1539 replies to this topic

[Hebbeh]

https://www.mediaite...00-study-finds/

[albedo]

Report from the Independent Panel on how "The initial outbreak became a pandemic as a result of gaps and failings at every critical juncture of preparedness for, and response to, COVID-19"

https://theindepende....org/documents/

 

[Dorian Grey]

Big Pharma’s Billion Dollar Babies

 

COVID-19 vaccines have minted at least NINE new pharma billionaires

https://www.dailymai...llionaires.html

 

Nine executives from Moderna, BioNTech, ROVI and CanSino Biologics have hugely profited from the pandemic that has so far killed 3.4 million people worldwide, as their individual wealth soared past the billion-dollar mark over the last year.

Together, the industry’s nine new billionaires are worth $19.3 billion.

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel is now worth a whopping $4.3 billion after his company was granted emergency use authorization in the US in December

CEO and co-founder of BioNTech Ugur Sahin is close behind with a wealth of $4 billion, following its collaboration on a vaccine with Pfizer

Poor Dr. Fauci had to settle for the booby prize of only 1 Million (Dan David Prize awarded for “Speaking Truth to Power”)

—————-

Not too shabby, and the new therapeutics in the pipeline are only now starting to appear on the horizon.  Looks like it’s going to be a stellar year for pharmaceuticals!  How lucky for them, none of the trials for repurposed/existing drugs panned out in the Solidarity/Recovery trials.  They say God looks after children, drunks & fools…  The Emperors of medicine look out for Big Pharm…  Who’s looking out for us?

[albedo]

Despite not causal, the article and figure show a clear associative advantage for the approach targeting “elimination” vs “mitigation” the latter being followed by most of our Countries:

https://www.thelance...78-8/fulltext#

 elimination vs mitigation.PNG   347.51KB   0 downloads

[Mind]

Kudos to some health bureaucrats for wanting to go back and more accurately count/classify COVID deaths in the U.S. COVID deaths are at least 20-25% lower than originally thought.

 

Better late than never, however, this information was well known a year ago. In the U.S., everything under the sun was being classified as a COVID death last year and probably this year as well. There are an incredible number deaths that had nothing to do with COVID that were none-the-less misclassified. Motorcycle accidents, homicides, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, etc...

 

Incredibly, Milwaukee Co. Wisconsin found a similar percentage of over-classification of COVID deaths last year, and when they told the State Department of Health, they were told to go pound sand. It is as if the State Department of Health could care less about accurate data. Interestingly, the leader of the WI Dept. of Health got promoted to national level, in spite of this willful misrepresentation of the COVID data.

[albedo]

Kudos to some health bureaucrats for wanting to go back and more accurately count/classify COVID deaths in the U.S. COVID deaths are at least 20-25% lower than originally thought.

 

...

 

There are some aspect of your informative post touched also in a stunning lecture by Prof. Ioannidis here in case you missed it:

 

 Ioannidis.PNG   438.6KB   0 downloads

Edited by albedo, 10 July 2021 - 02:15 PM.

[geo12the]

Kudos to some health bureaucrats for wanting to go back and more accurately count/classify COVID deaths in the U.S. COVID deaths are at least 20-25% lower than originally thought.

 

Better late than never, however, this information was well known a year ago. In the U.S., everything under the sun was being classified as a COVID death last year and probably this year as well. There are an incredible number deaths that had nothing to do with COVID that were none-the-less misclassified. Motorcycle accidents, homicides, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, etc...

 

Incredibly, Milwaukee Co. Wisconsin found a similar percentage of over-classification of COVID deaths last year, and when they told the State Department of Health, they were told to go pound sand. It is as if the State Department of Health could care less about accurate data. Interestingly, the leader of the WI Dept. of Health got promoted to national level, in spite of this willful misrepresentation of the COVID data.

 

That  is not accurate. Seems like the link is specific to Santa Clara "Santa Clara, California dropped by nearly a quarter" not COVID deaths in the US. And even with a 25% drop that is still lots of death. According to the John's HopKin's website the case fatality rate varies from country to country. In the US it is 1.8%.

