Covid-19 News

    Quote from Navid

    how did you know what the deviations are?

    People with some insider knowledge posted the facts. (Look for the instructions that were handed out to the doctors involved in the study) Everybody with a raising temperature between day 1..7 had to be kicked out (reason got CoV-19 prior vaccine.. ha ha ha) So we have the fantastic fact that in the vaccine group people got 5x more CoV-19 prior to vaccination time point....


    Real fact: The Pfizer gen therapy compromises your immune system and if we take the figures for real your chance to get CoV-19 during day 1..7 after 1st jab is 4..5x higher! See also Israel data that shows a clear vaccine infection peak!

    The Promise, Hope & Disappointment of the PRINCIPLE Trial as Design Concerns Throw Latest Study In Serious Doubt


    The Promise, Hope & Disappointment of the PRINCIPLE Trial as Design Concerns Throw Latest Study In Serious Doubt
    The University of Oxford PRINCIPLE trial had to evaluate the potential of repurposed drugs such as Ivermectin, Fluvoxamine, Favipiravir, and
    trialsitenews.com


    The University of Oxford PRINCIPLE trial had to evaluate the potential of repurposed drugs such as Ivermectin, Fluvoxamine, Favipiravir, and many more for early COVID-19 treatment. TrialSite first reported on the rumblings from the press in the U.K. back on January 23rd, 2021. We first declared that ivermectin was now a study drug, but we quickly had to change the title to a “consideration.” Well, half a year passed, and with more rumblings, media snippets, and a few discussions in our network, we reported on June 23rd that the trial now would include ivermectin. While TrialSite again emphasized this study was late in the pandemic response (given so many other ivermectin studies showed some promise), we nevertheless expressed enthusiasm that the University of Oxford was moving forward. But dozens of researchers, physicians, and scientists with a commitment to economic, early-stage treatments for COVID-19 picked up on some concerning, perhaps even problematic, insight into this particular program associated with the PRINCIPLE trial. TrialSite investigated, interacted with, and elicited some concerns and included them as a summary herein.


    The Study’s Promise

    The PRINCIPLE Trial in the U.K. hopes to determine if favipiravir and ivermectin could impact the COVID pandemic. That is, if the trial is ere performed reliably. Antiviral agents can only be


    expected to act in the early symptomatic stage of the disease, when


    viral replication is the driving force. But the UK-wide clinical study offered such hope, led by the venerable University of Oxford. The study would bring the potential COVID-19 treatments right to the patient at home. These medicines can help people with their COVID-19 symptoms get better faster, while reducing the need for hospitalization. What a grand promise.


    The Only Treatments: Costly & Cumbersome to Administer

    How badly are antivirals or similar treatments used as an early-stage treatment for COVID-19 needed? The crisis in Thailand indicates just how important these treatments are as vaccination programs have been horribly mismanaged. The demand for Favipiravir, an antiviral used around the world targeting COVID-19, far outstrips supply during this latest delta variant-driven surge.


    The need for early treatment, and there are numerous ones to consider, can be a matter of life and death during the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because when the immune reaction takes hold in the inflammatory phase of COVID-19, viral levels have declined and are not the main problem. At this point, the primary effective antiviral agents are the Lilly and Regeneron anti-SARS-Cov-2 monoclonal antibodies, proven beneficial in studies targeting the initial three days of COVID-19. Note that the Lilly product isn’t in use now in America as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA).


    The monoclonal antibodies must be administered intravenously, making their use impractical for every person at the time of initial COVID-19 diagnosis. What has been needed for a long time and evidenced in select National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported clinical trials is a need for early treatments, even prophylaxis.


    The Dire Need for Oral Antiviral Therapy

    TrialSite has emphasized for 15 months now the critical need for easy-to-administrate and ideally low-cost options targeting early care of COVID-19. Why? Because 90%+ of SARS-CoV-2 cases are either asymptomatic or mild-to-moderate symptomatically. Many TrialSite advisors have known this, from prominent physicians on the front lines to scientists at some top universities. Early on, TrialSite interviewed researchers and physicians involved with ivermectin studies—case series, observational studies, and randomized controlled trials—worldwide. The promise seemed infectious alone, but the results seemed too many to ignore. With 62 studies completed now—and a majority of them showing some considerable promise—the critical need for publicly-financed studies far earlier in the pandemic was clear. Of course, the mainstream media, led by the preordained “thought leaders,” completely ignored any positive results. Still, as soon as any neutral to negative data points availed, they pounced to pop any balloon of ivermectin hope. That, unfortunately, will continue toward a hydroxychloroquine-type outcome. But based on the many dozens of interviews, considerable and available data scrutinized, and even some of our own experiences with using the generic treatment successfully early on to treat COVID-19, we suspect the calculus for efficacy and safety is significantly positive for ivermectin and several other repurposed candidates.


    Billions of U.S. Taxpayer Dollars Directed to a Few Players

    In America, many billions of taxpayer dollars got funneled during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic to either vaccine or monoclonal antibody developers. One antiviral drug maker secured subsidies for clinical trials and what many suspect was preferential treatment during clinical trials.


    During a pivotal remdesivir trial, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) made an unorthodox move of changing the endpoint toward the end of the study. While Fauci declared there was a “new standard” of treatment, he moderated the position to say it’s “no knock out drug.”


    That last statement didn’t matter nor did the WHO Solidarity trial results declaring that remdesivir had no desirable effect on the study population.


    The winner was selected, and in the first nine months of the pandemic, Gilead generated about $3 billion on a drug that’s been heavily subsidized with public monies. The drug couldn’t be used for early ambulatory or home care, was costly, and required administration in a hospital or clinic. TrialSite did marvel at the business acumen and prowess of Gilead operating early on in an intense crisis, which led to what we term “Remdesivir-envy” when referring to other pharmaceutical companies that sought to replicate that success.


    TrialSite learned some hard lessons of just how much bias favoring novel and expensive drug development exists even in the worst of crisis with so many people dying. Led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its ACTIV program, the entire apparatus favored expensive and novel branded therapy development over economic repurposed drug investigations. For example it’s a known problem at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). TrialSite started chronicling who was getting paid what. The money flow, the accumulation of wealth by select vaccine makers, and a true winner-take-all environment unfolded amid the worst pandemic in a century.


