F Rosa Rubicondior: Covidiots
Showing posts with label Covidiots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covidiots. Show all posts

Sunday 10 March 2024

Covidiot News - Just Because You Haven't Had COVID-19 Yet, Doesn't Mean You Won't!


Haven't had COVID yet? It could be more than just luck

There are some scary questions for creationists at the end of this article. They follow on naturally from what's being discussed, so creationists should probably avoid reading too far, unless they have a responsible adult with them.

This article from The Conversation is from May 2022, when we were into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and most vulnerable people had had the two-step vaccinations and many would have had the spring booster. At that point neither me nor my partner had had COVID-19, which we put down to rigorously following the recommendations regarding mask-wearing, social distancing, hand washing, etc. and had tried to reduce our vulnerability to the sever forms of it by losing about 3 stone in weight and, in my case, getting my blood pressure under control with medication. We also tried to ensure our immune systems were healthy by taking vitamin D3, vitamin C, zinc and iron supplements.

In the early days of the pandemic, even before the official restrictions on social contact, we had observed the basic rules of hygiene and everyone who came into the house used hand-cleanser at the front door. I had even managed to obtain a supply of face-masks and plastic gloves online, which we wore at all times outside the house. Every package that was delivered to the house was left for several hours before we touched it, and all our weekly shopping was delivered or bought with click and collect. Delivered bags were left for four hours before unpacking. And we took weekly tests just in case we had it asymptomatically. All that might seem a little over the top now, but we were vindicated as events were to prove.

We put the fact that we hadn't caught it by mid-2022 down to our preventative measures, not to luck or genetics - a view that was vindicated last year when we both came back from a two-week vacation in France with a mild form of COVID-19, despite having had all the boosters on offer. We probably picked it up in a crowded airport or on the plane, where all the social distancing measures had been forgotten and even face masks were no longer worn. We both felt like we had a mild case of flu for a couple of days and after a week we were testing negative. Had we contracted it in Spring 2020, the outcome would probably have been very different as we had no immunity, and both had three of the risk-factors - overweight, high BP and over 70. In addition, my partner had had a mastectomy and was receiving treatment for breast cancer.

One reason you can't ever be sure that you won't catch COVID-19 is because the virus keeps mutating to produce new variants so, even if you were fortunate enough to have natural or acquired immunity to the variants so far, it is quite possible that the next or subsequent variants will have evolved a way round it. The following chart from the UK NHS, shows the rise and fall of the main variants over the course of the pandemic:
But still, a few people managed to stay free from the virus. In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, Lindsay Broadbent, Research Fellow, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, explains why. Her article has been reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Monday 4 March 2024

Anti-Vaxxer Conspiracists News - How Trumpanzee Cult Conspiracists Are Risking People's Lives For Money While Feeding Populist Extremism


Anti-vaccine conspiracies fuel divisive political discourse | The University of Tokyo
According to a news item carried today by Agence France-Presse (AFP), US antivaxx conspiracists are deliberately spreading fear and disinformation to sell quack medical kits to gullible fools and in doing so are risking the lives of anyone foolish enough to believe them. And a recent paper published by a Japanese research group has shown how extremist parties are trading on growing antivaxx paranoia, originating in Trump-supporting conspiracists in the USA, by incorporating it into the political platforms.

This team of researchers recall how Donald Trump first of all tried to take credit for developing the mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, as though he had personally directed the research and invented the science behind mRNA vaccines, then switched to curry favour with the antivaxxers by casting doubt on the need for boosters. And of course, antivaxxer conspiracy theories became a central theme of the rabidly pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Firstly, the AFP report:

Wednesday 28 February 2024

Covidiot News - How the mRNA Vaccines Give Long-Term Protection Against COVID-19


Long-Term Data Reveals SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Vaccine-Induced Antibody Responses Are Long-Lasting | Mount Sinai - New York

If you listen to antivaxxer covidiots you would believe:
  • COVID-19 is no worse than the common cold.
  • The SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19, is a deadly organism developed by the Chinese for biological warfare.
  • COVID-19 was a hoax (which even normally hostile nations had signed up to, apparently).
  • God sent the virus to punish America for legalising same-sex marriage (and the rest of the world was collateral damage)
  • The vaccines developed against it don't work (regardless of what the clinic trials showed).
  • The vaccines contain microchips and special genes to make you become gay and/or subject to satellite control.
  • The vaccines contain deadly viruses that can be activated via the 5G phone network.
  • Millions of people have died or will die soon because they've been vaccinated.
  • [Fill in your own crackpot theory because someone will already have claimed it to be true].

The truth is, however, that millions of people died of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, before a vaccine was generally available and this death rate fell to low levels following the roll out of the first vaccines and subsequent boosters to allow for new variants. Although the virus is still very much with us, people have been able to resume normal activities and the economic and health impact of the virus is now no more than that of seasonal flu, but there were concerns that antibody levels produced in response to the mRNA vaccines were short-lived, giving only temporary protection.

Now a large-scale analysis conducted by leading microbiologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has shown that antibody responses induced by COVId-19 vaccines are long-lasting. The results of this analysis are published, open access, in the Cell Press journal, Immunity, and are discussed in a Mount Sinai press release:
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in late 2019 sparked the global pandemic that is now in its fifth year. Vaccines that were developed at record speed have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease. The common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly. However, this assumption is largely based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.

