dailymail | Joe Biden on
Friday night told Americans to expect more COVID-19 restrictions but
the White House has said new lockdowns were unlikely
Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, said on Friday afternoon that a federal vaccine mandate was being considered
On
Friday night, she tweeted: 'To clarify: There will be no nationwide
mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and
portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate'
.@BerkeleyJr To clarify: There will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) July 30, 2021
Her backtracking will add to concern about the disjointed and chaotic messaging regarding the pandemic
On
Thursday Biden said it was 'a question' whether a federal vaccine
mandate could be enforced; shortly after his COVID advisor went on CNN
and said it was 'not an authority that we're exploring at all'
Multiple
private sector employers, plus some state and federal agencies, have
started bringing in rules making vaccines mandatory, to avoid regular
testing
On Tuesday the CDC made a U-turn and recommended once again face masks
On May 18 the CDC had announced that face masks were no longer necessary
Biden
spoke on Friday after CDC published the data in which is claimed that
the Indian 'Delta' variant is significantly more of a threat
It claimed that fully vaccinated people are able to spread the virus
The
report looked at the case of Provincetown, in Cape Cod, where 469
COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents between
July 3 and July 17, including 346 fully vaccinated people
There
were no deaths among fully vaccinated people, and only four
hospitalizations - with two of those patients having pre-existing
conditions
WaPo | The delta variant of the coronavirus
appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads
as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health
document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”
The
document is an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
slide presentation, shared within the CDC and obtained by The Washington
Post. It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency
to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures,
including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.
The
document strikes an urgent note, revealing the agency knows it must
revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense
against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different
novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or
the common cold.
It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data
from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that
vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the
virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people
infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are
unvaccinated and infected with the variant.
“I
finished reading it significantly more concerned than when I began,”
Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University
of California at San Francisco, wrote in an email.
The
data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped
recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear
masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal
health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be
published in full on Friday. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky privately
briefed members of Congress on Thursday, drawing on much of the material
in the document.
One
of the slides states that there is a higher risk among older age groups
for hospitalization and death relative to younger people, regardless of
vaccination status. Another estimates that there are 35,000 symptomatic
infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.
The
document outlines “communication challenges” fueled by cases in
vaccinated people, including concerns from local health departments
about whether coronavirus vaccines remain effective and a “public
convinced vaccines no longer work/booster doses needed.”
The
presentation highlights the daunting task the CDC faces. It must
continue to emphasize the proven efficacy of the vaccines at preventing
severe illness and death while acknowledging milder breakthrough infections
may not be so rare after all, and that vaccinated individuals are
transmitting the virus. The agency must move the goal posts of success
in full public view.
abcnews | A week after the crowds descended upon Provincetown, Massachusetts,
to celebrate the Fourth of July -- the holiday President Joe Biden hoped
would mark the nation's liberation from COVID-19 -- the manager of the
Cape Cod beach town said he was aware of "a handful of positive COVID cases among folks" who spent time there.
"We
are in touch with the Health Department and Outer Cape Health Services
and are closely monitoring the data," Alex Morse told reporters.
The announcement wasn't unusual with roughly half of the country still unvaccinated and flare-ups of the virus popping up in various states.
But within weeks, health officials seemed to be on to something much
bigger. The outbreak quickly grew to the hundreds and most of them appeared to be vaccinated.
As of Thursday, 882 people were tied to the Provincetown outbreak.
Among those living in Massachusetts, 74% of them were fully immunized,
yet officials said the vast majority were also reporting symptoms. Seven
people were reported hospitalized.
The initial findings of the
investigation led by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, in
conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed
to have huge implications.
Before Provincetown, health officials had been operating under the
assumption that it was extraordinarily rare for a vaccinated person to
become infected with the virus. And if they did, they probably wouldn't
end up passing it on to others, such as children too young to qualify
for the vaccine or people who were medically vulnerable.