    The Feds ‘See the Light’

    But by June 2021, the federal government saw the light, that is, the need for antivirals to address early-onset care. But it would appear to be more of the same, including subsidizing more pharmaceuticals that had questionable, lengthy, and expensive, publicly supported roads. For example, Merck secured $356 million and then another $1.2 billion from the current administration in guaranteed purchases. Other companies pursuing this market include Pfizer and Roche. Fauci recently went even further, declaring exactly what kind of pill he desired from the companies.


    In the meantime, countries around the world were testing Favipiravir. In fact, drug regulators authorized the use in dozens of countries, from Russia and China to Turkey. However, there was scant news associated with those milestones in the American or British press. A trio of organizations even submitted an authorization to market a version of Favipiravir to Health Canada, but still, there were crickets in the news. The same thing happened when a lab associated with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army patented Favipiravir, a hostile act to the drug maker across the East China Sea to the west in Japan. But the goals were clear as the Chinese saw a massive market for early-onset, relatively low-cost treatments. Would the powers-that-be clear the path for pharmaceutical domination in the lucrative West while Russian and Chinese firms get the low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs)? If that’s the case, the NIH will have served its function.


    NIH Changes the Guidelines and the Industry Gloves Come Off

    The Ivermectin experience has been quite similar, but there are some differences to note. At first, as TrialSite reported on positive study after positive study, the mainstream news and everyone else was silent. But then the National Institute of Health (NIH) COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel met with ivermectin researchers from the Front-Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) as well as Dr. Andrew Hill from the U.K. Shortly thereafter, the globally influential NIH group changed their recommendation association with ivermectin, from recommended only for research to a neutral position, which TrialSite reported.


    A lot has happened since then, including a mounting campaign hostile to the use of the drug—even for research. Established media like the Los Angeles Times outright spew mountains of misinformation, as evidenced by this TrialSite piece. But many in academia and industry were already high fiving; the next hydroxychloroquine pathway was inevitable.


    The Principle Study—Tailored for Failure

    Yes, there is a need for oral antiviral therapy and economical ones that can help care for the world. We have seen what happens with the vaccination programs. While the richest countries secure surplus products now, most low-to middle-income countries (LMICs) really struggle to secure quality vaccination products. Yet, in the meantime, places like Thailand are betting life or death on Favipiravir.


    Drs. Chris Butler and Richard Hobbs, the leaders of the outpatient PRINCIPLE Trial, recognized the need and have introduced ivermectin and favipiravir as arms in their study. However, the PRINCIPLE Trial admits patients with up to a 14-day duration of symptoms. It is impossible for antiviral treatment to show a benefit over such a long time span. Furthermore, participation of both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals further clouds the statistical analysis. A number of thought leaders have attempted to engage Drs. Hobbs and Butler to suggest a separate statistical analysis of short duration versus longer duration and vaccinated versus unvaccinated patients.


    Such a change would require much larger sample sizes than PRINCIPLE has ever had to date. COVID studies have suffered from small sample sizes, so effects are only observable by aggregating the results in meta-analyses as done with ivermectin. In contrast to the U.K. RECOVERY Trials in hospitalized patients, which have enrolled tens of thousands of patients, PRINCIPLE had only entered about 5000 patients before the delta variant outbreak. With such small numbers in a trial with such broad enrollment criteria, it is unlikely that the PRINCIPLE effort will be worthwhile. It is hoped that a major media effort could increase interest and enrollment in PRINCIPLE to get legitimate answers on the use of early-stage antiviral treatment.


    TrialSite was able to interact with a prominent physician and principal investigator from Argentina, Dr. Hector E. Carvallo, Department of Internal Medicine at Buenos Aires University. Dr. Carvallo led the IVERCAR study at Eurnekian Public Hospital, evidencing positive results for generic drug use in Argentina. In an email sent to TrialSite, Dr. Carvallo shared some thoughts about what he knows about the PRINCIPLE trial:


    “Regarding the PRINCIPLE trial, the method seems to be entirely designed to fail. Enrolling subjects up to 14 days of infection will only prove that ANY treatment, when applied too late, has reduced chances of success. In a scathing critique of this study, Carvallo continued, “Thus, it not only disregards one of the dogmas of modern Medicine, but it also weakens the patients’ right to be treated properly.”


    Moreover, he continued, “The placebo-matched studies, in a potentially dangerous (and even life-threatening) condition, also disregards Helsinki Protocols for such a situation, depriving subjects from available chances.”


    Dr. Carvallo pondered the meaning of this trial based on his understanding of the protocol design and obvious limitations was. What was behind this clinical trial design—”ignorance, some hidden intentions or a little of both,” articulated the Argentinian physician and research scientist.


    These are strong and profound statements from a highly respected, world-class researcher.


    TrialSite also reached out to a renowned cardiologist, one that’s put his own position on the line to fight for his patients. Dr. Peter McCullough is highly accomplished, one of the most published principal investigators in the nation. The M.D. and MPH has published the results of hundreds of studies, founded and led the Cardio Renal Society of America, served as co-editor-in-chief of the journal Cardiorenal Medicine, and led editorial for Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine. An expert in conducting various types of cardiovascular studies, he uncovered a cardiovascular condition in high endurance athletes among many investigational breakthroughs.


    Since the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. McCullough has been first and foremost concerned with delivering early care to his patients. TrialSite asked the Texas-based physician and cardiologist, research scientist, and epidemiologist to share his thoughts on the matter, which he did via email:


    “It is unclear if PRINCIPLE included some of the burgeoning numbers of vaccine breakthroughs which appear to have a similar COVID-19 syndrome as those who are unvaccinated and should be considered equally eligible for medical therapy to reduce the chances of poor outcomes after the vaccine has failed.”