 

https://coronavirus..../data/mortality

 

There is lots of misinformation being spread. Doesn't mean its true! We should seek the truth, not distorted memes meant to rile up followers by doofus politicians and political pundits. 

 

https://www.factchec...ted-for-profit/

[Hip]

Kudos to some health bureaucrats for wanting to go back and more accurately count/classify COVID deaths in the U.S. COVID deaths are at least 20-25% lower than originally thought.

 

Better late than never, however, this information was well known a year ago. In the U.S., everything under the sun was being classified as a COVID death last year and probably this year as well. There are an incredible number deaths that had nothing to do with COVID that were none-the-less misclassified. Motorcycle accidents, homicides, not to mention heart attacks, strokes, etc...

 

Incredibly, Milwaukee Co. Wisconsin found a similar percentage of over-classification of COVID deaths last year, and when they told the State Department of Health, they were told to go pound sand. It is as if the State Department of Health could care less about accurate data. Interestingly, the leader of the WI Dept. of Health got promoted to national level, in spite of this willful misrepresentation of the COVID data.

 

We have had this discussion before, so this is only a repeat of a previous discussion that appears to have been forgotten.

 

But the fact is, in most countries, excess death statistics show COVID deaths are under reported, not over reported. 

[Hip]

My above citation is from the Economist, a long established magazine which has long been known to produce the highest quality of journalism in the world. This Economist article says: "In many parts of the world, official death tolls undercount the total number of fatalities".

 

Quite a few lost and confused people these days think that any old Tom, Dick or Harry on the Internet are are a reliable source of information.

 

Laughably, some people think that citing or quoting from YouTube or Facebook is a reliable source. It's quite amazing. YouTube is a great place to share inane cat videos, but because any Tom, Dick or Harry can upload anything they like to YouTube, there is little quality control or fact checking. Thus anything uploaded to YouTube must be view on with caution.

 

Remember the term GIGO: garbage in - garbage out. In this context, it means if you read garbage, you are going to talk garbage. Try to seek out not just good journalism, but seek out the very best journalism. Aspire to the highest standards of excellence.

Edited by Hip, 21 July 2021 - 01:49 PM.

[Hebbeh]

New study details enzyme that allows coronavirus to resist antiviral medications -- ScienceDaily

 

 

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has demonstrated a stubborn ability to resist most nucleoside antiviral treatments, but a new study led by an Iowa State University scientist could help to overcome the virus's defenses.

 

The study, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Science, details the structure of a critical enzyme present in SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This enzyme, known as the proofreading exoribonuclease (or ExoN), removes nucleoside antiviral medications from the virus's RNA, rendering most nucleoside analogs-based antiviral treatments ineffective. The new study presents the atomic structures of the ExoN enzyme, which could lead to the development of new methods for deactivating the enzyme and opening the door to better treatments for patients suffering from COVID-19.

 

"If we could find a way to inhibit this enzyme, maybe we can achieve better results to kill the virus with existing nucleoside antiviral treatments. Understanding this structure and the molecular details of how ExoN works can help guide further development of antivirals," said Yang Yang, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University.

 

rest at link

[Hebbeh]

https://www.scienced...10804210117.htm

Research shows many with mild COVID-19 infections still experience long-term symptoms

The majority of individuals who experience mild or moderate COVID-19 infection also experience long COVID, or persistent symptoms more than 30 days after they test positive, according to research data from the longitudinal CoVHORT study at the University of Arizona Health Sciences.

"We showed that an estimated 67% of people with mild or moderate COVID have long COVID, in other words they still have symptoms more than 30 days after their positive test," said lead researcher Melanie Bell, PhD, MS, a biostatistics professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. "This is a real wake-up call for anyone who has not been vaccinated. If you get COVID, the chances that you'll experience long-term symptoms are surprisingly high."

Individuals with long COVID who were surveyed 30 days after a positive test reported (in order of prevalence): fatigue, shortness of breath, brain fog, stress/anxiety, altered taste/smell, body aches and muscle pain, insomnia, headaches, joint pain, and congestion -- the 10 most common long COVID symptoms.