The Mount Sinai research team’s analysis of more than 8,000 samples collected over a three-year period in New York City examined how antibody responses to the virus’s spike protein changed after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, and during breakthrough infections.

They found that upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity (those who had previously been infected with the virus) mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than individuals who had not been previously infected. The waning of antibody response was characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay from the strong peak after vaccination, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay, suggesting that antibody levels were very long-lasting. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without pre-existing immunity. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar levels as an additional vaccine dose in individuals who had not previously been infected.

This investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Its major conclusion is that changes in the virus that allow it to evade immunity, rather than waning immunity, are the major reason for breakthrough infections.

Ours is one of the longest-running COVID-19 studies out there. Following the same group of people monthly over time is rare and powerful because you can compare immune responses on an individual level. SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, so this research is important to provide an understanding about the impact of new variants and new vaccine doses on a healthy immune system, and to guide all of us to make the best choices to maintain protection against the virus that continues to circulate in our communities.

Professor Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, lead author
Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
This in-depth analysis was made possible through the Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS) study, an observational, longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System that was initiated in April 2020. At that time, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase in severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, and essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to the crisis, a team of leading virologists, physician-scientists, and pathologists at Mount Sinai established a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to accurately measure the SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers. This test was used to measure immune responses in the PARIS cohort in order to determine how quickly the antibody defenses were mounted and much these changed over the months and years of follow up.

In addition to showing the impact on a person’s individual antibody response to vaccines based on the type of vaccine received and whether or not they were infected before receiving the first dose, the PARIS study made possible the development of a mathematical model that can be used to predict and characterize antibody responses of both individual people and populations.

People have pandemic fatigue and vaccine uptake has slowed, especially after the vaccines started to be charged to insurance*. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the booster doses promoted a large antibody response regardless of a person’s personal infection history, so we are hopeful that our study findings will encourage people to get their vaccine boosters when eligible and to stay engaged in research. Our work also showcases the impact of viral evolution over time and why it’s critical to keep studies like this going, despite the pandemic fatigue.

Komal Srivastava, MS, Co-first author
Director of Strategy and Operation
Mount Sinai Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness.

According to the research team, the PARIS model has broad applications for studying the kinetics of antibodies produced to different COVID-19 vaccines in diverse populations. They stress much more work remains to analyze side effects, applications of the antibody model and continued research about new vaccines and viral variants.

This study adds an essential piece of data to understand the intricate immune response elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination. In light of the emerging viral variants, which predominantly induce a cross-reactive antibody response against the spike protein, it will be exciting to characterize in depth the role of these antibodies - in particular the non-neutralizing ones - in protection against the most recent circulating viral variants. Likewise, monitoring the induction of variant-specific antibodies after multiple exposures by breakthrough infections and by administration of updated COVID-19 vaccines, such as the XBB.1.5 monovalent booster, will be key to understand the evolution of the antibody response over time.

Assistant Professor Dr Juan Manuel Carreno Quiroz, PhD, Co-first author.
Department of Microbiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.


*Note: in the UK, vaccines are provided free by the NHS. Other non-US countries will have their own health-care systems which may or may not include charges for the vaccines.
More technical detail and the background to the research is given in the team's paper in Immunology:
Graphical abstract
Highlights
  • COVID-19-vaccine-induced immunity wanes but stabilizes at an individual setpoint
  • Pre-existing immunity results in rapid antibody responses upon vaccination
  • Boosters equalize antibody titers between individuals with and without hybrid immunity
  • Antibody kinetics show two phases: an initial rapid decay followed by a steady state

Summary

It is thought that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) wanes quickly, based mostly on short-term studies. Here, we analyzed the kinetics and durability of the humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination using >8,000 longitudinal samples collected over a 3-year period in New York City. Upon primary immunization, participants with pre-existing immunity mounted higher antibody responses faster and achieved higher steady-state antibody titers than naive individuals. Antibody kinetics were characterized by two phases: an initial rapid decay, followed by a stabilization phase with very slow decay. Booster vaccination equalized the differences in antibody concentration between participants with and without hybrid immunity, but the peak antibody titers decreased with each successive antigen exposure. Breakthrough infections increased antibodies to similar titers as an additional vaccine dose in naive individuals. Our study provides strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses are long lasting, with initial waning followed by stabilization.

Introduction

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in late 2019 sparked the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that is now in its 4th year. Vaccines to mitigate the impact of the pandemic were developed at record speed and have saved millions of lives. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants1 and waning immunity2 have decreased the effectiveness of the vaccines against symptomatic disease.3 These two issues, the emergence of antigenically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning immunity, are often conflated and used interchangeably but represent two different phenomena.4 Most vaccines used in North America and Europe are based on lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) containing messenger RNA (mRNA) produced by Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273), and the common perception now is that mRNA-based vaccine-induced immunity wanes quickly.5 However, this assumption is mostly based on data from short-term studies that include a very limited number of data points following peak responses.2,5

In March of 2020, the densely populated New York metropolitan area was hit with an exponential increase of severe SARS-CoV-2 infections, resulting in a staggering number of fatalities and a severely overburdened healthcare system.6,7,8 Due to shortages of personal protective equipment, essential workers in the health care system were at high risk for infection. In response to this crisis, we established (1) a specific and sensitive SARS-CoV-2 binding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to measure humoral immune responses,9 and (2) an observational longitudinal cohort of health care workers of the Mount Sinai Health System to determine the kinetics of these humoral responses. This study, named Protection Associated with Rapid Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (PARIS),10 aims to capture the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses to infection as well as vaccinations, to determine re-infection rates, and to assess correlates of protection in the context of individual immune histories.