    A Top-Down System—Doctors Now Pawns

    TrialSite was aware of numerous futile attempts by dozens of physicians/researchers and other committed health care professionals concerned about this study design; eliciting a response from the prominent University of Oxford principal investigators was met with crickets. This is an unfortunate and all too familiar reality during the polarized age of COVID-19. That is, those in positions of power, privilege, and access to lots of money aren’t open to any criticism or real constructive challenge from physicians in the field, for example. A top-down, corporatized, hierarchical system of academic elites, industry executives, and government gatekeepers ensures that so many diverse, authentic, and committed caregiving voices are never heard again. Doctors have become pawns in some new form of a highly corporate, top-down ecosystem, where money, power, and stifling processes supersedes the fundamentals of doctoring and patient care. This problem unfolded long before COVID-19; the pandemic merely exposed the cancerous metastasis now spreading throughout society’s body.

    IVERMECTIN SAVES INDIA!


    Why can a poor state like Uttar Pradesh have 4 weeks long just 10..50 cases/day for 205 million people? 100x less deaths from CoV-19 than USA with almost no vaccination?? Despite India is all Delta???


    Why do the most vaccinated states (Israel, California) see strongly raising cases among vaccinated ??

    Why has Israel a high death rate (10x CH) again? And most India states are in the single digits or even 0=Zero death zone?

    #IndiaFightsCorona COVID-19
    www.mygov.in


    Same for India. The small vaccine only state of Kerala now is responsible for > 50% of all India cases. Has far more deaths than than all India Ivermectin states together.


    Does it turn out that so called intellectual people following the science are unable to recognize the FUD science behind the RNA gen therapy? And all dumb people in Uttar Pradesh are right to think cheap Ivermectin is better than RNA crap from Pfizer/Biontec?


    Strange world. Poor, dumb protects against big pharma fake news!


    Quote from Fm1

    Enrolling subjects up to 14 days of infection will only prove that ANY treatment, when applied too late, has reduced chances of success.

    The Oxford doctors, also known as the HCQ killers, are famous followers of Dr. Mengele. Using placebos for curing a potential live threatening disease is a criminal act and such doctors should immediately sent to jail and their permission should be live long revoked.

    COVID-19 might only affect children in coming years, US-Norwegian study suggests


    COVID-19 might only affect children in coming years, US-Norwegian study suggests
    Modelling study suggests COVID-19 pandemic may eventually evolve into an endemic in coming years
    www.geo.tv


    A US-Norweigian modelling study published on Thursday has noted that in the next few years, COVID-19 might behave like the common cold, affecting mostly young children, reported India Today on Friday.


    The study highlighted that because the severity of the coronavirus is lower among children, the overall burden of COVID-19 is expected to decline in the coming years. It is likely that coronavirus will only affect children who are not vaccinated or haven't been exposed to the virus.


    The study also predicted that theSARS-CoV-2 virus will become endemic in the global population, meaning it will be found only in particular people.


    Ottar Bjornstad at the University of Oslo in Norway stated that the coronavirus has a clear signature and has increasingly severe outcomes with age.


    The study suggests that the risk of infection will transfer to younger children as adults become immune either through vaccination or by exposure to the virus.


    The study, published in the journal Sciences Advances, noted that similar patterns have been observed for other coronaviruses and influenza viruses as well.


    Bjornstad added, “Historical records of respiratory diseases indicate that age-incidence patterns during virgin epidemics can be very different from endemic circulation.”


    He further explained that ongoing genomic work has suggested that the 1889-1890 pandemic— Asiatic or Russian flu known to have killed one million people, primarily adults over 70— might have been caused by the emergence of the HCoV-OC43 virus, which is now a mild cold virus affecting children between the ages of 7 to 12 months.


    The researcher, however, cautioned that if the immunity toSARS-CoV-2 decreases among adults, the disease burden would most probably remain high in the group. He added that while previous exposure to the virus would lessen the severity, it will not provide immunity.


    Bjornstad further expanded that evidence from previous studies on coronaviruses indicates that previous infections usually creates short-term immunity to reinfection allowing for outbreaks to reoccur.


    The prior infection may provide the immune system with some protection against severe disease, but only vaccination provides stronger protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.


    The study

    The study involved developing a "realistic age-structures (RAS) mathematical model" which integrated demography, degree of social mixing and duration of infection-blocking and disease-reducing immunity to examine future scenarios for COVID-19.


    The researchers analysed disease burden over immediate, medium, and long terms— 1, 10 and 20 years respectively.


    The disease burden was examined for 11 different countries with widely different demographics. The countries included in the study were China, Japan, South Korea, Spain, UK, France, Germany, Italy, the US, Brazil, and South Africa.


    Data acquired from the United Nations for each of these countries was utilised to specify the model and the team assumed that the level of transmissibility (R) is linked to the level of mobility that day.


    The model incorporated various scenarios for immunity, including both the independence and dependence of disease severity on prior exposure, and shot and long-term immunity.


    Ruiyun Li,a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, said, "For many infectious respiratory diseases, the prevalence in the population surges during a virgin epidemic but then recedes in a diminishing wave pattern as the spread of the infection unfolds over time toward an endemic equilibrium."


    He added that depending on the immunity and demography, the RAS model supports the observed trajectory in a virgin pandemic. The RAS model predicts a vastly different age structure at the start of COVID-19 versus the eventual endemic.


    Predictions

    According to the model, researchers have noted that in the situation of long-lasting immunity, young people are predicted to have the highest rates of infection and older people are likely to be protected from newer infections due to prior infections.


    Associate Professor at Princeton University Jessica Metcalf noted that the RAS model predictions would only hold true if the reinfections only produce mild disease.


    She added that the burden of mortality may remain unchanged if primary infections do not prevent reinfections or mitigate severe disease among the elderly.

    WHO scientist puts COVID lab leak theory back under spotlight

    Head of WHO mission probing pandemic origins says virus may have started with a Wuhan lab staffer becoming infected


    WHO scientist puts COVID lab leak theory back under spotlight
    Head WHO mission probing pandemic origins says virus may have started with a Wuhan lab staffer becoming infected.
    www.aljazeera.com


    The idea that the coronavirus pandemic originated accidentally via Chinese laboratory workers has surfaced again, this time in a documentary aired by Danish TV on Thursday.