Rest at link

[Mind]

A long time now and the IFR is still a small fraction of 1%. With elderly populations and males having more susceptibility.

 

https://www.acsh.org...x-and-age-15163

[lancebr]

The recent technical briefing data from the Public Health England Department has some interesting numbers:

 

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation (publishing.service.gov.uk)

 

Source website ( Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: technical briefings - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  )

 

 

I saw the posts below on another forum and it does raise some questions:

 

------------------------------

 

"Table 5

Summary:
Total cases fully vax: 113,823
Total cases non vax: 219,716
Total deaths fully vax: 1,091
Total deaths non vax: 536
Percent of death fully vax: 0.96%
Percent of death non vax: 0.24%

There is something in the vax that makes you die easier when you catch covid."

 

-------------------------------------

 

"If you break the data down further there seems to be something weird going on with the age categories.

For the individuals UNDER 50 yrs olds out of a total of 154 deaths:
fully vax deaths were 37
non vax deaths were 99
 

So by those numbers you might could say that the vaccines look to be working for the UNDER 50 age group.

BUT,

For the individuals OVER 50 yrs olds out of a total of 1,644 deaths:
fully vax deaths were 1,054
non vax deaths were 437
 

So by those numbers you might say that the vaccine for the OVER 50 age group doesn't look to be a good choice for some reason."

 

--------------------------------------

 

I don't  know if their assessments are correct but it does make you wonder?

 

.

Edited by lancebr, 11 September 2021 - 08:05 AM.

[Mind]

The recent technical briefing data from the Public Health England Department has some interesting numbers:

 

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation (publishing.service.gov.uk)

 

Source website ( Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: technical briefings - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  )

 

 

I saw the posts below on another forum and it does raise some questions:

 

------------------------------

 

"Table 5

Summary:
Total cases fully vax: 113,823
Total cases non vax: 219,716
Total deaths fully vax: 1,091
Total deaths non vax: 536
Percent of death fully vax: 0.96%
Percent of death non vax: 0.24%

There is something in the vax that makes you die easier when you catch covid."

 

-------------------------------------

 

"If you break the data down further there seems to be something weird going on with the age categories.

For the individuals UNDER 50 yrs olds out of a total of 154 deaths:
fully vax deaths were 37
non vax deaths were 99
 

So by those numbers you might could say that the vaccines look to be working for the UNDER 50 age group.

BUT,

For the individuals OVER 50 yrs olds out of a total of 1,644 deaths:
fully vax deaths were 1,054
non vax deaths were 437
 

So by those numbers you might say that the vaccine for the OVER 50 age group doesn't look to be a good choice for some reason."

 

--------------------------------------

 

I don't  know if their assessments are correct but it does make you wonder?

 

.

 

I can't find the source right now, but Pfizer did a study of their "vaccine" amongst long term care residents. The mortality rate of the unvaccinated in this cohort is somewhere in the 5 to 8 percent range. Pfizer's vaccinated cohort had a mortality rate of 15%. This also confirms the data coming out of Israel and the UK that the vaccinated are more likely to catch COVID, be hospitalized, and die than the unvaccinated.

[lancebr]

I can't find the source right now, but Pfizer did a study of their "vaccine" amongst long term care residents. The mortality rate of the unvaccinated in this cohort is somewhere in the 5 to 8 percent range. Pfizer's vaccinated cohort had a mortality rate of 15%. This also confirms the data coming out of Israel and the UK that the vaccinated are more likely to catch COVID, be hospitalized, and die than the unvaccinated.

 

I would ask why the media is not reporting important information like this, but I already know the answer.

 

So do you have any thoughts on why these vaccines are not performing good for the elderly?

Edited by lancebr, 11 September 2021 - 03:10 PM.

[DanCG]

 

 

So do you have any thoughts on why these vaccines are not performing good for the elderly?

It could be due to immunosenescence. The elderly just do not have as good a response to vaccination.

Another factor may be that the elderly were vaccinated first. There has been more time for the response to wane. If that is the case, the younger people will catch up eventually.

