Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[corybroo]

Study shows prevalence of long COVID in a university community

Long story short:  Just over 1/3 of those who tested positive for Covid showed long Covid.  Being fully vaccinated reduced the risk of long covid.  A booster shot lowers the risk even more.

A study published today suggests the prevalence of long COVID was 36% among George Washington University students, faculty, staff and other members of the campus community who had tested positive for COVID-19 between July 2021 and March 2022. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines "long COVID" as signs, symptoms, and conditions that continue or develop four weeks or more after the initial COVID-19 infection.

The findings suggest that people who are fully vaccinated had a reduced risk of developing long COVID, and that those receiving a booster shot had an even lower risk. Researchers also found that development of long COVID was more likely among those with underlying medical conditions, current or former smokers, females and people who experienced more severe or greater numbers of symptoms during the initial illness.

Long COVID is not well characterized, the authors point out. They say more research must be done to examine its prevalence in other populations and to find out why some people develop it weeks or months later while others recover fully from the initial illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people with long COVID may suffer from a range of symptoms that can include fatigue, fever, cough and brain fog.

 

[Saul]

2 hours ago, corybroo said:

A study published today suggests the prevalence of long COVID was 36% among George Washington University students, faculty, staff and other members of the campus community who had tested positive for COVID-19 between July 2021 and March 2022.

Hmmm...

36% seems high -- perhaps GWU people are exposed to some contributing (environmental?) factor.

   --  Saul

 

 

[AlanPater]

I wonder how much the Yahoos on this Forum cost?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-of-covid-19-misinformation-study-1.6726356

[BrianMDelaney]

"I just found out I still have a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in my gut."

Fake news alert: It turns out that the way we tested my gut may not be valid. Am looking into this.

Update when I know more.

[Gordo]

I've been seeing lots of skepticism about covid boosters lately:

The Deceptive Campaign for Bivalent Covid Boosters

Studies show they fail to live up to their promise, but vaccine makers and experts keep pushing them.

 

[BrianA]

Updated boosters are cutting the risk of getting sick from Covid-19 by about half

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/25/health/bivalent-boosters-covid-xbb-protection/index.html

[BrianA]

‘Microclots’ could help solve the long COVID puzzle

Scientists are starting to detect clots in long COVID patients’ smallest blood vessels—which might help explain the condition’s debilitating symptoms.

https://archive.is/fJuZT

(link is a free version of paywalled NatGeo article)

Edited January 27, 2023 by BrianA

[BrianA]

Study using patients from 2020 (pre-vaccines), shows 43% increased risk of developing an autoimmune disease including arthritis after infection.

 

Incident autoimmune diseases in association with a SARS-CoV-2 infection: A matched cohort study

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.25.23285014v1

[BrianA]

This company just raised a further $100 million to scale up their upper-room UVC and direct far-UVC room disinfection products.

 

https://rzero.com/

[Ron Put]

7 hours ago, BrianA said:

This company just raised a further $100 million to scale up their upper-room UVC and direct far-UVC room disinfection products.

I guess there always ways to make money when you instill fear in people.

Most of the scary "discoveries" you keep posting about Covid apply to many other viral and/or respiratory infections, including influenza.

But Covid has become a cottage industry and still a sure way to get published. And to sell stuff. and to get funding, often from the hapless taxpayers, including the ones who have emerged from hiding under their beds and moved on.

[Gordo]

HOMEHEALTH NEWS

A Growing Threat: New Insight Into Deadly Fungal Invasion of the Lungs

TOPICS:FungusImmune SystemInfectionMcGill UniversityPopularUniversity Of Calgary

By UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Aspergillus is a type of fungus commonly found in soil and decaying organic matter. While some species of Aspergillus are benign, others can cause infections in individuals with weakened immune systems, leading to conditions such as aspergillosis.

The discovery reveals a new target for combating the deadly invader.

Aspergillus and other fungi are so ubiquitous in our environment that we inhale hundreds to thousands of spores daily. Usually, they do not pose a danger to healthy individuals, but can prove fatal to those with weakened immune systems. However, it is becoming increasingly understood that viral infections like influenza or SARS-CoV-2 can even raise the risk of invasive Aspergillus infections even in healthy people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the growing danger posed by invasive fungal infections and stressed the need for further research. Until recently, little was understood about the mechanisms behind Aspergillus infections and how to effectively eliminate them. However, a collaboration between researchers at the University of Calgary and McGill University has shed new light on why the immune system fails to fend off the fungus.

“We discovered that influenza and COVID-19 destroy a previously unknown natural immunity that we need to resist invasive fungal infections,” says Nicole Sarden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Calgary and first author on the study.