    China has reacted furiously to any suggestions that the pandemic, which has killed at least 4.3 million people since emerging in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, was caused by malpractice involving one of its laboratories.

    But this is part of the “probable” assumptions, according to the head of the World Health Organization mission investigating the origins of the pandemic.


    “An employee of the lab gets infected while working in a bat cave collecting samples. Such a scenario, while being a lab leak, would also fit our first hypothesis of direct transmission of the virus from bat to human. This is a hypothesis that we consider to be likely,” Peter Ben Embarek told the Danish public channel TV2.


    The first phase of the WHO study, conducted at the start of the year, concluded on March 29 that the hypothesis of a laboratory incident remained “extremely unlikely”.

    However, Embarek said it had been difficult for his team to discuss this theory with Chinese scientists.


    But the WHO scientist pointed out that none of the types of bats suspected to have been the reservoir for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 lives in the wild in the Wuhan region.


    The only people likely to have approached these types of bats are employees of the city laboratories, he said.


    The WHO on Thursday urged China to share raw data from the earliest COVID-19 cases to assist the pandemic origins probe – and release data to address the lab leak theory.

    The global health agency also urged all countries to depoliticise the search for the origins of the pandemic.


    In its statement, the WHO said the search for the pandemic’s origins “should not be an exercise in attributing blame, finger-pointing or political point-scoring”.


    Theory gaining momentum

    Long derided as a right-wing conspiracy theory and vehemently rejected by Beijing, the lab leak hypothesis has been gaining momentum.


    It was a favourite under former US President Donald Trump, but his successor Joe Biden is also keen to see this line of inquiry pursued.

    Biden has ordered a review of US intelligence and increasing numbers of scientists are calling for an independent investigation to be conducted by authorities beyond the WHO.


    Jamie Metzl, who sits on a WHO advisory board on human genome editing and who has been leading efforts calling for an independent investigation on how COVID-19 started, described Embarek’s comments as “a game-changer”, describing his earlier declaration that a lab leak was unlikely “shameful”.


    “It’s even more significant that the international expert team who stated with such confidence in the February Wuhan press event that a lab origin was unlikely themselves believed this was not the case and were simply trying to assuage their Chinese government-affiliated hosts,” said Metzl.


    All of the scientists on the WHO-led team were approved by China and the team’s agenda and final report were also vetted by the Chinese government.

    Embarek told TV2 the purpose of the WHO team’s visit was “collaboration and discussion” with China.


    In recent weeks, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has acknowledged it was “ premature ” to rule out a possible lab leak as the source of COVID-19, saying last month that he was asking China to be more transparent about the early days of the pandemic.


    “I was a lab technician myself. I’m an immunologist and I have worked in the lab and lab accidents happen,” Tedros said. “It’s common.”

    Living and loving as an anti-vaxxer. Weird.

    How anti-vaxxers are living and loving in a Covid world
    Opponents of Covid vaccines are turning to online dating and house shares for the unvaccinated only.
    www.bbc.co.uk


    Anti-vax on LENR-forum - Summary


    The tropes posted here can be categorised:


    government-hate

    W gives the most extreme (and also most incomprehensible) example of this. But we find repeated tropes rubbishing CDC, FDA, Fauci, etc. I find these confusing as well, because other than being nasty in a tribal way it is not clear quite what these anti-vax-lite comments are saying. The standard anti-vax memes:

    • COVID is not deadly
    • The vaccines do not work
    • The vaccines are not safe
    • They are forcing you to get vaccinated
    • They are hiding things from you

    are obviously all being played with. They are all attenuated, because in extreme forms they are obviously false: COVID is deadly, the vaccines do work, the vaccines are safe, and no-one is forced to get vaccinated. Employers can and are requiring vaccination from employees because they need relatively safer working environments. This is not new - vaccination is required for other types of work. it is not driven by government (except in the case of government employees). Many companies want employees vaccinated for obvious reasons. The differences are strategic - can you best get this through mandates or persuasion. Most people think that the popular pressure for mandates should be resisted and people should be persuaded (with a lot of effort going into this). That is because no company wants to create intense and political divisions in its workforce. Sometimes, though, the extra costs of allowing unvaccinated people to have specific jobs are too high.


    In the Uk, for example, the not very competent government (and 70% of the population) thinks that vaccine passports are a good idea for young people - seen as the biggest reservoir of COVID - to be allowed entry to nightclubs. Scientists wanting to increase vaccination rates think differently. The problem is that turning those who are vaccine-hesitant into "others" makes it more difficult to engage with them and will make them cling to whatever misinformation they may have.


    At its heart the antivax message promoted here is political - a combination of deep suspicion of (deep?) state institutions and powerful people, libertarian fears about control of population.


    Any pandemic will inevitably bring the tension in any society between liberty and safety into sharp focus. My regret is how in many countries - some more than others - this tension coalesces with a populist and highly politicised anti-elitist sentiment that has its roots in fears of societal change and disappointment at loss: the world has become a less nice place both culturally and economically for large segments of society.


    On this thread it is a bit different. The anti-vax and anti-vax lite posters here have strongly entrenched views and a long-standing distrust of government, institutions, scientists. Just as with the core of committed online anti-vax opinion they are waging a war and will not be changed whatever the strategy. Most people in society slow to be vaccinated are not so politically committed and it is them that government and company messaging needs to speak to.


    Personally I find it easy to worry about vaccine safety. even though those AstraZeneca blood clots occur at extremely low rates my hypochondria would be fully activated were i to be given them. I would take that, rather than no vaccination, because COVID is clearly worse and looking at the context I can see that COVID is bound to become endemic like Flu.


    The analogy with Flu (beloved of Anti-Vaxxers) is probably quite strong once all of a population have some exposure - vaccine or infection. And as with Flu, keeping topped up with vaccination is smart, and smarter the older you are.