 

Overall, the numbers look like evidence for antibody-dependent enhancement. So, the next question would be why does ADE show itself in the elderly but not so much in younger people? In ADE, antibodies that bind a specific antigen structure switch from neutralizing to enhancing as the virus evolves. Since I am speculating here anyway, I’ll propose that the response in the immunosenescent elderly may be skewed toward immunodominant epitopes that are especially prone to the changes that lead to ADE.

[geo12the]

It could be due to immunosenescence. The elderly just do not have as good a response to vaccination.

Another factor may be that the elderly were vaccinated first. There has been more time for the response to wane. If that is the case, the younger people will catch up eventually.

 

Overall, the numbers look like evidence for antibody-dependent enhancement. So, the next question would be why does ADE show itself in the elderly but not so much in younger people? In ADE, antibodies that bind a specific antigen structure switch from neutralizing to enhancing as the virus evolves. Since I am speculating here anyway, I’ll propose that the response in the immunosenescent elderly may be skewed toward immunodominant epitopes that are especially prone to the changes that lead to ADE.

 

I haven't seen anything data that suggests ADE is taking place. In the UK a very high % of the elderly are vaccinated. I don't believe the data show ADE. If that is taking place time will tell. But, right now, in the US the hospitals are full of unvaccinated folks and the hardest hit states are those with low vaccination rates. 

[DanCG]

I haven't seen anything data that suggests ADE is taking place. 

Look again at the data in post 1123. As lancebr says “There is something in the vax that makes you die easier when you catch covid “.

Thinking it through some more, if immunosenescence and waning immunity were the only factors at work, the vaxed vs unvaxed numbers would simply converge, as if the vaccine had no effect at all. That is not what the numbers show, as as vaccinated elderly are actually more likely to die than unvaccinated elderly. That is prima facie evidence for ADE. Also, the link in my post shows molecular evidence for ADE.

 

As a vaccinated 68-year-old, I hope it is not ADE. But I don’t like the look of it. If not ADE, then what?

[Hip]

This is a mathematical issue: the vaccine is rolled out to almost all elderly people, so at this point you might expect statistics to show slightly more vaccinated elderly people dying of COVID than the non-vaccinated.

 

Don't forget that the vaccine does not eliminate the possibility of death by COVID, the vaccine only reduces the chances of dying by a factor of about 20. So lots of vaccinated elderly will still be dying, and show up on the stats, especially since most of the elderly population are now vaccinated. Naturally just by obvious mathematics, the larger your population of vaccinated people, the more COVID deaths you can expect in this group.

 

So if you are someone over 80, your chances of dying if you catch coronavirus is about 1 in 7 (see the Economist COVID death calculator). Once you are vaccinated, your risk  of dying becomes 20 times less initially, but waning to 10 times less after 6 months, due to fading vaccine protection, so you chances of death are reduced to 1 in 70 at the time point around 6 months after vaccination. 

 

So we have almost the entire elderly population vaccinated, but 1 in 70 of these vaccinated people will still die if they catch coronavirus. So that is why you still see the deaths in the vaccinated. 

 

 

Another factor increasing death rate in elderly vaccinated people is that they will start taking more risks once they have been vaccinated, as they feel they are protected. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Hip, 14 September 2021 - 03:22 PM.

[geo12the]

 

 

"Table 5

Summary:
Total cases fully vax: 113,823
Total cases non vax: 219,716
Total deaths fully vax: 1,091
Total deaths non vax: 536
Percent of death fully vax: 0.96%
Percent of death non vax: 0.24%

There is something in the vax that makes you die easier when you catch covid."

 

 

If table 5 was percentages then I might agree. But table 5 is comparing absolute numbers of people who show up in the ER "Attendance to emergency care and deaths of sequenced and genotyped Delta cases in England by vaccination status"  and does not take into account how many people in the total population were vaxed and non vaxed. Given that, we can't make conclusions that the vaccine is causing illness.  Because the overall numbers contributing to 113,823 total cases and 1091 total deaths are much higher than the numbers contributing to the 219,716 and 536 numbers. Does that make sense? And the fact that the % of death is somewhat higher in the fully vaxed sick folks who show up at the ER to me suggests pre-existing conditions are contributing, because if ADE was going on the numbers of sick vaxed people would be much higher. 