 

The findings published in Science Translational Medicine show that two types of white blood cells (neutrophils and a unique type of B cells) normally work together to fight fungal infection. However, viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza impede the special B cells from doing their job. Working with mice and human blood and tissue samples, the researchers were able to see that following a viral infection, neutrophils sensed a fungal infection and were gathering nearby, but weren’t acting to destroy the invader as expected. The scientists delved further and learned that viral molecules were rendering these B cells apathetic, preventing them from cooperating with neutrophils as they normally would, and thus protecting the fungi from destruction. Understanding this process led to the next discovery.

“We also found that current therapies exist that could be repurposed in a realistic and meaningful way to replace the natural antibodies not being produced by the virally-damaged B cells and re-establish the neutrophils’ ability to fight these infections,” says Sarden.

“This research was sparked by a young man I cared for in the ICU on life support who died of influenza-associated aspergillosis, where every therapy we tried failed,” says Dr. Bryan Yipp, MD, clinician-researcher at the Cumming School of Medicine and senior author on the study. “Our findings are very timely given the high numbers of patients affected by multiple respiratory viruses including influenza.”

Sarden and Yipp believe these findings will lay the groundwork for new diagnostic tests, based on natural antibody levels to predict who is at the highest risk for invasive fungal infections, and that currently available antibody replacement strategies could be tested to treat Aspergillus infections in future clinical trials.

“These discoveries provide a new understanding of how we can best support the body to fight off deadly fungal infections,” says Yipp.

Reference: “A B1a–natural IgG–neutrophil axis is impaired in viral- and steroid-associated aspergillosis” by Nicole Sarden, Sarthak Sinha, Kyle G. Potts, Erwan Pernet, Carlos H. Hiroki, Mortaza F. Hassanabad, Angela P. Nguyen, Yuefei Lou, Raquel Farias, Brent W. Winston, Amy Bromley, Brendan D. Snarr, Amanda Z. Zucoloto, Graciela Andonegui, Daniel A. Muruve, Braedon McDonald, Donald C. Sheppard, Douglas J. Mahoney, Maziar Divangahi, Nicole Rosin, Jeff Biernaskie and Bryan G. Yipp, 7 December 2022, Science Translational Medicine.
DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq6682

[Ron Put]

4 hours ago, Gordo said:

Aspergillus is a type of fungus commonly found in soil and decaying organic matter.

More than 15 million people supposedly die annually around the world from causes related to fungal infections and they are found in close to 10 percent of postmortem examinations, if my memory serves me.

I've wondered why there isn't more noise about it, if these numbers are accurate. Although I guess finding a fungal infection doesn't meant it caused the death. In any case, pneumonia pales next to it, with 2-3 million global deaths annually.

[Ron Put]

As the mini-Xis in NY finally stopped forcing hapless travelers to mask in JFK and LaGuardia, and as the Great Leaders of LA were derailed from their attempt to force another mask mandate in Los Angeles, saner voices are again allowed to be heard on YouTube, discussing saner studies:
 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Ron Put

[Todd Allen]

New John Ioannidis study finds COVID-19 was a negligible threat especially for healthy people.

Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly informed from pre-vaccination national seroprevalence studies

Quote

The current comprehensive systematic evaluation of national seroprevalence studies suggests that the IFR of COVID-19 among non-elderly populations in the pre-vaccination era is substantially lower than previously calculated (4-8,59), especially in the younger age strata. Median IFRs show a clear age-gradient with approximately 3-4-fold increase for each decade but it starts from as low as 0.0003% among children and adolescents and it reaches 0.5% in the 60-69 years old age group. Sensitivity analyses considering all 38 countries with seroprevalence data that were identified in our systematic search showed that median IFR might be up to a third lower than the estimates produced by our main analysis, e.g. approximately 0.03% in the 0-59 years age group and 0.06-0.08% in the 0-69 years old group. Consistent with these estimates, meta-regressions suggest IFR estimates in that range for the global population where 87% of the 0-59 years old people are <50 years old and 80% of the 0-69 years old people are <50 years old.

Our IFR estimates tend to be modestly to markedly lower than several previous calculations (4-8, 59). The most comprehensive prior evaluation of COVID-19 IFR in the pre-vaccination era (59) suggested a trough IFR at the age of 7 years (0.0023%, 95% uncertainty interval 0.0015–0.0039) and increasing exponentially through 30 years (0.0573%, 0.0418– 0.0870), 60 years (1.0035%, 0.7002–1.5727) and older ages. Conversely, our median IFR estimates are roughly 10-fold lower than these previous calculations among children and young adults and 3-6-fold lower among adults 40-69 years old.