    There is a proper scientific argument about the immune system and how it is trained. There is no doubt that when we are young the exposure we have to pathogens affects our health for the rest of our life. And it could be that a specific vaccine, by boosting one part of immune response, depresses others. We experiment on ourselves regardless; catching COVID is a big very uncertain natural experiment - letting all that foreign bat mRNA permeate all the organs of your body - twisting your immune system in ways no other disease can do - is scary. Priming the immune system with a little bit of viral protein is a lot less scary, though not without some risk.


    For me these risks - comparing them - understanding them - is fascinating (probably because I am mildly hypochondriac).


    I don't have that conspiracy theory mentality that makes me predisposed to believe "they are out to get you". Which lets me look at the science in a relatively neutral way seeing both sides of questions.


    It is true that for those (many in US) who basically believe doctors are out to enrich themselves at the expense of patients - and therefore health advice is not to be be trusted - I will seem to dismiss fears of corruption and medical establishments guilty of manslaughter.


    Remember I live in the Uk where medical regulations are still determined by doctors and free of political influence, and where nearly all doctors care about patients (they do not get paid much anyway!). I treat advice from the government with a filter - it is political - but the decisions of medical regulators are not.


    I do not have the same views about advice or the medical regulators in other countries - Russia, 2nd and third world countries. Many of these do not have separation of institutions from government, nor a free press.


    I had always thought of the US as on the side of the angels here, though Trump stretched this: but if you do not trust US regulation have a look at what the UK and Europe have done.


    THH

    Quote from Fm1

    Theory gaining momentum

    Long derided as a right-wing conspiracy theory and vehemently rejected by Beijing, the lab leak hypothesis has been gaining momentum.


    It was a favourite under former US President Donald Trump, but his successor Joe Biden is also keen to see this line of inquiry pursued.

    Biden has ordered a review of US intelligence and increasing numbers of scientists are calling for an independent investigation to be conducted by authorities beyond the WHO.

    It is understandable, but a shame, that something that needs to be a scientific enquiry, is so enmeshed in politics. It should make no difference which way politicians, in US or China, want the result to go.


    The best way to get information is to depoliticise the investigation. Not that that seems likely at the moment.

    Quote from Fm1

    He added that while previous exposure to the virus would lessen the severity, it will not provide immunity.

    This has been refuted by recent studies. Natural infection can lead to mucosal protection whereas RNA gen therapy (vaccination) cannot.

    Thus teh following conclusion is totally wrong at least for the gen therapy!

    Quote from Fm1

    but only vaccination provides stronger protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.


    Quote from Fm1

    Such a scenario, while being a lab leak, would also fit our first hypothesis of direct transmission of the virus from bat to human. This is a hypothesis that we consider to be likely,” Peter Ben Embarek told the Danish public channel TV2.

    ljaf right half total nonsense. Sars-CoV-19 cannot infect bats......

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    COVID is not deadly

    This is on only your claim. Nobody here on the forum ever claimed this

    Quote from Fm1

    Dr. Koby Haviv, Director of Jerusalem’s Herzog Hospital, declared the following in a television interview on Channel 13:


    “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated. 85%-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people. We are opening more and more COVID wards. The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out.”


    Moreover, Dr. Haviv continued that “90% of severe COVID-19 hospitalizations are fully vaccinated.” From worsening breakthrough infections to “outbreaks in hospitals” where a single patient can infect a large group, the doctor expressed real concern that won’t be shared in American or British media.


    Ever get the feeling you are being lied to FM? …Or does the saccharine-sweet taste of confirmation bias prevent that from happening? Fortunately we have data from the Israeli Ministry of Health, so we don’t have to rely on the word of a parochial nutter with a peculiar point of view. Might explain why other more sensible media outlets ignore him, no?



    Link

    Infection-enhancing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies recognize both the original Wuhan/D614G strain and Delta variants. A potential risk for mass vaccination ?

    Infection-enhancing antibodies have been detected in symptomatic Covid-19. Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is a potential concern for vaccines, because enhancing antibodies recognize both the Wuhan strain and Delta variants, vaccine formulations lacking ADE epitope are suggested.

    This situation may actually apply to emergence of delta strain, which became widespread just after massive vaccination campaign in India

    . See also:

    Technically it's effect analogous to accelerated adaptation of superbugs from too widespread application of antibiotics. Viruses aren't so silly bugs and they can adapt too - actually even faster than bacteria due to their simpler structures. Being short, the mutation in single gene can actually change existing genome more thus rendering existing vaccines more unusable than mutation of single gene bacteria, the genome of which is much larger. We know that for influensa H1N1 / H3N2 viruses new vaccine must be applied each year, which in its consequences accelerates mutation of viruses even more. This applies particularly to "fresh" mutant coronavirus leaked from Wuhan, which has no genome stabilized yet.


    All this mess is just the least problem actually, because repeated application of vaccine also forces immune system to activate new and increasingly unspecific/aggressive antibodies, which will gradually start to attack not only coronavirus particles, but also healthy cells of organism, thus contributing to development of autoimmune disease. Because the "overvaccinated" organism has immune system oversensitive, it reacts more violently to new strains of coronavirus with cytokine storm, which is the most serious complication of coronavirus infection.


    This adverse effect is not my invention as it has been also observed already. Clinical characteristics of 152 fully vaccinated hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Israel show that these patients had a higher rate of co-morbidities and immunosuppression compared with previously reported non-vaccinated hospitalized individuals with COVID-19. This effect may evade the attention of statistics, because vaccinated persons care about their health more than unvaccinated ones, so that they have lower rate of co-morbities in general - just not thanks to vaccines. But it means, that repeated vaccination may improve healing of mild cases in average, but it also makes outcome of serious cases worse.


    Does it mean that vaccinated People need a permanent “Booster Shot” to stay updated?

    Not only this but also that newly mutated viruses will get even "smarter" and more virulent and new strains will evolve even faster, until they will render vaccination busters completely unusable. Therefore campaign of vaccination companies for booster shots

    actually speed up the problem, which they helped to develop. This is now happening in Japan where 1/3 of all People are fully vaccinated yet the Delta Variant is still going wild.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    IVERMECTIN SAVES INDIA!