With over 8,000 longitudinal study visits across a single cohort during the first 3 years of the pandemic, our investigation represents one of the most extensive and in-depth assessments of the longevity of SARS-CoV-2 immune responses to date. Using this longitudinal cohort, we determined the kinetics of antibody responses to spike protein after infections, during the primary immunization series, during monovalent and bivalent booster vaccination, as well as during breakthrough infections. Our findings indicate that, in contrast to common perception, COVID-19 mRNA vaccination induces long-lasting antibody responses in humans. The PARIS Study also provides insights into the effect of booster vaccination and breakthrough infections on the stability of antibody responses.
What is clear from this study is that antibody levels remain at protective levels for very much longer that was previously thought and that they continue to give protection against the severe form of the disease. However, as the virus evolves in an environment in which the vast majority of possible victims have already been vaccinated or have had previous infections so have high antibody levels, the variants that can 'escape' this protection will continue to evolve and become the predominant variant.

This diagram from UK data shows how the different variants have evolved and either replaced earlier variants or have reached an equilibrium with them:
Changes in proportions of SARS-CoV-2 variants in UK over time. This diagram is a good illustration of how the proportions of different alleles of a gene change in a species gene pool over time as the species evolves.

It is essential then that regular boosters, which provide protection against the latest variants, should continue to be given. We are in a long-term struggle with this virus and vaccines keep us ahead of the game.

Tuesday 28 November 2023

Antivax COVIDiot News - Study Shows Vaccines Halted The Rise In Prem Births Caused By COVID-19


Covidiot Trumpanzees.
Risking the lives of unborn babies for political ends.
Study: Spike in premature births caused by COVID, halted by vaccines

About the last thing the politically-motivated, far right antivaxxers covidiots are interested in is protecting human life. With characteristic hypocrisy, many of the same frauds are also active campaigners against legal abortions and a woman's right to choose which, together with COVID-19 denialism and antivaxx conspiracism, have become major talking points in the Trumpanzee far right playlist.

The hypocrisy of these frauds was revealed yesterday in a study which shows there was a huge spike in the number of premature births during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic when women infected with the virus spontaneously aborted their baby. The same study also shows that in those areas where the vaccine uptake was high, the premature birth rate quickly fell back to pre-pandemic levels, but in areas where uptake was low, it took another year to return to pre-pandemic levels.

The study was carried out by Professor Jenna Nobles of Wisconsin–Madison University and Professor Florencia Torche, of Stanford University who have published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

As the Wisconsin–Madison University press release explains:

Tuesday 3 October 2023

Creationism in Crisis - How Science is Fighting Creationism's Divine Malevolence With Nobel Prize-Winning Science


Nobel prize in medicine awarded to mRNA pioneers – here's how their discovery was integral to COVID vaccine development

Of course, no serious biologist things they are fighting and invisible magic creator in the sky who is actively designing parasites to harm us, or designing anything else, for that matter, but creationists believe that's just what they are doing.

Some even go so far as claiming scientists, together with their technical staff and publishers, are all part of a secret Satanic conspiracy to mislead people about what their god has created, including the parasites and the suffering and misery they cause, apparently.

So, this piece of research must come across to genuine creationists who really do believe what their cult mandates them to believe, as scientists waging a war on their god's creation.

The war, of course, is a war that medical science has always waged against suffering and the causes of suffering, because increasing the sum total of happiness, but reducing the unhappiness in the world, is basic humanist morality - something that would appear to be lacking in creationists' putative intelligent [sic] designer.

A particularly successful recent war was the war against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic still raging throughout the world, but thanks to the success of medical science, in a much less virulent form, most people having been protected by the mRNA vaccine developed by Nobel Prize-winning scientists, Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania and a massive world-wide effort to find a vaccine.

First a little about mRNA vaccines:

Monday 11 September 2023

Conspiracy Loon News - Why Some People Fall For Wackadoodle Conspiracy Theories


They fall more easily for conspiracy theories - Linköping University

In the last 20 years of so, two things have featured in western culture, especially so in the United States, and recent research has shown how these are linked.
  1. Democratization of opinion: Conflation of the belief that everyone is entitled to their opinion on every subject under the sun, as guaranteed to Americans by their constitution, and the belief that this means every opinion should carry equal weight in a debate, regardless of the evidence (or lack of it) on which it is based, or the level of expertise in the subject of the person voicing that opinion.

    The attractiveness of this belief to the intellectually lazy and to those who feel alienated by the political and economic forces that shape their lives, is that they can tell themselves that they are at least the equal of the experts, and very probably their better.

    For example, I was recently castigated in the social media when I disagreed with the claim that "everyone needs Jesus because without Him life is meaningless". I was informed that "This is America (it was actually Facebook!) where we are entitled to our opinions!", as though a constitutional right in one country mandates the rest of the world to respect dogma and regard it as a statement of irrefutable truth, with the implication that no-one has a right to disagree. The constitution guarantees my right to my opinion (but not your right to yours).