The idea
that vaccines halt transmission of the virus was largely behind the
CDC's decision in May suggesting vaccinated people could safely go
without their masks indoors and in crowds, even if others were
unvaccinated.But
that assumption had been based on studies of earlier versions of the
virus. Delta was known for its "hyper-transmissibility," or as one
former White House adviser put it "COVID on steroids.
"What has
changed is the virus," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top
infectious disease expert and Biden's chief medical adviser.
When a
vaccinated person gets infected with delta -- called a "breakthrough
infection" -- "the level of virus in their nasopharynx is about 1,000
times higher than with the alpha variant," Fauci said in an interview
Wednesday with MSNBC.
All indications now are that the
Provincetown outbreak investigation is among the pieces of new evidence
behind the CDC's decision to ask Americans to once again put on their
masks indoors, even if they are vaccinated.
WaPo | Since
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first came out with its
misguided policy to lift masking requirements in May, I have been calling on it to reverse course. On Tuesday, it did, but the new guidance remains just as confusing and the communication just as muddled.
CDC
Director Rochelle Walensky explained in a press briefing that in light
of emerging data, the agency is recommending that vaccinated people wear
masks indoors again in areas of high covid-19 transmission. Walensky
cited unpublished research showing that vaccinated people who become
infected with the delta variant carry a similar amount of virus to those
who are unvaccinated and infected. This change in the science was the
impetus for the new guidance, because it suggests that vaccinated people
could be carriers and therefore capable of spreading the coronavirus to family members who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised.
That’s
certainly important information for many Americans to know. As the mom
of two children too young to be vaccinated, I have already been taking
precautions to reduce my risk of being an asymptomatic carrier and
unknowingly infecting my kids. I never stopped wearing a mask in grocery
stores, hotel lobbies and other indoor, crowded spaces where I don’t
know others’ vaccination status. My concern is that the unvaccinated could be a danger to me,
and even though I’m well-protected from becoming severely ill myself,
there’s still a chance I could contract the coronavirus and bring it
back to my vulnerable family members.
On
an individual level, the CDC guidance that people in my circumstance
mask up is correct. But does it make sense for local governments and
businesses to implement mask mandates because of the risk posed by or to
the vaccinated? That’s what the new guidance implies, even though it’s
contradicted by the CDC’s own data. During the same press briefing, Walensky said
the vaccinated are 20 times more protected than the unvaccinated from
becoming severely ill, and seven times more protected from having mild
symptoms. She made clear that the vast majority of transmission appears
to be from the unvaccinated and that “vaccinated individuals continue to
represent a very small amount of transmission occurring around the
country.”
That
leaves many people wondering what’s actually going on here. If the
vaccinated aren’t the problem, why are they being punished by having to
put on masks again? If most transmission is happening because of the unvaccinated, then why is the CDC saying that the guidance is evolving because the science changed about transmission risk of the vaccinated?
stltoday | St. Louis County’s acting
health director says the rumor is true: He gave someone the middle
finger on his way out of the council meeting on the mask mandate Tuesday
night.
But in a letter to
County Councilwoman Rita Heard Days sent Wednesday, Dr. Faisal Khan said
he did it after a string of racist provocations from Republican
politicians like Councilman Tim Fitch and a boisterously anti-mask
audience pushed him past his limit.
“I
have never been subjected to the racist, xenophobic and threatening
behavior that greeted me in the County Council meeting last night,” he
wrote, after noting he’s been in public health for 25 years.
Fitch
and others blamed for stoking racism and xenophobia dismissed Khan’s
allegations as baseless. Fitch also said Khan was trying to provide
political cover for County Executive Sam Page, who called for the mask
mandate.
“The entire letter is
another desperate attempt at deflection and diversion by Sam Page,”
Fitch said in an interview. “Dr. Khan knew he was in trouble for (giving
the middle finger) and this was an opportunity to put that on someone
else.”
Khan
appeared at the meeting as the council was considering a move to
terminate the mask mandate as unlawful and unnecessary, which it would
do despite the rising threat of the delta variant. During the debate,
dozens of people, some of whom held signs with anti-mask messages,
filled the council chambers to cheer on the action and jeer the
mandate’s defenders.