    Why can a poor state like Uttar Pradesh have 4 weeks long just 10..50 cases/day for 205 million people? 100x less deaths from CoV-19 than USA with almost no vaccination??


    It’s really very simple… (although I suspect Wyttenbach will be unable to understand it) …Uttar Pradesh undercount their cases by a factor of 100.


    Most people, and all health authorities, understand the need for seroprevalence testing: There are many factors, especially in low income countries in the midst of a pandemic, that mean that cases go uncounted - and seroprevalence testing is the only way to assess how many cases have been missed.


    By comparing the proportion of people who test positive for covid antibodies, with the proportion of reported cases in a population, it is simple to calculate how many cases are being missed.



    This even explains why cases in Kerala - to a dilettante observer / idiot - appear to be so high: They are the best state in India when it comes to counting their cases.


    Link

    Quote from Zeus46

    Ever get the feeling you are being lied to FM? …

    Of course all the figures of 90% were based on one twitter source...


    But both sides are heavily cheating:


    While the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine may have waned somewhat over the past several months, those who are vaccinated are protected five to 10 times as much as those who are unable or unwilling to receive the shot, said Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Desert, Be’er Sheva, and head of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians.



    This statement is totally wrong as we can see from the table. It's currently less than 3X protection by the RNA gen therapy.

    The ratio among severely ill age >80 is 90 vaccinated vs. 240 unvaccinated so its less than 1:3 (3/8) what we reported some pages ago. Further you cannot compare the rates among age groups (e.g. <60 & > 80) as the difference in time of vaccination is > 2 months. Pfizer protection weakens by 6%/month.


    The death rate in Israel was 15/day for the last 3 days. So it would be interesting to know vaccination statues here too. But most countries hide this data...


    The Swiss death rate is still <1/day with 1000 reported cases/day and up to 4-8x unreported ones. (Tests go down but PCR+ rate strongly increases what is a measure for hidden cases may be more than 8x)

    Quote from Zeus46

    Uttar Pradesh undercount their cases by a factor of 100.

    You missed most posts of the last three weeks.

    Uttar Pradesh had already 70% antibodies 4 weeks ago. As you might know with delta you get at least 10x undetected cases in ratio with 1 symptomatic case.


    The Table you linked is from May...The comment is silly and dilettante as you obviously have no clue how CoV-19 works.


    Fact: There is no under reporting. Most CoV-19 cases are silent. The last estimate for delta is > 10x silent cases based on CH PCR+ rate. But India is young -average age in rural states is very low so you can expect a factor of 30 for silent cases because most children show no symptoms and about 50% of the population are children.


    I fully understand that the vaccine terrorists are frustrated with India's data as a population with > 70% sero positive needs no gen therapy at all.

    Navid. I was starting to think that maybe I had it wrong with the unfortunate comparison to Alex Jones, and that you were well on your way to sniffing out your first Wyttenfact…


    Quote from Navid

    Wyttenbach I was looking for your old post on the Pfizer data - you linked it but I couldnt find it. I looked at the FDA and Pfizer study for the people who may have had ~200 symptoms that were been excluded. I couldnt tell where that was. I know both arms had 1000+ people who had suspected but not confirmed stuff going on which could sway the results right away.


    …I wanted data of suspected infections in the first dose and after the 2nd but could not see it

    and

    Quote from Navid

    In the attached image is the 311 people with "protocol deviations" -- how did you know what the deviations are?


    But then you fell at the final hurdle! You allowed yourself to be fobbed off with some rather obvious BS!


    Quote from Wyttenbach

    People with some insider knowledge posted the facts. (Look for the instructions that were handed out to the doctors involved in the study) Everybody with a raising temperature between day 1..7 had to be kicked out (reason got CoV-19 prior vaccine.. ha ha ha) So we have the fantastic fact that in the vaccine group people got 5x more CoV-19 prior to vaccination time…


    As a person who urges others to “do your own research”, you fell well short of your own standards. What gives?


    Did the conspiratorial nature of these fabled “people with insider knowledge” appeal so much to the part of your* brain that processes whats real and what isn’t, that it got a pass?


    Does this mean you now forever beholden to your guru Wyttenbach, giver of secret knowledge? Maybe these days you are looking for a new “Q”? — Since the old one turned out to be a geeky father and son tag team.


    Saaaad.


    * really “our”, because, lets face it, everybody loves to indulge in good conspiracy theory. For a minute or two.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Fact: There is no under reporting.


    The ramblings of of madman. Please see the results of the 4th ICMR seroposivity survey linked to above.


    Yes the data was collected a couple of months ago, but its still the most recent available, and still infinitely more useful than any conclusion based on your absurd method. (Didn’t i predict he wouldn’t be able to understand this?).


    I guess you must believe that UP has managed to sort out its failing bureaucracy - of the sort that can undercount cases by a factor of 100 - in 3 months?!


    :D

    Anti-vax misinformation alert


    Zephyr, I'm sure you do not mean to do this, but you are following a 135 year pattern of vaccine misinformation.


    First let me agree with all of these links. New viruses are scary. The one thing you can be sure about with COVID is that we will not get rid of it, and it will evolve. There is a lot of uncertainty in what the new variants will bring us, and all the papers on this are just speculation - we don't know. the worst case is so horrifying no-one goes there.


    Given this uncertainty it is easy to make up scare stories, and find ways in which vaccination might make things worse. But if you look at the UK vaccination has saved 60,000 lives +, and we now have COVID rates stable at 1 in 75, down from a 1 in 65 peak two weeks ago. Continued vaccination + increasing natural immunity for the small part of the population unvaccinated is obviously helping to control what was a fast delta increase 2 months ago. Will we have enough immunity before winter - I don't know.


    The papers you link can all be seen (by somone inclined to conspiracy theories as I know you are) as really scary they are going to kill us stuff. In reality they are all reflected on, and none come as great surprises. Nor do they seem as scary to experts as they do to you. It is a bit like a hypochondriac looking at a medical encyclopedia. But I cannot tell you there is no risk. New pandemic viruses are always a risk - thank God we have this time got better tools to understand and control this one.


