https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/opinion/covid-vaccine-variants.html After listening to much longer explanations (with other examples) along these lines from this author and others the past couple of months, I don’t get too concerned about news in different variants. I find these arguments very compelling — and calming, too, I have to say. As they say, for just one example, influenza has different variants predominant every year, but doesn’t continually become more transmissible or more virulent. Some excerpts

I would ask them to wear a mask at all times in the house until asymptomatic, and open windows as much as possible. I hope the rest of you can avoid it.

The fact that they have no sick leave is an understandable reason. I can’t blame them. Instead of mailing checks to everyone in America, we could have made sure people had support to test and stay home. The voting example is due to misinformation. It was publicized before the election that being Covid positive does not mean you cannot vote in person.

Bolded: Really? I thought PCR was still free everywhere. For the rapid that has results within the hour, that’s different; might or might not be a fee. Those are also available over the counter, for purchase, without an appointment.

It isn’t hard to test for most of us; it’s readily available since last summer, though not all have quick results to a rapid test. Even with lower testing numbers recently, our test positivity rates have gone way down. However, testing has never been recommended for typical allergy symptoms like itching and sneezing. Even last fall when cases were high, testing for mild cold symptoms was not universally recommended. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2020/10/should-i-get-a-covid-test-if-im-experiencing-cold-symptoms-heres-what-experts-say.html According to this BBC article from this month, looks like in the U.K. testing is recommended for symptoms like fever, cough, loss of smell and taste, but not runny or stuffy nose, headache, sneezing. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54145299 I’ve tested a bunch at this point, but I think we are all getting test weary and quarantine-weary, and countries with high vaccination rates are in a different place now than Australia is. As in most of the rest of the world, we aren’t trying for elimination, and we don’t lockdown for a few cases. We’re also having other viruses come back after being gone for a long while, so the chance that mild cold symptoms are from Covid has also greatly decreased.

Novavax, same general type of vaccine as used for Hep B, HPV, pertussis. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/06/novavax-now-best-covid-19-vaccine/619276/

This from England shows 50% less likely to pass on infection after just one dose of vaccination. Not Delta variant, but vaccine seems to be about as effective against symptomatic infection in vaccinated person for Delta as it is for Alpha. Results the same whether Pfizer or Astra Zeneca. https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMc2107717?articleTools=true

That’s a good point. Israel does have a higher percentage fully vaccinated than the UK. I think that who is getting tested and why might make a big difference in what these numbers look like, though. If there is a lot of screening testing and much is in schools or workplaces where everyone tested is vaccinated, then cases in previously vaccinated is mostly what will be found. I think hospitalizations are better numbers to look at to know whether to be worried in a particular area.

In the reports, how many of the cases were asymptomatic, though? As pointed out by sources I read, if you do a lot of asymptomatic testing, you will find some vaccinated people testing positive for the virus, and we should expect that no matter what variant is around. CDC doesn’t recommend testing for asymptomatic vaccinated people. If the person is not symptomatic or has very mild symptoms, then the vaccine-induced immunity is doing it’s job.

Pfizer is going to be better at marketing because they are pros at it. Also, it’s been in the news more because they were first to get EUA for adults, then more recently, first for teens. They also took a chance and asked for down to 16 with the adult EUA even without much data, so they have been the only one available for under 18. Moderna is given at a higher dose, though, and there is a perception that there are more symptoms after Moderna and that the dose may be the reason. Maybe that’s due to subtle marketing, too, but it is a higher dose. Today at the ACIP meeting discussing myocarditis, there was a suggestion that Moderna may be “driving” the cases of myocarditis in younger people, though the caveat was given that numbers are small so even slight differences in numbers over time could make it seem to go either way with more cases after one brand vs. the other.

While it seems that usually advice wouldn’t be based on one small trial, and while some in the medical community are using the drug, most medical specialist experts think the evidence is weak at this point. - I thought there was only one peer-reviewed meta study published in a good journal, this recent one.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/ - Infectious Disease Society of America guidelines https://www.idsociety.org/practice-guideline/covid-19-guideline-treatment-and-management/ NIH has a similar statement. Now, whether YouTube should have a policy against doctors discussing it is another thing. YouTube are not infectious disease specialists and do not keep up on the various guidelines for other medical conditions, so this really sticks out. The person who runs the podcast is not a medical professional and is taking it to another level and taking ivermectin as a preventative *instead of* getting a vaccine. While he is entitled to do this, it seems so foolish to me for someone who appears to be in their fifties. And is that a realistic long-term plan? 🙄 Because the virus isn’t going anywhere. It seems to be a publicity stunt, and you have to remember that these podcasts are money-makers. I understand trying something uncertain when there is no vaccine available, or if you should happen to get sick, but I don’t think this choice as sole preventative is the most rational one.