Edited by geo12the, 14 September 2021 - 03:57 PM.

[geo12the]

That is not what the numbers show, as as vaccinated elderly are actually more likely to die than unvaccinated elderly. 

 

That is not what the data is showing. See my above response to the post.  It is showing that vaccinated folks who show up at the ER are slightly more likely to die than unvaccinated folks who show up at the ER. Vaccinated elderly are absolutely   less likely to get sick and die than unvacated.  

[DanCG]

This is a mathematical issue: 

You are right. The numbers of deaths need to be related to the number of cases.

 

The Total case numbers in post 1123 were properly corrected for the total number of cases. That is 1091 deaths per 113823 cases → 0.95% cmr and 536 deaths per 219726 cases → 0.24% cmr. So, on that basis the case for ADE still stands.

 

The breakout by age in the post does not tell the full story, however. Going back to the source, we find that the 37 deaths among vaccinated <50s were among 62403 cases → 0.06% cmr. The 99 deaths among unvaccinated <50s were among 212989 cases → 0.05% cmr. So among the <50s, the vaccine did not protect from death, and may have enhanced death a little.

In the vaccinated >50s, the 1054 deaths were among 51420 cases → 2.0% cmr. The unvaccinated 437 deaths were among 6724 cases → 6.5% cmr. So, among the >50s, the vaccine did actually protect from death (phew!).

 

The totals come out the way they do because the pool of unvaccinated <50 was vastly larger than all other groups and the pool of unvaccinated >50 was vastly smaller than all other groups.

 

So, I stand corrected on proposing that the elderly are particularly prone to ADE. But now we have a different problem—is ADE happening among the <50s?

[geo12the]

That is not what the data is showing. See my above response to the post.  It is showing that vaccinated folks who show up at the ER are slightly more likely to die than unvaccinated folks who show up at the ER. Vaccinated elderly are absolutely   less likely to get sick and die than unvacated.  

 

Interesting people think my responses are ill informed. Lots of arm chair scientists here misinterpreting data and coming to wrong conclusions and I actually try to give a polite response and explain things and it's ill informed? oooookay. 

[geo12the]

You are right. The numbers of deaths need to be related to the number of cases.

 

The Total case numbers in post 1123 were properly corrected for the total number of cases. That is 1091 deaths per 113823 cases → 0.95% cmr and 536 deaths per 219726 cases → 0.24% cmr. So, on that basis the case for ADE still stands.

 

The breakout by age in the post does not tell the full story, however. Going back to the source, we find that the 37 deaths among vaccinated <50s were among 62403 cases → 0.06% cmr. The 99 deaths among unvaccinated <50s were among 212989 cases → 0.05% cmr. So among the <50s, the vaccine did not protect from death, and may have enhanced death a little.

In the vaccinated >50s, the 1054 deaths were among 51420 cases → 2.0% cmr. The unvaccinated 437 deaths were among 6724 cases → 6.5% cmr. So, among the >50s, the vaccine did actually protect from death (phew!).

 

The totals come out the way they do because the pool of unvaccinated <50 was vastly larger than all other groups and the pool of unvaccinated >50 was vastly smaller than all other groups.

 

So, I stand corrected on proposing that the elderly are particularly prone to ADE. But now we have a different problem—is ADE happening among the <50s?

 

There is still no evidence for ADE. If ADE is happing lots of vaxed folks would be getting sick. We are not seeing that. People here (NOT saying you!) like to go in and play armchair scientists without fully understanding the numbers and data they are looking at. they act like it's some kind of a contest. But we are all in this together and peoples lives are at stake. Lots of people are being fooled into thinking vaccines are more dangerous than the disease and the direct result is less people are getting vaccinated and more people are dying. 

[Hip]

That is not what the data is showing. See my above response to the post.  It is showing that vaccinated folks who show up at the ER are slightly more likely to die than unvaccinated folks who show up at the ER. Vaccinated elderly are absolutely   less likely to get sick and die than unvacated.  

 

I suspect the people who press the ill-informed button on LongeCity in response to scientific posts are those with poor mathematical skills. 

