. It's a single virus (Ebola) target drug. It just is crap for CoV-19.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Trying to extract data from speed of COVID increase in different countries without knowing what fraction of cases are delta is not possible.

    It does not matter for IVM... CH is at 93% delta now and ICU is linear...Sloavika has no cases almost since weeks like Uttar Pradesh, Delhi...

    Quote from Fm1

    Facebook poll suggests breakthrough infections are linked to long COVID

    This would be worrying indeed - except for the acknowledged reporting bias in facebook polls.


    COVID-19 Vaccine Reduces Severity, Length, Viral Load for Those Who Still Get Infected
    People who contract COVID-19 even after vaccination are likely to have a lower viral load, experience a shorter infection time and have milder symptoms, new…
    news.arizona.edu


    Researchers found that study participants who were partially or fully vaccinated with the Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA vaccines at the time of infection had a viral load that was 40% less than that of unvaccinated participants. Viral load – the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus found in a test sample – is not an indicator of how contagious an individual is, though early COVID-19 research suggests viral load could play a role in disease severity and secondary transmission.

    In addition to disease severity, researchers looked at infection longevity. The majority of infections among unvaccinated participants were detected for two or more weeks, compared with only one week among vaccinated participants. That represents a 66% reduction in the risk that a vaccinated person will have a confirmed infection for more than one week.

    Additionally, the risk of having COVID-19 with an accompanying fever was 58% lower for vaccinated participants, who reported two fewer days sick in bed, on average, and an overall length of illness that was six days shorter than that of unvaccinated people.


    while that does not exclude the possibility of something weird making long COVID more likely in these cases - it is not what you expect. We must await proper research on long COVID.

    The discussion here is fair and respectful, despite contrary and quite different opinions - until a computer science expert kicks in with his common insults and disregards... seem's to be difficult to get rid of this binary thinking, that there can only be 1 or 0, pro or con, good or bad, you are wrong and I am right.... ;)

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Favorable outcome on viral load and culture viability using Ivermectin in early treatment 1of non-hospitalized patients with mild COVID-19 –A double-blind, randomized placebo.pdf

    That is very encouraging for a small RCT. Luckily, rather than rely on contentious and fudgable meta-studies we have several studies of IVM in process that will provide definitive answers for its utility in that sort of use case. PRINCIPLE and that US loads'O'dosh study that TSN seems to think is funded by an immoral researcher. Luckily the study results and reception will depend only on quality and size of the trial - not TSN's opinion of the person in charge.

    Quote from Mark U

    This has been addressed before, but why not.


    https://www.statnews.com/2017/…-trials-medical-research/

    I always think it is helpful to read the detail of what people say, and reflect on it.


    That is saying that sometimes either RCTs are unethical, or you need types of info RCTs cannot easily provide. All that is true. It also says that RCTs provide higher quality info than other trials.


    In the case of IVM, there are many RCTs that have been done, and more in process. Therefore those reasons clearly do not apply.


    If we had encouraging other evidence and no RCTs I'd be (mildly) cheering on ivermectin like everyone else. The weight of RCT evidence from a lot of RCTs is now showing no obvious effect, which is why I am now less positive.


    I still look with some hope to PRINCIPLE etc which have the power to identify even small but useful effects.


    I can't understand why others - here and on the internet - are so one-sided making grandiose claims not backed by a critical appraisal of the evidence to date?

    RCT trials have no value for most drugs. These are only made for silver bullets (new drugs) = maximum profit if it works. Most famous is the placebo vs. placebo RCT trial that did show that one placebo was 70% the other 50% in fighting a symptom... Silver bullets often are below the 70% mark...Even "worse" was the test of new eye drops, where finally the placebo became the new drug....


    Most drugs are small changes to old drugs and one exactly knows what it can (could) do. So basically we only want to how much better the drug is compared to the old one not a placebo.


    But the real limitation is the setup. Usually one trial does not cover all groups. People doing sport or fat people usually have a totally different metabolism same for children and old people for woman/man woman in cycle. Further medicine knows 3 "races"= gen pols at least that show different reactions.

    Then we have physiology. Intake of a drug-effect is day time dependent also depends on your diet, blood group etc....

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    These guy's get > 100mio $ form big pharma every year... Gilead sponsored medicine.yale.edu-Pharma and academia partner for better health.pdf


    Just one sample..


    How to tell whether a possible repurposed drug treatment has merit




    (1) look at the people suggesting it might have merit. Do they review all evidence - including contrary evidence - or do they cherry pick

    (2) look at the refutations of those who suggest it has no merit. If arguments against the drug are countered by more comprehensive refutations that provide new evidence, or more accurate assessment of old evidence, that is poistive. If those intereste din the drug reply to criticism by making personal attacks and saying they are being persecuted that is a big red flag.

    (3) even better, ignore all the advocacy groups entirely, do a decent large enough RCT, and find out!

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    RCT trials have no value for most drugs. These are only made for silver bullets (new drugs) = maximum profit if it works. Most famous is the placebo vs. placebo RCT trial that did show that one placebo was 70% the other 50% in fighting a symptom... Silver bullets often are below the 70% mark...Even "worse" was the test of new eye drops, where finally the placebo became the new drug....

    I'd find this thread more interesting if those arguing cases made arguments, rather stating things that are obviously true and invoking urban legend / outlier / etc evidence.


    The "standard" medical test of statistical significance (95%) will go wrong one test in 20. With 1000s of RCT, If you accept 5% significance, that gives you 50+ wrong results.


    That is a fact of statistics, and not a demerit of RCTs.


    Those who read RCT results carefully, not viewing any single RCT (especially not a low powered one) as definitive, will not suffer the misconceptions you suggest.,


    I can see however that if you appraise RCT results as we have seen you do here you might rightly be worried that they would mislead you. So your dislike of them is entirely consistent.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    But the real limitation is the setup. Usually one trial does not cover all groups. People doing sport or fat people usually have a totally different metabolism same for children and old people for woman/man woman in cycle.

    That is a fair point. But not one relevant to IVM at the moment. If IVM has merit you would expect a large non-differentiated RCT to show this better than anything else. If large enough, you can obtain subgroup info with enough power from the RCT. There are many examples of this. Otherwise, once a drug is accepted as useful, further investigation will follow and its use can be refined.


    Observational information might give some useful info about subgroups which could then be confirmed by further testing.

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