Khan
said the trouble began as soon as he took the podium with a
“dog-whistle” question from Fitch, looking to emphasize Khan’s foreign
background.
As he spoke, Khan
said he also endured harassment from Republican politicians Paul Berry
and Mark McCloskey, who sat close behind him in the audience.
Berry
was an unsuccessful candidate for county executive in 2020; McCloskey,
who is running for U.S. Senate, gained notoriety with his wife,
Patricia, for brandishing firearms at protesters last year. Both McCloskeys attended the council meeting.
npr | There's more potentially worrisome news for vaccinated people: In
very rare cases, people experiencing breakthrough infections may be at
risk for long-COVID symptoms.
The
study confirmed what's already known: That it's very rare for fully
vaccinated people to get infected or sick with COVID-19. But it also
found lingering COVID symptoms did develop in a handful of breakthrough
cases.
Researchers studied 1,497 vaccinated health care
workers at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. Among them, only 39 got
infected despite their inoculations. Of those, seven — or about 19% —
developed symptoms that lasted at least six weeks, including headaches,
muscle pain, loss of taste and smell and fatigue.
"It's really
disturbing," says Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the infection,
prevention and control unit with the Sheba Medical Center and an author
of the study.
"If this is what we're going to see with all of
the even mildly symptomatic infections that we're seeing now, it's
definitely worrisome," she says.
New data suggests that fully vaccinated individuals are not just contracting COVID, but could be carrying higher levels of virus than previously understood, facilitating spread, my NBC News colleagues are reporting. New indoor masking guidance expected today.
Regev-Yochay and others stress that the results need to be
confirmed by additional research involving many more patients who are
followed for much longer. It could be a false alarm, the symptoms could
be much rarer, or they could resolve far more quickly than the months of
symptoms that typically plague those suffering from long COVID.
Experts
stress that vaccination remains highly effective at preventing the most
severe consequences of infection: hospitalization and death.
Nevertheless, other researchers agree the findings are cause for additional investigation.
"We
had hoped that when you get vaccinated and even if you did have a
breakthrough infection you would have enough of an immune response that
would block this protracted symptom complex now known as long COVID,"
says Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.
WSJ | The Food and Drug Administration claims to follow the science. So why
is it attacking ivermectin, a medication it certified in 1996?
Earlier this year the agency put out a special warning
that “you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.” The
FDA’s statement included words and phrases such as “serious harm,”
“hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and
even death” and “highly toxic.” Any reader would think the FDA was
warning against poison pills. In fact, the drug is FDA-approved as a
safe and effective antiparasitic.
Ivermectin was developed and marketed by
Merck
& Co. while one of us (Mr. Hooper) worked there years ago.
William C. Campbell
and
Satoshi Omura
won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for
discovering and developing avermectin, which Mr. Campbell and associates
modified to create ivermectin.
Ivermectin is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential
Medicines. Merck has donated four billion doses to prevent river
blindness and other diseases in Africa and other places where parasites
are common. A group of 10 doctors who call themselves the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance have said ivermectin is “one of the safest, low-cost, and widely available drugs in the history of medicine."
Some 70 clinical trials are evaluating the use of ivermectin
for treating Covid-19. The statistically significant evidence suggests
that it is safe and works for both treating and preventing the disease.
In 115 patients with Covid-19
who received a single dose of ivermectin, none developed pneumonia or
cardiovascular complications, while 11.4% of those in the control group
did. Fewer ivermectin patients developed respiratory distress (2.6% vs.
15.8%); fewer required oxygen (9.6% vs. 45.9%); fewer required
antibiotics (15.7% vs. 60.2%); and fewer entered intensive care (0.1%
vs. 8.3%). Ivermectin-treated patients tested negative faster, in four
days instead of 15, and stayed in the hospital nine days on average
instead of 15. Ivermectin patients experienced 13.3% mortality compared
with 24.5% in the control group.
Moreover, the drug can help prevent Covid-19. One 2020 article
in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications looked at what
happened after the drug was given to family members of confirmed
Covid-19 patients. Less than 8% became infected, versus 58.4% of those
untreated.