 

They don't understand mathematics, but they read conspiracy theory websites or YouTube, and they think YouTube is a reliable scientific source. 

 

These people do not actually post a comment, because they know they will embarrass themselves. So they hide behind the red buttons.

Edited by Hip, 14 September 2021 - 06:56 PM.

[geo12the]

 

 

The breakout by age in the post does not tell the full story, however. Going back to the source, we find that the 37 deaths among vaccinated <50s were among 62403 cases → 0.06% cmr. The 99 deaths among unvaccinated <50s were among 212989 cases → 0.05% cmr. So among the <50s, the vaccine did not protect from death, and may have enhanced death a little.

 

 

You are missing the bigger picture. these numbers do not take into account that the a larger % of the population is vaccinated. You just can't draw those conclusions.

[DanCG]

If table 5 was percentages then I might agree. But table 5 is comparing absolute numbers of people who show up in the ER 

I don’t read it that way. The number of cases in the top row of table 5 is the total number of cases for which there is sequencing or genotyping to confirm delta variant. Subsequent rows show how many of them showed up for emergency care, with different criteria for exclusion or inclusion explained in the footnotes. The same breakdown appears in Table 4: a column of total cases, followed by columns of cases with an Aand E visit. So the question of whether the data are predictive hinges on whether pool of samples that constitutes “total cases” is really representative of the population at large. We don't know that, but it is a large sample size.

This does not detract from your main point that the numbers need to be compared on a percentage basis, with which I agree.

[DanCG]

. The number of cases in the top row of table 5 is the total number of cases for which there is sequencing or genotyping to confirm delta variant. Subsequent rows show how many of them showed up for emergency care, with different criteria for exclusion or inclusion explained in the footnotes. 

Using the data from the top row of Table 5 as the denominator for all other rows, it seems that <50 unvaccinated people are more likely to visit the ER, more likely to have to stay at least overnight, but less likely to die than <50 vaccinated people. Can anyone make sense of that?

 

For >50s, vaccinated people are better off in all categories; ER visits, overnight stays, and death.

 

This deep dive into some new data has been reassuring for me. I would not know what to think if I were <50, though.

[geo12the]

Using the data from the top row of Table 5 as the denominator for all other rows, it seems that <50 unvaccinated people are more likely to visit the ER, more likely to have to stay at least overnight, but less likely to die than <50 vaccinated people. Can anyone make sense of that?

 

For >50s, vaccinated people are better off in all categories; ER visits, overnight stays, and death.

 

This deep dive into some new data has been reassuring for me. I would not know what to think if I were <50, though.

 

You can only draw so many conclusions from this dataset. This is only looking at sick people, not people who have been protected by the vaccine. The real numbers that matter are: what % of vaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of vaccinated folks die vs. what % of unvaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of unvaccinated folks die. That data is not here. the under 50 people have nothing to worry about based on this data. 

[DanCG]

You can only draw so many conclusions from this dataset. This is only looking at sick people, not people who have been protected by the vaccine. The real numbers that matter are: what % of vaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of vaccinated folks die vs. what % of unvaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of unvaccinated folks die. That data is not here. the under 50 people have nothing to worry about based on this data. 

Agreed, you can't draw many conclusions from this dataset. It is not, however, looking only at sick people. It is looking at all people with confirmed delta. Among that set of people, it is possible to calculate % of vaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of vaccinated folks die vs. what % of unvaccinated folks end up in the ER, what % of unvaccinated folks die. I just did it. In all categories, only a small fraction of tested people were sick enough to go to an emergency room.

Like I said before, the question is whether the testing for delta truly represents the population at large. The report says that delta accounted for 99% of sequenced and 96% of genotyped cases from August 1 to August 28, 2021.

Many aspects of the data are as one would expect. Older people are more likely to need treatment and die. Unvaccinated people are more likely to go to a hospital and stay there. Vaccination does protect older people from hospitalization and death, which was the point of contention when this reference was first posted for discussion.

The only anomaly is that vaccination does not seem to protect <50s from death, even though it does tend to keep them out of the hospital.

Edited by DanCG, 14 September 2021 - 11:49 PM.