    Infection-enhancing antibodies have been detected in symptomatic Covid-19. Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) is a potential concern for vaccines, because enhancing antibodies recognize both the Wuhan strain and Delta variants, vaccine formulations lacking ADE epitope are suggested.


    ADE - it is a real issue with any virus. Note that these antibodies come from natural immunity, and that ADE has not been a problem with COVID vaccinations. The data here is of limited relevance since it is molecular simulations only, and as they point out ADE is a problem when the enhancing effect is larger than the neutralising effect of the antibodies, not the case here. Let me point out that it is also an issue for reinfection with a different variant. Still, it is one of the many things that people formulating new vaccines need to check.


    A new SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological model found, that likelihood of vaccine resistant strain greatly increases when the population is largely vaccinated with ineffective vaccine


    All true. But let me point out that things are equally problematic when COVID rates spiral out of control without vaccines, as was the case for the alpha and delta variants. There are enough places without vaccination and with high COVID rates that we will get new variants anyway.

    I don't see this as a major problem, because we can create a modded vaccine to deal with such variants within 100 days. The only reason this has not been authorised so far is that the current vaccines seem good enough against delta. Personally, I think they should have started making a delta-specific vaccine a month ago.


    Other links - sure - vaccines push viruses to evolve. So does natural immunity! However, as with Flu, we expect the evolved variants to be generally less deadly to those previously vaccinated because some of the immunity carries over. I think it is going to be rough for a while and we will need a modded vaccine, no doubt. I fully expect the situation in a few years to stabilise to something like Flu where it is in the interests of everyone to have a booster shot each year.


    This adverse effect is not my invention as it has been also observed already. Clinical characteristics of 152 fully vaccinated hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Israel show that these patients had a higher rate of co-morbidities and immunosuppression compared with previously reported non-vaccinated hospitalized individuals with COVID-19.

    That is true, but it means the opposite of what you think. The vaccine is effective in reducing serious disease, so the ones who get it now have on average more comorbidities (other health problems that make COVID more severe). Basically all the people without these additional risk factors are never seen because they do not go to hospital. the paper says this if you read it.


    Not only this but also that newly mutated viruses will get even "smarter" and more virulent and new strains will evolve even faster, until they will render vaccination busters completely unusable. Therefore campaign of vaccination companies for booster shots

    actually speed up the problem, which they helped to develop. This is now happening in Japan where 1/3 of all People are fully vaccinated yet the Delta Variant is still going wild.


    • This is a set of points each true but with no causal connection.
      • There is no evidence booster shots speed up the problem. The only mutated virus problems so far (alpha and delta) were got without any vaccination at all. Delta + vaccination has not yet given us a worse variant - though I'm sure this will happen (maybe from the high COVID rate unvaccinated countries).
      • Finally the killer point - delta goes wild in a country with 1/3 vaccinated. That is expected, and even if the vaccination was 100% effective in stopping infection it would still be expected.
        • 2/3 unvaccinated => R0 reduces by a factor of 2/3. Delta R0 is very high so this has little effect.
        • Vaccination will slow down (but maybe not stop) viral spread since delta is now two big variants away from the virus the vaccine was meant to stop
        • Vaccination + natural immunity will (we hope) stop it. We know vaccination + natural immunity gives better protection than natural immunity on its own
        • In any case, even if not stopped, vaccination vastly reduces the effects on health and the economy. We do not close down for Flu. With vaccination, COVID looks more like the Flu (though not identical


    Just to end on a positive note. The early vaccines have always been a fast as possible holding action. We are making progress with:

    • Better treatments
    • Nasal vaccines etc
    • Better vaccines more able to knock out variants


    With mRNA tech we have the ability to make and produce these new better therapies or vaccines very quickly.


    THH

    Quote from Fm1

    Vaccination Crisis or False Alarm in Israel? 90% of COVID-19 Patients Fully Vaccinated

    That is because nearly everyone in Israel is fully vaccinated. If 100% of a population is vaccinated, 100% of COVID patients will be vaccinated. They will all be breakthrough cases. There is no one else left to infect. The same applies to the U.S. Provincetown outbreak. Nearly every infected person was vaccinated, because ~95% of the people in Provincetown were vaccinated. Fortunately, breakthrough cases with vaccinations are almost all mild, with no hospitalization needed, and virtually no fatalities, unless you are already at death's door from cancer or old age. That is why there were only 7 hospitalizations, none of them severe, and no deaths.


    Where the population is about half vaccinated and half unvaccinated, 97% of hospitalized cases will be the unvaccinated, and 100% of deaths will be the unvaccinated. In other words, the vaccine is very effective. Unfortunately it does not prevent as many Delta breakthrough cases as it did with the Alpha variant, but it prevents serious cases and deaths as well as it did with Alpha. Surprisingly, it also prevent contagious transmission from the infected person to others almost as well. You wouldn't think so, but that's what preliminary data shows. Apparently, the viral load in the sinuses goes down rapidly as the immune system kicks in.


    In Provincetown, the local district and districts where the tourists came from are upscale and Democratic, so nearly everyone is vaccinated. In the U.S., there is now a sharp correlation between wealth, voting, COVID vaccinations, and COVID infections. The nation has split in two. Within Georgia you can predict vaccination and infection rates by looking at the election returns. We are quite safe where I live, but 20 miles away in GOP districts you risk your health and your life going to the grocery store. Everyone here wears a mask. Virtually no one in GOP districts does, and if you do, you will be harrassed and yelled at by strangers in the grocery store. All the students in my neighborhood highschool wear masks even outdoors (as I saw yesterday), whereas in Florida the governor threatens to withhold funding to school districts that mandate masks, and angry crowds threaten to assault teachers and doctors who plead with people to wear masks at public hearings.