    Similarly false claims are made by creationists daily in social media, accompanied by indignation when challenged. Creationists who couldn't define the terms 'evolution' or 'kind' and who assiduously maintain their scientific ignorance, will confidently inform the world that the millions of highly qualified working biomedical scientists who have no difficulty with the science, have it all wrong, and should listen to the creationist who knows best, having completed a 15 minute Google University degree in creationism. And they're all part of a gigantic Satanic conspiracy anyway.

Tuesday 5 September 2023

Covidiot News - How ChatGPT is Dispelling Anti-Vaxx Disinformation


ChatGPT is Debunking Myths on Social Media Around Vaccine Safety, Say Experts - Taylor & Francis Newsroom

According to a very recent report in the peer-reviewed journal, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, the artificial intelligence chat bot, ChatGPT, is helping to dispel some of the myths surrounding vaccines, by providing the factual information that debunks the myths.

Having had all our COVID-19 vaccinations, including any seasonal boosters, and having just recovered from a mild, but unpleasant bout of it which my partner and I probably caught in France or during the flight back, I thought I would put this to the test with a little research of my own:

Saturday 1 April 2023

Trumpanzee News - Success of The MAGA Cult's Self-Inflicted Genocide With COVID-19

Trumpanzee News

Success of The MAGA Cult's Self-Inflicted Genocide With COVID-19

Excess death gap widens between U.S. and Europe, study finds: U.S. has an increasingly high proportion of excess deaths compared to five European countries -- ScienceDaily

Figures published in PLOS a few days ago point to an astonishing success rate for the self-inflicted genocide campaign waged by the MAGA/Trumpanzee cult during the COVID-19 pandemic between 2020 and 2021.

Probably as a result of the antivaxx campaign and the evangelical Christian and Repugnican-led campaign against the measures to impede the spread of the virus and lower pressure on health services such as social distancing, prohibiting indoor gatherings and wearing face-masks, the 'excess deaths' gap between Europe and the USA grew even wider.

Tuesday 14 March 2023

Malevolent Designer News - The Astonishing Success of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus. And it Ain't Over Yet!

Malevolent Designer News

The Astonishing Success of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus.
And it Ain't Over Yet!

Three years into the pandemic, it's clear COVID won't fix itself. Here's what we need to focus on next

With Creationism in headlong retreat under the onslaught from science and improved access to information with the Internet, Creationists at least have something to be proud of.

From their point of view, few designs have been so spectacularly successful as the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is causing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It is a success unparalleled since the 1918 'Spanish' flu outbreak, caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus, and only bettered, in the Middle Ages, with Yersinia pestis and the Black Death, which wiped out 30-60 percent of the European population and 70-200 million people worldwide.

Although not nearly as successful as the H1N1 influenza A virus, which killed an estimated 17-50 million people and maybe as many as 100 million, and paling into insignificance compared to Yersinia pestis, SARS-CoV-2 has so far turned in a very respectable performance with 6.8 million deaths out of about 681 million people infected, and we need to bear in mind that the majority of those infections will have been vaccinated people who benefit from human medical science.

Without the vaccines, it's anyone's guess how many orders of magnitude the death toll would have been, but low though that 1% death-rate is, compared to the divine malevolence's other pathogens, we need to add in other factors when estimating the malevolent designer's successes with SARS-CoV-2.
  • Life expectancy fell sharply between 2020 and 2021, reversing 70 years of almost continuous improvement thanks to medical science.
  • There has been severe disruption of health services, especially in poor countries, leading to:
    • a significant increase in stillbirths, perinatal mortality for both mother and child.
    • an increase in postnatal depression.
    • Immunizations programs have been reduced, leading to an increase in malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
  • There has been severe deterioration in mental health services.
  • An estimated 65 million people now suffer the debilitating consequences of 'long covid' caused by long-term damage as opposed to the relatively short duration of the primary infection.
  • Children's education has been adversely affected due to school closures and staff shortages due to COVID-19.
  • The economic disruption and the drastic measures to mitigate the pandemic and support businesses during lock-down, in its early stages, have crippled economies with increased government debt and cuts in spending on essential social services, and reduced government revenues for taxation due to an estimated 0.75% fall in GDP

And it's far from over yet!

In fact there is little sign that the virus is attenuating or that "herd immunity" is sufficient to prevent new waves with new variants. As this article points out, there have been more cases of COVID-19 in Australia in the first three months of 2023, than there were in the whole of 2021 and 2022 combined!. The article is by Michael Toole, Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute, and Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO, Burnet Institute in The Conversation points out. It deals mostly with Australia but can be extrapolated to the rest of the world.

Friday 3 March 2023

Malevolen Designer News - How Creationism's Putative Designer COULD Have Given us Immunity to COVID-19 But Chose Not To

Malevolen Designer News

How Creationism's Putative Designer COULD Have Given us Immunity to COVID-19 But Chose Not To

SARS-CoV-2 Viruses and human respiratory system
Photo: wildpixel/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Genetics might explain why some people have never had COVID – but we shouldn't be too focused on finding out

Early in January, 2020, when stories of a potentially dangerous infection in China were beginning to emerge in the world's news media, my partner and I had a daytrip to London to see the Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Gallery. We drove to the Westgate Centre in Shepherd's Bush where we left the car to avoid congestion charges, then took a London Underground train to central London. It was a popular exhibition, so the gallery was crowded, as were the underground trains on our return journey during rush hour, when commuters pack like sardines into the trains.