WaPo | “We
always just follow the guidance of the Capitol physician. There is no
discussion about should we do it, should we not for one reason or
another,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. “It’s the decision of the
Capitol physician, who is following the guidance of the CDC about the
masks.”
McCarthy
(R-Calif.) joined Republicans in deriding the new mask mandate despite
concerns from public health officials that the delta variant poses a
renewed threat to the public, particularly because of the refusal of
many people in areas represented by Republicans to get vaccinated.
“Make
no mistake — The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based
on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials
who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” McCarthy
tweeted shortly after Monahan sent his email Tuesday night.
Asked Wednesday morning by NBC News about McCarthy’s comment, Pelosi responded: “He’s such a moron.”
She
declined to repeat that barbed criticism later at a news conference but
stood by her assessment of the House minority leader’s comments.
“To
say that wearing a mask is not based on science, I think is not wise,”
she said. “And that was my comment. And that’s all I’m going to say
about that.”
McCarthy said he wanted more answers from Pelosi about the guidance.
“Well,
she’s so brilliant. Can she tell me where the science in the building
changes between the House and the Senate?” McCarthy asked Wednesday,
listing several other questions he had about the new CDC guidance. “So a
lot of questions. If she knows so much science, explain to me where the
science changes in the rotunda.”
Later
in the day, Republicans met with Monahan to voice their concerns about
his decision. In the meeting, which lasted about one hour, numerous
members asked the Capitol physician why he would institute a mandate if
D.C. has a lower transmission rate than most cities. Monahan responded
that the Capitol complex should be seen as a different entity given how
many people who travel to and from different parts of the country
interact with one another, according to two Republican aides in the room
who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private
meeting.
Republicans left the meeting saying they were unconvinced by Monahan’s arguments for wearing a mask. Many cited a claim
made by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) that the CDC based its new guidance
on a study based in India that failed a peer-review process. But the CDC
has not yet released the specific data it relied on to come to its
decision, making it unclear how Republicans would know what data was
used for the guidance or why they expressed certitude that the decision
was based on a study related to India.
CDC
Director Rochelle Walensky has said the agency reviewed outbreak
investigations in the United States as part of its evaluation.
taibbi | On This Week With George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, a
gathering of Washington poo-bahs including Chris Christie, Rahm
Emmanuel, Margaret Hoover, and Donna Brazile — Stephanopoulos calls the
segment his “Powerhouse Roundtable,” which to my ear sounds like a
Denny’s breakfast sampler, but I guess he couldn’t name it Four Hated Windbags — discussed vaccine holdouts. The former George W. Bush and Giuliani aide Hoover said it was time to stop playing nice:
If
you’re going to get government-provided health care, if you’re getting
VA treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, anything — and Social
Security obviously isn’t health care — you should be getting the
vaccine. Okay? Because we are going to have to take care of you on the back end.
Brazile nodded sagely, but Emmanuel all but gushed cartoon hearts.
“You
know, I’m having an out of body experience, because I agree with you,”
said Obama’s former hatchet man, before adding, over the chyron,
FRUSTRATION MOUNTS WITH UNVACCINATED AMERICANS:
I
would close the space in. Meaning if you want to participate in X or Y
activity, you gotta show you’re vaccinated. So it becomes a
reward-punishment type system, and you make your own calculation.
This
bipartisan love-in took place a few days after David Frum, famed Bush
speechwriter and creator of the “Axis of Evil” slogan, wrote a column in
The Atlantic entitled “Vaccinated America Has Had Enough.” In it, Frum wondered:
Does
Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70
percent of the country’s wealth — and then sees that wealth transferred
to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one
nation do for one another… [But] the reciprocal part of the bargain is
not being upheld…
Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of
being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays?
Check yourself. Have you?
I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated. But this latest moral mania — and make no mistake about it, the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”
PR campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series of such manias, dating
back to late 2016 — lays bare everything that’s abhorrent and
nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the
no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington
consensus. If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much
the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by
sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with
large chunks of the population, and now insist they’re owed financially
besides.