 

[Ron Put]

57 minutes ago, Todd Allen said:

New John Ioannidis study finds COVID-19 was a negligible threat especially for healthy people.

Thanks, Todd!

Interesting study that makes sense in light of what we know, and what we knew fairly early on.

I don't expect to see it mentioned in the NYT or MSNBC, or even most mainstream popular science publications. But I do expect more character assassination attacks against Ioannidis...

[Ron Put]

A pretty good discussion by a good panel here:
 

The politicization (currently by the Left) of public health and other hereto non-political spheres (such as science, finance and corporate governance) should be opposed by any rational, thinking person.

[BrianMDelaney]

"New John Ioannidis study finds COVID-19 was a negligible threat especially for healthy people."

One needs to look at the -- by the looks of things -- substantial morbidity, not just mortality.

[BrianA]

Unvaccinated more likely to have heart attack, stroke after COVID, study finds

Being fully vaccinated reduced the risk by about 41 percent.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/unvaccinated-more-likely-to-have-heart-attack-stroke-after-covid-study-finds/

[Ron Put]

6 hours ago, BrianA said:

Being fully vaccinated reduced the risk by about 41 percent.

The headline is rather misleading... The reduction is overwhelming among those with significant comorbidities, such as prior MACE. This makes sense and it is in line the Barrington Declaration's call to protect the vulnerable, that resulted in censoring the signatories, personal attacks and bans.


"Created in 2020, the National Institutes of Health’s National COVID Cohort Collaborative is billed as being among the largest collections of secured and deidentified clinical data in the US for COVID-19 research.3 Through a search of the database for patients aged 18-90 years infected with SARS-CoV-2 between March 1, 2020 and February 1, 2022, investigators identified 1,934,294 patients for inclusion in their analyses. Of note, the follow-up period for the study was up to 180 days after infection.1

The overall cohort had a mean age of 45.2 years, 55.9% were women, 81.3% were White, 15.5% were Black, 2.4% were Asian, and 0.2% were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Of the 1,934,294 patients identified for inclusion, 10.1% (n=195,136) were fully vaccinated, 1.2% (n=22,707) were partially vaccinated, and 88.7% (n=1,716,451) were not vaccinated. For the purpose of analysis, fully vaccinated was defined as having received 2 or mRNA vaccines or 1 Johnson and Johnson vaccine 14 days before SARS-CoV-2 infection and partially vaccinated was defined as having received only 1 mRNA vaccine or their second mRNA or 1 Johnson and Johnson vaccine within 14 days of infection.1

Upon analysis, a diagnosis of MACE occurred among 0.7% (n=13,948) of patients included in the study, with MACE occurring among 0.7% (n=12,733) of non-vaccinated patients, 0.7% (n=160) of partially vaccinated patients (0.7%), and 0.5% (n=1055) of fully vaccinated patients. The median time to MACE among the cohort was 17 (Interquartile Range [IQR], 3-67) days, with 3175 patients dying following MACE. Initial analysis demonstrated significant differences in comorbidities among those with MACE compared to their counterparts without previous MACE, including previous MACE (29.1% vs 0.9%; P <.001), type 2 diabetes (33.9% vs 7.5%; P <.001), hyperlipidemia (50.7% vs 14.4%; P <.001), ischemic heart disease (40.6% vs 3.9%; P <.001), liver disease (4.0% vs 0.8%; P <.001), and obesity (29.4% vs 16.4%; P <.001).1

In adjusted models, results indicated both full (Adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.59 [95% CI, 0.55-0.63]; P <.001) and partial (aHR, 0.76 [95% CI, 0.65-0.89]; P=.001) were associated with a reduced risk of MACE relative to their counterparts with no vaccination. Further analysis suggested an increased risk of MACE was observed for male sex (aHR, 1.45 [95% CI, 1.41-1.51]; P <.001), increasing age, and comorbidities, particularly previous MACE (aHR, 8.16 [95% CI, 7.79-8.55]; P <.001).1"
 

I'd also be curious about the adjustments, as the small number of vaccinated may imply a strong self-selection for those with generally better access to top=notch medical care who are then compared to a group without such access. Not necessarily disputing the study, just pointing out that there are questions.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Ron Put

[Ron Put]

Remember Sweden's state epidemiologist Nils Anders Tegnell? Remember how he was attacked by the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC and CNN, and called a murderer by the left?

Remember him asking us to judge his decisions in a couple of years? Well, it's about time to judge him:

Sweden has the lowest excess mortality rate after the pandemic, despite refusing to lock down

"Serious holes have been poked in the world’s response to the pandemic, with Sweden emerging atop a telling list of nations least affected by Covid-19.