And this is what I wondered about when I looked at who he was. His main concern on social media seems to be that a Dr. Kariko is claiming that she invented mRNA vaccines and is being hailed as some kind of science underdog, when in fact she did not. He claims to have done some of the very early work and has his name on some patents. I don’t know if Wikipedia is a trustworthy source here. He has a number of publications and citations of rna and DNA research on his Google scholar page. Website https://www.rwmalonemd.com/mrna-vaccine-inventor He may well have been one of the early contributors to this science. Or he might be looking for attention. There certainly is a precedence in history, even more recent history, for scientific controversies over who deserves credit and for what. I don’t know what to make of his claim. An investigative reporter or fact checker should be able to figure it out fairly easily if it ever comes to the attention of someone like that. -ETA- this 2021 article in a medical journal describing the development of mRNA vaccines does have Malone’s paper as the first reference.https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMcibr2009737?articleTools=true So it seems he and his coauthors are acknowledged, but he is bitter because he doesn’t get credit in the popular press. Him claiming to be THE inventor of mRNA vaccines is a stretch as it ignores his co-authors and all the other research since. —(end edit) It does make me wonder about his motives for speaking about the vaccines. He is, though, also critical of the adenovirus-vectored vaccines. He seems to think that spike is a problem. The one thing that I have heard from him and others is something I would like to hear someone (an immunologist, for example) who knows about these things address: the distribution studies. I don’t know why they say they had to make a special request to get it; the European group discusses it in their licensing report. But how small of an amount of mRNA/lipids is it that goes into the retina and ovaries? What are the implications, and why should or shouldn’t it be further studied? (In contrast, the Ad vectored vaccines have animal data showing they stay primarily in the area of injection). I feel like that is the kind of thing that would raise questions and should be responded to honestly and not censored. I feel that censorship probably drives the perception of some that someone is trying to hide something. In many cases, I don’t believe that that is the proper way to promote facts; transparency and explanations are better. It’s a different world now that Pandora’s box is open and everyone has access to so much, while still understanding so little. If only censored, people may well wonder and “go there” like the guy in the podcast with claims about resulting infertility, even among the sweeping statements and questionable claims. @Pen, this is a good article that talks about the spike concerns. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/15/the-novavax-vaccine-data-and-spike-proteins-in-general

I conceded that they aren’t censoring every mention of it, which makes any removals seem arbitrary. Just because you can find the Senate testimony doesn’t mean it wasn’t arbitrary censorship to remove in the first place. What do YouTube employees know about medicine or science? Probably very little. I am okay with them not allowing certain things: maybe they shouldn’t allow anyone who isn’t a professional to mention any medication. I don’t think pharmaceutical companies should have ever been allowed to do direct-to-consumer advertising. There are people on YouTube promoting all kinds of quackery and woo; maybe that could be dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed. It seems very inconsistent. This discussion really is so much bigger and deeper than this, because it involves all the tech platforms and the question of what is their purpose and what they are allowed to regulate. There are plenty of episodes of Twitter and Facebook putting warnings on links to published scientific work and professional opinions.

Well, the video of Dr. Kory testifying to the Senate on Ivermectin in the fall was removed by YouTube, and that was all it was, no commentary, no conspiracy theory. Since you haven’t listened to all of those videos you brought up, we don’t know what they say. I don’t know why certain things are censored; maybe the censoring algorithms are arbitrary, or maybe they search for certain phrases or only investigate when others flag them. I just looked and his larger group of doctors has a YouTube channel during which they presumably discuss these things, so it’s not clear to me how they decide to censor. That seems to be the problem, actually. People are dealing with faceless tech deciding what is okay and what isn’t, and sometimes don’t know why their content is dinged. It isn’t like it is only random people on Internet forums like this one who are complaining. Many seem quite concerned about it. You don’t have to agree with something to believe it shouldn’t be censored. (None of this has much to do with the video Pen linked, it’s a side conversation about why some of the videos from that channel were not on YouTube).