The following day, my partner developed a cough and a fever and was quite ill for several days with what we thought then was a nasty cold. Two weeks later, I developed the same symptoms and was quite ill for about 48 hours.

Had we had those symptoms today, we would assume we had COVID-19! That was three months before Britain went into full lock down. Since then both of us have had every vaccination offered and always observed the precautions like wearing face masks, regularly using hand cleanser, avoiding crowds, regular testing, even leaving anything delivered to the house for several hours before touching it, and we haven't had so much as a cold.

Did we have COVID-19, in January 2020? There is now no way of knowing, of course, but it is very unlikely that we both have a genetic immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus - the explanation now being offered for why some people have never been infected, despite the prevalence of the virus in the environment. The probability is that we either caught it early on and were immune during the first major wave, then had immunity from vaccinations, or we had it asymptomatically - as a high, but indeterminate number are now believed to have had.

Tuesday 22 November 2022

Covidiot News - More Evidence of the Efficacy of COVID Vaccines

COVID Vaccine
Hakan Nural, Unsplash (CC0)
Vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 reinfection during periods of Alpha, Delta, or Omicron dominance: A Danish nationwide study

A new study published today on the open access journal, PLOS Medication, shows that even those people who had previously been infected with COVID-19 still benefit from vaccination, although the benefit varies a little with the batch used. The study, led by Katrine Finderup Nielsen at Statens Serum Institut, Denmark, shows that these individuals gain between 60% and 94% protection against reinfection.

According to information released by PLoS ahead of publication:
During the recent pandemic, vaccination has been one of the best tools available for curbing the spread of COVID-19. People infected with the virus are known to develop long-lasting natural immunity, but Finderup Nielsen and her team wanted to know whether these individuals would still benefit from receiving the vaccine. The team analyzed infection and vaccination data from nationwide Danish registers that included all people living in Denmark who tested positive for the virus or were vaccinated between January 2020 and January 2022. The data set included more than 200,000 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during each of the Alpha, Delta and Omicron waves. Their analysis showed that for people with previous infections, vaccination offered up to 71% protection against reinfection during the Alpha period, 94% during the Delta period and 60% during the Omicron period, with protection lasting up to nine months.

Monday 17 October 2022

Covidiot News - How the Antivaxx Trumpanzees are Risking Your Life For Political Gain

Association of Primary and Booster Vaccination and Prior Infection With SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Severe COVID-19 Outcomes | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network
Charts showing effectiveness
Estimates of effectiveness are shown by solid curves, and 95% CIs are shown by shaded bands. The steep upward trends seen early in panels A-C, but not in panel D, represent the ramp-up period of vaccination. Each curve is truncated at 15 months or when the number at risk hits 15% of the relevant sample. D, Comparison of prior infection with survival to no prior infection among all participants (vaccinated and not), with 98.6% of all participants surviving the prior infection. Home testing for infection is not included. Further detail can be found in eTable 1 in the Supplement.
More evidence was produces today showing how efficatious the anti-COVID vaccines are at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19 and, incidentally, how dangerous and reckless has been the pro-Trump campaign to minimise the risks and raise the level of vaccine hesitancy in the US pupulation, led by Trumpanzee far-right loonies, evangelical Chritian preachers and televangelists and politically-motivated conspiracy theorists.

This evidence came in the form of a paper published in JAMA Network reporting on a cohort study of 10.6 million North Carolina Residents between March 2020 and June 2022, which concluded that:
…receipt of a primary COVID-19 vaccine series compared with being unvaccinated, receipt of a booster compared with primary vaccination, and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with no prior infection were all significantly associated with lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and resulting hospitalization and death.
In an editorial in JAMA Network accompanying publication of the paper the editor said:
The authors report that as of June 3, 2022, a total of 67% of the study population had been vaccinated and 2 771 364 SARS-CoV-2 infections were reported, with a hospitalization rate of 6.3% and mortality rate of 1.4%. Based on the analysis and findings, there are several important takeaways from this study. First, the results reinforced that first-generation COVID-19 vaccines were highly and durably effective against severe disease as measured by hospitalizations and deaths, but did not protect against milder infections beyond a few months, even with booster vaccinations. Emerging new variants, including Omicron, are associated with less protection against infection. However, even modest protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection may provide important benefits by reducing surges that can overwhelm health care systems, keeping schools and workplaces open, and protecting vulnerable populations at risk for severe outcomes following infection, including older adults and those with underlying medical conditions.

Second, prior infection was associated with a reduction in risk of infection and severe outcomes among those with or without prior vaccination. Additionally, among people with prior documented infection who had completed a primary vaccine series, booster vaccination was associated with additional protection, including 39.3% vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization after 3 months. Although prior infection alone is associated with lower risk of reinfection, vaccination also provides protection against ongoing transmission and has additional benefits, including attenuating severity of disease and reducing the risk of disabling postacute sequelae of COVID-19.9,14

Third, this study reinforced the growing complexities of COVID-19 and the strengths and limitations of routine surveillance systems. State-based surveillance systems have large sample sizes that allow detection of uncommon events and multiple subgroup analyses. However, they often lack granular details on underlying medical conditions or other factors that allow for better control of confounding or effect modification. Lin et al found that waning of booster dose vaccine effectiveness occurred over 4 to 6 months, but this may be partially due to patients with certain high-risk conditions, such as those who are significantly immunocompromised, getting third doses earlier than the general population. Among individuals who received a primary mRNA vaccine series, understanding comparability between those who received homologous and heterologous mRNA boosters would also be helpful to strengthen inference around benefits of receiving mixed vaccine products that was observed in this study.
In the abstrct to their paper, the authors state:
Key Points

Question How does the association of COVID-19 vaccination and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection with subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 outcomes change over time?