There’s always been a contingent in American society
that believes people who pay more taxes should get more say, or “more
votes,” as Joseph Heller’s hilarious Texan put it. It’s a conceit that
cut across party. You hear it from the bank CEO who thinks America
should thank him for the pleasure of kissing his ass with a bailout, but
just as quickly from the suburban wine Mom who can’t believe the
ingratitude of the nanny who asks for a day off. Doesn’t she know who’s
paying the bills? The delusion can run so deep that people like Margaret
Hoover can talk themselves into the idea that Social Security — money taxpayers lend the government, not the other way around — is actually a gift from the check-writing class.
In
the last decade or so I had the misfortune of watching this phenomenon
rise within both parties. After 2008, the “We’re pulling the oars, so we
should steer the boat” argument dominated the GOP. Offshoots of Ayn
Rand-ian thinking about ubermenschen producers and their
dubious obligation to society’s masses of parasitic looters provided
talking points both for TARP recipients (who insisted
America needed to be invested not just in their survival but their
prosperity) and the Tea Party. Remember Rick Santelli on CNBC, calling
for a referendum on whether or not we should “subsidize the losers’
mortgages” or whether we should “reward the people who carry the water,
instead of drink the water”?
WSJ | Nearly a year and a half into the pandemic, researchers are still struggling to find effective, easy-to-use drugs to treat Covid-19.
Ten drugs have been cleared or recommended in the U.S. for use. Two of those later had their authorizations rescinded after they failed to work. The government recentlypaused shipments of a thirdbecause it wasn’t effective againstnew variants. The best medicines for early treatment are cumbersome to administer, and drugs for those in the hospital can only do so much for patients who are already severely ill.
“We’re really limited, to be honest,” says Daniel Griffin, chief of infectious disease at healthcare provider network ProHealth New York. “We do not have any dramatic treatments.”
A long list of factors played into the checkered development of drugs to treat Covid-19 cases—exposing flaws in the infrastructure of medical research and healthcare, particularly in fighting a fast-moving pandemic.
Federal officials concentrated their resources on quickly developing vaccines, with success. However, a relative dearth of drug research focused on coronaviruses, despite previous outbreaks, held back a fast response on treatments. Scattered U.S. clinical trials competed against each other for patients. When effective yet hard-to-administer drugs were developed, a fragmented American healthcare system struggled to deliver them to patients.
Covid-19 cases, and the need for treatments, are continuing. U.S. hospitals are bracing for new surges of cases with theDelta variant spreadingamong the unvaccinated. Vaccination drives are slowing in many countries, and poorer countries face ashortage of doses. No vaccine is 100% effective against Covid-19.
The Biden administration recently said it wouldspend $3.2 billionto support the development of Covid-19 antiviral pills.
Current clinical trials are evaluating more than 225 drug treatments, including new medicines as well as already-approved ones for conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and gout, to see if they might also be effective against Covid-19, according to data from the Milken Institute, a nonprofit think tank.
A few potential Covid-19 therapies in development have shown promise.Merck& Co. andPfizerInc.are each testing antiviral pills that could be taken at home soon after someone is infected. Merck’s widely anticipated pill, which it is developing with partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics,hit a setback in Aprilwhen it failed to help hospitalized patients. Researchers are still studying its effectiveness among the newly infected.
Government-funded researchers in the U.S. and U.K. recently began large studies of ivermectin—an antiparasitic pill used for decades to treat river blindness in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nature | Generating immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is of the utmost
importance for bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control, protecting
vulnerable individuals from severe disease and limiting viral spread.
Our immune systems protect against SARS-CoV-2 either through a
sophisticated reaction to infection or in response to vaccination. A key
question is, how long does this immunity last? Writing in Nature, Turner et al.1 and Wang et al.2 characterize human immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection over the course of a year.