    It is true that 40% of GOP voters nationwide have been vaccinated. They tend to be wealthy people, or they are from moderate, Democratic-leaning districts in places like New York or Atlanta. They are influenced by their neighbors. In many so-called ruby-red districts, only 18% to 30% of the population has been vaccinated. Here is a map by county. Note that a county is larger than a voting district. With regard to COVID and public health, a heavily Democratic district might as well be on another planet compared to a Republican one:


    Georgia COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker
    This is your state and county equivalent level look at how many have gotten a dose or doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Click on a state to see how many vaccines…
    data.democratandchronicle.com


    Because the Delta variant is more contagious, and possibly more dangerous for young people and children, those people are now in more danger than they were in December. The case mortality rate for a given age cohort will be the same as it was in December. They are risking their money, their health and possibly their lives to politics. To "own the libs." It is gruesome to say this, but in close races, with so many disabled and dead GOP fanatics, this might actually swing the election.


    They are risking their money because GOP voters in rural Georgia districts tend to be poor people with inadequate insurance, and Georgia hospitals tend to be bloodsucking monsters that will gladly take every dime you have, and you car, and your house, and then send your account to a collection agency. I am not kidding. There are news stories about this often. It happened to two people I know, one of them after a week in the hospital in a coma caused by his military service during the Vietnam war. He was out cold and they did not know he was a vet, so they did not send him to the V.A. hospital. That did not stop the hospital from billing him for $90,000. Anyone in the hospital with COVID for more than a few days will pay tens of thousands if you are lucky and you have good insurance, or hundreds of thousands if you don't. If you can't pay, you will be bankrupted and harassed by collection agencies from now on. The agencies are not nice people. They come and take your car at 5 in the morning, and frighten the hell out of your children, deliberately. That happened to my neighbor.


    It is widely noted that U.S. healthcare is the most expensive in the world, costing 2 or 3 times more per capita than any other advanced nation. It is also dead last among advanced nations, except for rich people. What is less often noted is that it is an extraordinarily cruel system, resembling 19th century debtor's prisons in England. Those prisons took poor people in debt and made their situation much worse, by preventing them from working. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire. U.S. healthcare does something similar, destroying the lives of people who are already sick or in bad shape. Making their situation far worse, without a house or an automobile, unable to work or take care of themselves. It is no wonder people are afraid to go to the hospital! People gravely injured in accidents, with their arms fractured or bleeding, sometimes plead with the police and bystanders, "Don't call an ambulance! I can't afford it!!" They can't. Just taking an ambulance to the hospital will cost you up to $1,500 in Georgia. Bear in mind that 63% of people in the U.S. do not have $500 in ready cash to pay for unexpected expenses or emergencies:


    63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency
    It's not news that Americans are terrible at saving. We talk about it year after year after year. New to the 2016 conversation, though, is the fact that just…
    www.forbes.com


    It is not a wealthy nation, particularly with regard to healthcare costs. Only a minority, the top ~10%, can afford healthcare, where you have to pay $8,000 or $20,000 to have a baby even with health insurance, and far more without. (https://www.ajmc.com/view/how-…s-it-depends-on-the-state). Being hospitalized for COVID will bankrupt most families. The top 1% has $34 trillion in assets (30% of all wealth), and the bottom 50% holds $2 trillion (2% of of all wealth). This is a recent development. It was not like this in the U.S. until the 1990s. Most GOP voters, and nearly everyone in rural Georgia districts, are in the bottom 50%.


    Top 1% Of U.S. Households Hold 15 Times More Wealth Than Bottom 50% Combined
    New data available from the U. S. Federal Reserve shows that the wealth gap in America has widened and economic inequality has increased in 2020 amidst a…
    www.forbes.com

    Why is UP COVID death rate so much better than other Indian Provinces?


    Well, there are very many things that affect reported (and real) death rates in different countries - disentangling them is a hard job. So I do not claim this is the only such factor for UP. But is is a big one that stands out:


    It has a much younger population: https://www.indiaspend.com/utt…youngest-population-22720


    UP ~ 20 years

    India ~ 20 - 30 years (depending on province)

    UK ~ 40 years


    The demographics here also explain why India and other undeveloped countries have relatively less of a problem than Industrialised countries. They also have doctors feeling helpless and willing to try out anything (e.g. ivermectin). I'm not saying these things always apply, but you know that a 40 year median population will be 10X worse off than a 20 year median population in absence of hospitals. And, for COVID, hospitals have been only a bit of help.


    That means COVID can go through the population with a much lower death rate. Of course, with proper health services and accounting it would still be terrible, but the less developed provinces of India have neither. They vastly underestimate death rate.

    https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/three-new-estimates-indias-all-cause-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic.pdf

    But all estimates suggest that the
    death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count of
    400,000; they also suggest that the first wave was more lethal than is believed. Understanding and
    engaging with the data-based estimates is necessary because in this horrific tragedy the counting—
    and the attendant accountability—will count for now but also the future.

    NB - that paper addresses India as a whole, things will be relatively worse for less developed Provinces such as UP.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    t is widely noted that U.S. healthcare is the most expensive in the world, costing 2 or 3 times more per capita than any other advanced nation. It is also dead last among advanced nations, except for rich people. What is less often noted is that it is an extraordinarily cruel system, resembling 19th century debtor's prisons in England. Those prisons took poor people in debt and made their situation much worse, by preventing them from working. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire. U.S. healthcare does something similar, destroying the lives of people who are already sick or in bad shape. Making their situation far worse, without a house or an automobile, unable to work or take care of themselves. It is no wonder people are afraid to go to the hospital!

    It is funny that all societies have their blind spots, where things that looked at objectively would be seen as scandals are normalised. This is a graphic example from the US, as is the way both police and citizens think that everyone carrying and being willing to shoot with a gun makes everyone safer, when all the statistics show it does not. In the UK children sometimes takes knives to school as a defensive measure because they know the school has pupils with knives, not realising that in a fight with somone else carrying a knife, you are more likely to get hurt badly if you carry a knife than if you do not. When whole societies carry knives, or guns, thinking of them as self-defence, it is dysfunctional.


    Of course, in absence of effective law enforcement (wild west etc) this dysfunction can't be helped, else a few with guns could rule. But then a few with guns who could shoot well did rule... In societies with more effective laws we can do better, and most do.

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