Findings In a cohort study of 10.6 million North Carolina residents from March 2020 to June 2022, receipt of a primary COVID-19 vaccine series compared with being unvaccinated, receipt of a booster compared with primary vaccination, and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with no prior infection were all significantly associated with lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and resulting hospitalization and death. The estimates for the associated protection decreased over time, especially for the outcome of infection, and varied by type of circulating variant.

Meaning Receipt of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, as well as prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, were associated with protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection (including Omicron) and severe COVID-19 outcomes, although the associated protection waned over time.

Abstract

Importance Data about the association of COVID-19 vaccination and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection with risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 outcomes may guide prevention strategies.

Objective To estimate the time-varying association of primary and booster COVID-19 vaccination and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection with subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, and death.

Design, Setting, and Participants Cohort study of 10.6 million residents in North Carolina from March 2, 2020, through June 3, 2022.

Exposures COVID-19 primary vaccine series and boosters and prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Main Outcomes and Measures Rate ratio (RR) of SARS-CoV-2 infection and hazard ratio (HR) of COVID-19–related hospitalization and death.

Results The median age among the 10.6 million participants was 39 years; 51.3% were female, 71.5% were White, and 9.9% were Hispanic. As of June 3, 2022, 67% of participants had been vaccinated. There were 2 771 364 SARS-CoV-2 infections, with a hospitalization rate of 6.3% and mortality rate of 1.4%. The adjusted RR of the primary vaccine series compared with being unvaccinated against infection became 0.53 (95% CI, 0.52-0.53) for BNT162b2, 0.52 (95% CI, 0.51-0.53) for mRNA-1273, and 0.51 (95% CI, 0.50-0.53) for Ad26.COV2.S 10 months after the first dose, but the adjusted HR for hospitalization remained at 0.29 (95% CI, 0.24-0.35) for BNT162b2, 0.27 (95% CI, 0.23-0.32) for mRNA-1273, and 0.35 (95% CI, 0.29-0.42) for Ad26.COV2.S and the adjusted HR of death remained at 0.23 (95% CI, 0.17-0.29) for BNT162b2, 0.15 (95% CI, 0.11-0.20) for mRNA-1273, and 0.24 (95% CI, 0.19-0.31) for Ad26.COV2.S. For the BNT162b2 primary series, boosting in December 2021 with BNT162b2 had the adjusted RR relative to primary series of 0.39 (95% CI, 0.38-0.40) and boosting with mRNA-1273 had the adjusted RR of 0.32 (95% CI, 0.30-0.34) against infection after 1 month and boosting with BNT162b2 had the adjusted RR of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.82-0.86) and boosting with mRNA-1273 had the adjusted RR of 0.60 (95% CI, 0.57-0.62) after 3 months. Among all participants, the adjusted RR of Omicron infection compared with no prior infection was estimated at 0.23 (95% CI, 0.22-0.24) against infection, and the adjusted HRs were 0.10 (95% CI, 0.07-0.14) against hospitalization and 0.11 (95% CI, 0.08-0.15) against death after 4 months.

Conclusions and Relevance Receipt of primary COVID-19 vaccine series compared with being unvaccinated, receipt of boosters compared with primary vaccination, and prior infection compared with no prior infection were all significantly associated with lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection (including Omicron) and resulting hospitalization and death. The associated protection waned over time, especially against infection.

Lin D, Gu Y, Xu Y, et al.
Association of Primary and Booster Vaccination and Prior Infection With SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Severe COVID-19 Outcomes.
JAMA. 2022;328(14):1415–1426. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.17876

© 2022 American Medical Association.
Reprinted under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s60.
The benefits of vaccination and the risk of not being vaccinated is now unarguable, but the final sentence emphasises the importance of regular boosters as and when they become available, especially of those which have been updated to protect against the latest variants and subvarients. Pending a definitive vaccine against all SARS-C0V-2 virus strains, there is no real alternative but the keep our defences high with these regular boosters, much like we are currently doing with the influenza viruses where anual vaccination is needed because the virus readily mutates to form new varieties which can evade the immunity in the pupulation from the last wave of infections.

In the North Carolina cohort, only 67% of the cohort had been vaccinated. This means that one in three North Carolinans have no protection unless they have survived an earlier infection, which will provide some protection for a few months. These people can act as breeding grounds for new variants and as repositories for the virus ready to infect anyone with waning antibody levels.

The only way to reduce the effects of the pandemic on society is thus to keep the general level of protection in the population as high as possible and to reduce the number of people acting as these breeding grounds through better education to reduce the antisocial effect of the right-wing, Trumpanzee cult antivaxx disinformation campaigns.