There is ongoing discussion about which aspects of the immune
response to SARS-CoV-2 provide hallmarks of immunity (in other words,
correlates of immunological protection). However, there is probably a
consensus that the two main pillars of an antiviral response are immune
cells called cytotoxic T cells, which can selectively eliminate infected
cells, and neutralizing antibodies, a type of antibody that prevents a
virus from infecting cells, and that is secreted by immune cells called
plasma cells. A third pillar of an effective immune response would be
the generation of T helper cells, which are specific for the virus and
coordinate the immune reaction. Crucially, these latter cells are
required for generating immunological memory — in particular, for
orchestrating the emergence of long-lived plasma cells3, which continue to secrete antiviral antibodies even when the virus has gone.
Immunological
memory is not a long-lasting version of the immediate immune reaction
to a particular virus; rather, it is a distinct aspect of the immune
system. In the memory phase of an immune response, B and T cells that
are specific for a virus are maintained in a state of dormancy, but are
poised to spring into action if they encounter the virus again or a
vaccine that represents it. These memory B and T cells arise from cells
activated in the initial immune reaction. The cells undergo changes to
their chromosomal DNA, termed epigenetic modifications, that enable them
to react rapidly to subsequent signs of infection and drive responses
geared to eliminating the disease-causing agent4.
B cells have a dual role in immunity: they produce antibodies that can
recognize viral proteins, and they can present parts of these proteins
to specific T cells or develop into plasma cells that secrete antibodies
in large quantities. About 25 years ago5,
it became evident that plasma cells can become memory cells themselves,
and can secrete antibodies for long-lasting protection. Memory plasma
cells can be maintained for decades, if not a lifetime, in the bone
marrow6.
The presence in the bone marrow of long-lived, antibody-secreting
memory plasma cells is probably the best available predictor of
long-lasting immunity. For SARS-CoV-2, most studies so far have analysed
the acute phase of the immune response, which spans a few months after
infection, and have monitored T cells, B cells and secreted antibodies7.
It has remained unclear whether the response generates long-lived
memory plasma cells that secrete antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
Turner and colleagues took up the challenge of identifying antibody-secreting memory plasma cells
in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-19 (called
convalescent individuals). Memory plasma cells are rare, and those
specific for a particular disease-causing agent will obviously be
extremely scarce. Nevertheless, Turner and colleagues detected memory
plasma cells that secreted antibodies specific for the spike protein
encoded by SARS-CoV-2 in 15 of 19 individuals, approximately 7 months
after infection. Notably, when the authors obtained samples 4 months
later (11 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection), the number of such plasma
cells had remained stable in all but one of the individuals analysed.
Those plasma cells did not proliferate, which classifies them as bona
fide memory plasma cells. Their numbers equalled those of memory plasma
cells found in the individuals after vaccination against tetanus or
diphtheria, and which provide long-term immunity to those diseases.
When Turner et al.
tracked the concentrations of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the
individuals’ blood serum for up to one year, they observed a biphasic
pattern (Fig. 1). In the acute immune response around the time of
initial infection, antibody concentrations were high. They subsequently
declined, as expected, because most of the plasma cells of an acute
immune response are short-lived. After a few months, the antibody
concentrations levelled off and remained more or less constant at
roughly 10–20% of the maximum concentration observed. This is consistent
with the expectation that 10–20% of the plasma cells in an acute immune
reaction become memory plasma cells5,
and is a clear indication of a shift from antibody production by
short-lived plasma cells to antibody production by memory plasma cells.
This is not unexpected, given that immune memory to many viruses and
vaccines is stable over decades, if not for a lifetime8.