I’m in favor of it. My only criticism is that it seemed to come out of nowhere so that no one apparently had time to prepare to either close or plan additional celebrations or whatever.

Nm.

I know nothing about Bitchute, and I did not click on the link. However, I recognize the title of the podcast I believe Pen is referencing, because I have listened to part of it. You can also find the audio on any place other than YouTube that hosts podcasts. YouTube has censored the episode. A recent article by Matt Taiibi about this with an interview. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-weinstein There is nothing right wing, neo-Nazi or hateful about the podcast or the episode, as far as I can tell. It has controversial subject matter in that it discusses some information about the mRNA vaccines. I believe that the podcast was first censored by YouTube because they interviewed Dr. Kory, a critical care physician who is part of a larger critical care group that advocates for the use of Ivermectin in Covid, and YouTube apparently won’t allow anything on the platform about Ivermectin, which is rather ridiculous if you ask me, considering everything else that is allowed on YouTube. I do have some opinions about what I heard on this episode (it’s long and I only heard some), and they are not all positive or in agreement. I think there are ways it could have been presented in the OP to not raise hackles and to not link from that particular site, because it’s available other places. But sometimes it’s unfair to prejudge something based on what website it’s posted on.

I’m pretty sure that CDC says you don’t have to get revaccinated here if you are fully vaccinated with a WHO-approved vaccines. So NY State is out of bounds here.

That’s ridiculous.

If enough people have read this and would like to discuss, a new thread might be good. I disagree with this assessment of the book. 🙂

Yes, I think from the bolded that we are not having the same conversation. I am not sure what you are talking about in your first paragraph. The amount of crowding doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with reinfections. Again, the 76% is the initial estimate of infection from the “first wave” in Brazil. The initial paper was from another journal, but it is also mentioned in this journal article, and others, which was linked upthread, along with critique of this figure, and another study that showed only 14% previous infection. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00183-5/fulltext The article you linked from The Guardian, and the numbers you quote from it, as far as I understand since it is media and not a research paper, are based on mathematical probabilities for what reinfection would have to be if there were 76% already infected. That is all it is based on, as far as I can tell which means if the 76% is wrong, then so is the 25-61%. ETA I won’t post on this again, so everybody else won’t have to keep scrolling over this back and forth on Manaus, which is probably a moot point anyway in June 2021. 🙂Whether we’ll ever get better data out of Brazil or about P1 is an open question.

MIS-C pathogenesis linked to “leaky gut.” Paper: https://www.jci.org/articles/view/149633 Article (fairly technical): https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210528/Loss-of-gut-epithelial-barrier-responsible-for-COVID-19-related-MIS-C-in-children-suggests-study.aspx Less technical article https://www.verywellhealth.com/lingering-covid-virus-in-the-gut-may-lead-to-mis-c-in-kids-5187049

Is it really “common sense” though? I would think it is something that would need to be analyzed by the epidemiologists, and even then, it seems like it would be based on many hypothetical assumptions. I don’t agree that restricting travel to or from the US is simply a common sense issue. There must be so many implications to doing so. The nation isn’t locked up now and won’t be again. I do not believe US will do that. Lockdown, at least in the arbitrary ways the US did it, isn’t the norm for a public health reaction, and I hope that it doesn’t become so, at least not for this virus. Maybe you are right, and maybe they will do it, but I don’t see that the political will is there to do so. And how is it right to restrict travel when so many people around the world have not had the opportunity to get vaccinated yet? And how can you restrict some from some countries that have had the opportunity but refused, but let others in that just haven’t had the opportunity yet. It could be a big mess with lots of unfair rules that are slow to be changed. As in, I’m pretty sure we still have travel restrictions on countries that were started early in 2020 before we had our own huge waves of disease.

Yuck, I really don’t like reading this, but thanks for sharing it.

But the US hasn’t done that for any other contagious disease. There are some that are recommended, but none required. Most domestic measles outbreaks have been from overseas travel, but we don’t require measles vaccination to come in. Polio, hepatitis, could be brought in at any time, but we do not require them.