Covidiot News - Stunning Sucess for the Trumpanzee Antivaxx Self-Genocide Campaign as US Life Expectancy Falls

Chart showing fall in life-expectancy in USA
Lowest US Life Expectancy Since 1996 Linked to COVID-19 | Population Health | JAMA | JAMA Network

A new report a few days ago from the US National Center for Health Statistics shows that life expectancy dropped by 3 years to about 73 for US men and 2.3 years to about 79 years for US women between 2019 and 2021. These are the lowest figures since 1996 after years of steadily increasing life expectancy for new-born babies.

Over the same period, the gap in life expectancy between men and women in the USA, which had been closing, widened again from 4.8 years in 2010 (the smallest recorded) to 6 years in 2021.

Despite the desperate claims of Trump-supporting evangelical preachers, far right extremists and conspiracy loons that COVID-19 was variously a hoax, a mild infection no worse than flu and could easily be prevented or cured with readily available drugs, without the need for 'dangerous' vaccines, three-quarters of over-all life expectancy lost during this period was attributed to COVID-19 deaths, according to a CDC statement.
Possibly due to the measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 such as wearing face covering, social distancing and lockdowns, deaths from influenza and other, non-COVID respiratory infections fell during the period, helping to offset some of the declining life expectancy.

There were also significant racial/ethnic and gender difference in the fall in life expectancy. According to the CDC report:

Monday 10 October 2022

Malevolent Designer News - Creationism's Divine Malevolence is all Set for a Major Comeback with COVID-19 AND Influenza

H3N2 influenze virus particles
H3N2 virus.
Despite appearances H3N2 is not closely related to SARS-CoV-2 but simultaneous infection with both can be especially dangerous
Flu is set for a big comeback now COVID restrictions are lifted – here’s what you need to know

Creationism's malevolent designer is not one to be defeated easily, as we saw with its response to the anti-SARS-CoV-2 virus vaccines produced by medical science to help control the COVid-19 pandemic, where it came up with all manner of variant to get around the social distancing measures and the vaccines, and we're still not through it yet despite the political pressure to return to pre-pandemic ways.

The equivalent of a jumbo jet full of people still dies from COVID-19 every day in the USA. Can you imagine the outcry if a real jumbo jet crashed killing everyone on board every day? How many people would continue to fly and demand the government stop whatever they're doing to prevent these crashes?

Now, though, with the sensible measures like social distances, wearing face coverings and regular hand cleansing with alcohol jells just about being ignored, Creationism's divine malevolence has the ground prepared for a double whammy.

A double whammy?

The same measures that were intended to mitigate the effects of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 were also very effective against the influenza viruses that normally do the rounds in the winter months, with the result that the numbers dying or being made seriously ill during 2020 and 2021 were very significantly down on a normal year and the number of people being infected and building up their natural immunity also fell.

In addition, as complacency spreads and less people bother with COVID-19 boosters, what 'herd immunity' there was is also diminishing fast. A recent study in Barcelona showed that, even with a vaccine and having had an infection, most people's antibody level will be virtually undetectable in 12 months, unless boosted with further vaccinations.

Another recent study identified a new sub-strain of the SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant (BA.2.75.2) which can evade most of the antibodies provided by infection and vaccination. We don't know which new strain will produce the next wave, because it depends on several factors such as infectivity, incubation period and asymptomatic transmission, but BA.2.75.2 is a good candidate

Wednesday 28 September 2022

Malevolent Designer News - Yet Another SARS-CoV-2 Variant and Another Wave of COVID-19 is On The Way

SARS-CoV-2
Big COVID-19 waves may be coming, new Omicron strains suggest | Science | AAAS

According to this article in Science, another wave of COVID-19 infections is on the way because several different sub-strains of the Omicron variant have converged on a similar way to evade the antibodies our immune systems manufacture in response to vaccination and/or infection.

It's not possible to say which of the various emerging strains will come to predominate, but one variant, known as BA.2.75.2, is a likely candidate. It is proving to be especially successful at evading antibodies because changes at half a dozen key sites in its genome that affect the way antibodies bind to the spike proteins on the viral coat, mean the antibodies don't bind very successfully.

Sunday 18 September 2022

Antivaxx Covidiot News - Another Good Reason to Get Vaccinated

Una de cada tres personas infectadas con COVID-19 y que no se vacunaron ya no tiene anticuerpos detectables un año después de la infección COVID-19: [One in three infected but unvaccinated persons no longer have detectable antibodies one year after the infection] - News - ISGLOBAL
COVID Vaccination centre, Spain
I've just booked my fifth, COVID-19 vaccination (my third booster) and with reasonable precautions like hand cleansing, social distancing, and avoiding crowded places, I've managed to stay clear of infection so far. At the start of the pandemic, I had four high risk factors - over weight, very high blood pressure, slightly raised cholesterol level and age - and might well have struggled to survive infection. Since then, I've lost 3 stone to get a safe BMI, and got my BP down to within a normal range and now have a normal cholesterol level. Alas, I can't do anything about the third factor, but I can keep my antibody count up.

My last booster was in March this year, so I would be interested to know what level of protection I now have because, as this study shows, the antibody level falls over time, particularly for people like me who have stayed infection free, so that for 36% of people who were vaccinated but never got infected, their antibody level is undetectable after a year! This means, if I wait till Spring, I'll go through most of the coming Winter with a low antibody count.