In a list of countries studied by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Scandinavian nation ranked lowest for overall cumulative excess deaths from 2020-22 at 6.8 per cent, compared to Australia (18 per cent), the UK (24.5 per cent) and the US (54.1 per cent).

The results are even more poignant considering Sweden was one of the few developed nations that opted against widespread lockdowns. ..."

But who will judge those who terrified the witless, locked us up, crashed the economy, forced us to wear masks outdoors and forced mass vaccinations on those who didn't need them?

Edited March 8, 2023 by Ron Put

[corybroo]

1 hour ago, Ron Put said:

Sweden has the lowest excess mortality rate after the pandemic, despite refusing to lock down

"Serious holes have been poked in the world’s response to the pandemic, with Sweden emerging atop a telling list of nations least affected by Covid-19.

Did they explain how they determined Sweden's succes?

The referenced article says the following:

“In a list of countries studied by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Scandinavian nation ranked lowest for overall cumulative excess deaths from 2020-22 at 6.8 per cent, compared to Australia (18 per cent), the UK (24.5 per cent) and the US (54.1 per cent).”

When I look at a report of excess deaths by country from EuroMOMO (Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries may be behind a firewall), Sweden does like look like a special success.  In particular, it shows excess deaths/1k people as being 186 for Sweden and only 75 for Australia.  Both Norway and Denmark have lower rates as well. 

The accompanying commentary explains Australia’s lower deaths/1K:

“Australia and New Zealand managed to eradicate local transmission after severe lockdowns. Taiwan and South Korea achieved the same outcome through highly effective contact-tracing systems. Israel has experienced some excess deaths, but has also outpaced the rest of the world in vaccinating its population, with promising results.”

[Ron Put]

9 hours ago, corybroo said:

Did they explain how they determined Sweden's succes?

Yes, they did. Before I posted the article, I actually went to the OECD site and checked, to make sure that it made sense. I didn't total it, but it sure looks like it supports the Australian article.

The nonsense you posted from the Economist makes no particular sense though, at least when you go to the sources. Here are screenshots of the OECD data for 2022 (I was able to capture only the top portion since it'll get too large, but you can follow the link and review, as well as switch years).

Notice that overall for most weeks of 2022 Sweden has negative or single digit percentage deviations from the average excess mortality, while Australia, New Zealand and even Sweden's neighbors veer well into the positive double digits.

The story is also similar for 2021.

So yes, based on OECD data, Sweden did do a lot better than those that locked down their population, no matter how the left tries to spin it.

Here is a link to the data set for 2022, you can change years of course:

https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=104676

 

[corybroo]

16 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Notice that overall for most weeks of 2022 Sweden has negative or single digit percentage deviations from the average excess mortality, while Australia, New Zealand and even Sweden's neighbors veer well into the positive double digits.

Yes, every country has good weeks and bad weeks.  And negative weeks can be obtained by excessive positive weeks at other times.  Indeed, in the early days of the pandemic, some sites reported very low to no deaths on Sunday and a near doubling on Monday.  Obviously, the Sunday counts were not a miracle.

As I look at the weekly death rate (rather than total as in the previous chart), I'd rather take my chances in Australia than Sweden.  YMMV

 

[Ron Put]

On 3/10/2023 at 3:20 AM, corybroo said:

Yes, every country has good weeks and bad weeks.  And negative weeks can be obtained by excessive positive weeks at other times.  Indeed, in the early days of the pandemic, some sites reported very low to no deaths on Sunday and a near doubling on Monday.  Obviously, the Sunday counts were not a miracle.

I don't understand what exactly you are arguing and the logic behind it. What "bad weeks" are you on about?

The article I posted above and you are attacking is not about "bad weeks" but on the contrary, it points out that Sweden has the lowest rate of "overall cumulative excess deaths" between 2020 and the latter part of 2022. Did you somehow miss the all important "cumulative" bit, and did you even look at the OECD data I posted?

Even the Economist shows the annual cumulative weekly bars later in the admittedly slightly obfuscating article you seem to think contradicts the OECD data and the Australian article. If you even glance at the bars you'll see that they support the OECD tables and it is also clear that Sweden is doing better than say, Australia -- if you measure the overall cumulative excess death rate for the almost two year period.

Cheers.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Ron Put

[Ron Put]

I am certain that most who lurk here have already seen the Cochrane review on masking healthy people. But while I don't listen to Moran often, I thought his run through the review was good, and he placed in good perspective the largely politically motivated delays, censorship and general silence (other than occasional personal attacks) that followed.
 

Obviously, anyone is free to wear one or more masks where it is legal. But in liberal democracies, forcing healthy people to wear masks based on poor "science" that went against decades of medical practice, should never have been allowed to happen.