If any more evidence were needed that vaccination against COVI-19 is essential, even for people who have had the disease and acquired some natural protection, this study, by an international team led by Marianna Karachaliou, Gemma Moncunill, Manolis Kogevinas and Carlota Dobaño and colleagues provides it. The main findings, published open access in MBC Medicine, include:

Monday 12 September 2022

Covidiot News - More Success For the Pro-Trump Covidiot Self Genocide Campaign

Concern by employee demographic
Risk of COVID-19 Exposure Still a Concern for U.S. Employees

News of the continuing success for the pro-Trump Repugnicans in their effort to minimise the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic to try to cover up Donald Trump's incompetent handling of the crisis when president, comes in the form of a Gallop poll, showing the much lower level of concern about COVID19 exposure at work by Republican voters compared to Democrat voters.

Although overall concern remains fairly high at 33%, there is a wide difference between Democrat and Republican voters. While 51% of Democrat voters were very or moderately concerned, only 14% of Republican votes were, and while only 19% of Democrats were not concerned at all, this figure rose to 61% for Republicans.

Quite obviously, there is a significant risk of contracting the virus when working in close proximity with others and for those without the protection of a vaccination or whose antibody level may have fallen to a low level and in need of boosting.

Monday 5 September 2022

Covidiot News - Massive Success for the Pro-Trump, Self-Genocide Campaign

Covid-19: U.S. Life Expectancy Continued to Decrease in 2021, Study Finds - USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

More evidence of the astonishingly stupid, but highly successful pro-Trump antivaxx campaign against the COVID-19 vaccinations was produced today in the form of evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic death rate in the USA produced a significant fall in life-expectancy in 2021, continuing a sharp fall in 2020. It also showed how there were persistent disparities in life expectancy by race and ethnicity.

The antivaxx campaign came about in support of the then president, Donald Trump, who, realising he was out of his depth with the science, but due to his narcissistic personality disorder, was incapable of admitting it, panicked and set about politicizing the pandemic, threatening and vilifying scientists who tried to advise him and pressurizing officials to supress bad news and provide disinformation.

He first declared the pandemic to be a hoax, then to be a mild illness that would be over by April (2020) and which could be prevented with wackadoodle, untested 'preventative' chloramphenicol. This subsequently turned out to not only be ineffective in preventing infection or minimising the symptoms but was positively dangerous.

At one point, in a comical pretence of medical expertise that would have been funny if it hadn’t been so seriously stupid, the fool even suggested drinking surface disinfectants or inserting a UV light source into the body to cure the disease. Soon, wearing face-covering and social distancing became political acts, as did getting vaccinated when the vaccines were produced. Evangelical preachers preached against face-masks and for the right to continue to hold super-spreader events in their churches, and Trump's election rallies in which face-coverings were discouraged, became serious super-spreader events in their own right.

Consequently, when the Omicron wave hit, the death toll became overwhelmingly of unvaccinated people in Republican-leading areas of America, to the extent that some commentators referred to it as a self-inflicted genocide of the most gullible, as the Republicans Party became possibly the first political party in history with policies seemingly designed to kill their own supporters and with supporters who believed that risking the lives of themselves, their families and society at large was the patriotic thing to do.

All to save the orange buffoon’s face.

Monday 8 August 2022

Covidiot News - Why Covidiot Antivaxxers Are Easy To Fleece

Given that those who have fallen for the various politically-motivated antivaxx hoaxes are significantly more likely to catch COVID-19 and be made seriously unwell with it, and so are much more likely to suffer from 'long COVID', unscrupulous quack cure pedalers have a ready-made lucrative market in quack cures and fake miracles in the form of people who have already proven their gullibility. They are being aided in this fraud by the social media and the usual channels for spreading fake news and disinformation.

In this article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency, Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor and leader of the Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, explains how long COVID victims are being sold a new range of 'miracle cures'. Read the original article here.

Tuesday 2 August 2022

Covidiot News - Trump's Legacy: More Americans Now Think it is Right to Harass and Threaten Public Health Officials and Scientists

May 17 2020 Donald Trump praised protesters who harassed a journalist on Long Island this week at a rally where one man called for the execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
US Adults’ Beliefs About Harassing or Threatening Public Health Officials During the COVID-19 Pandemic | Violence | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

One of the more enduring and insidious legacies of the disastrous single-term US president, Donald J. Trump, is that distrusting public Health Officials who tried to explain the science behind the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to mitigate it, and by extension, all scientists, to the extent of harassing them, attacking them, and even making death threats against them when they deliver unwelcome news, has now become acceptable to a significant proportion of American adults.

That proportion appears to be growing according to an investigation by scientists from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, the University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, USA, the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Ithaca, New York, USA. Their findings are published open access in the online Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Open Network.

Their key findings were:
Key Points

Question What factors shape US adults’ beliefs regarding whether threatening or harassing public health officials was justified during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Findings In this survey study of 1086 US adults, the share who believed that harassing or threatening public health officials because of business closures was justified rose from 20% to 25% and 15% to 21%, respectively, from November 2020 to July and August 2021. There were increases in negative views over time among higher earners, political independents, those with more education, and those most trusting of science.

Meaning These findings suggest that restoring trust in public health officials will require strategies tailored to engage diverse viewpoints.

They give more detail in the abstract to their paper:
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