– It is not known where Covid 19 originated but the most likely origin is the transmission from an animal to humans
– Covid 19 has killed 600K people in the US
– Trump botched the Covid 19 response costing many lives
– Many deaths were preventable if we’d tested, masked, tracked and locked down better
– Vaccines are good and have eradicated polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases
– Vaccines against Covid 19 are safe and effective and have saved many lives with only minor, acceptable adverse reactions
– There are no effective treatments for Covid 19 besides the vaccines
–
Covid is spread by droplets and aerosols from infected people, both
symptomatic and asymptomatic, and can be spread through momentarycasual
contact both indoors and outdoors
– Children and young
adults are at risk form Covid 19 and can spread the disease and should
take the same precautions and measures as adults
– We
need to do whatever it takes to defeat Covid 19 including frequent
testing, mass vaccination, continued lockdowns and wearing masks
– The best information comes from the CDC, FDA and NIH
– The mainstream media warns us of the dangers of Covid 19 but unfortunately many do not take these warnings seriously
– As usual, conspiracy theorists and nut-jobs abound
– Antivaxxers are against all vaccines and now also against the Covid 19 mRNA therapeutic neo-vaccinoids
– Antivaxxers have believed phony information disseminated by scurrilous, right wing charlatans
– These people cost many lives and are the reason Covid still spreads and mutates
– They are responsible for continued lockdowns and the further decimation of the economy
– They are selfish, evil and anti-science
– The Covid 19 response is all about trying to get us back to normal as quickly as possible
The Counter Narrative
– Covid 19 was most likely created in a lab in China or the US
– Covid 19 kills the elderly and the obese but far fewer people in general than the official count
– Almost all officials in government have botched the Covid 19 response, costing many lives
–
Most deaths were preventable if we had investigated and deployed early
treatments including vitamin D, zinc, iodine solution gargle and
ivermectin
– Vaccines are good and have eradicated polio, measles, whooping cough and other diseases
– The Covid 19 vaccines however are not actually vaccines but gene therapy and have not been adequately tested
–
The Covid 19 mRNA therapeutic neo-vaccinoids are not legitimate
vaccines and have proven serious side effects including death and other
as yet poorly documented consequences which are not being investigated
and are suppressed by the media
– We need to
defeat Covid 19 and the best way to do this is through early outpatient
treatment with known, effective drugs and known drug protocols for
hospitalized patients
– Covid 19 is primarily spread by
<b>aerosols</b> from symptomatic and pre-symptomatic
people, mostly in indoor situations with poor ventilation where people
spend a long time together - and in which no serious remedial investment
has been made
– Children and young adults are at low
risk from Covid 19 and need take fewer precautions and measures but
should be treated with drug protocols if infected
– Masks, distancing and lockdowns are mostly ineffective because of the demonstrated but suppressed fact of aerosol transmission
–
The best information comes from front line doctors who actually treat
patients and experienced researchers who have no financial interest in
big pharma https://covid19criticalcare.com/
– The CDC, FDA and NIH are largely compromised because of their association with and funding by drug companies
– The mainstream media is also compromised by their association with big pharma and the government
– The truth about Covid 19 is suppressed and labeled conspiracy theory in order to support the mainstream narrative
–
People who insist that the vaccines are the only way to fight Covid19
have believed lies told to them by the MSM from big pharma and a corrupt
medical establishment
– The vaccine narrative has cost
many lives and ineffective vaccines are responsible for the continued
spread and mutation of Covid 19
– The fallacious mainstream narrative is responsible for all lock downs and the decimation of the economy
–
The people who push the mainstream narrative are evil and anti-science;
The people who believe this narrative are naive, dogmatic and
anti-science
– The Covid 19 response is all about money, power and control
bmj | Duration of
protection is not the only question that longer, placebo controlled
trials can address. They also address vaccine safety.
“Very
often, it’s the fact that we have that placebo controlled follow-up
over time, that gives us the ability to say that the vaccine didn’t
cause something at a longer period of time after vaccination,” the FDA’s
Philip Krause explained last December.13
Yet
there is a gap—currently of unknown size but growing—between any
expectation of blinded placebo controlled data, and the reality that
within weeks of the vaccines receiving an EUA the unblinding of trials
commenced as placebo recipients were offered the chance to get
vaccinated.
Steven Goodman, associate dean of clinical
and translational research at Stanford University, told the FDA in an
invited presentation last December, “Once a vaccine is made widely
available and encouraged, maintaining a double blinded control group for
more than a nominal period is no longer in the investigator’s (or
regulator’s) control and undue pressure to do so may undermine the
entire vaccine testing enterprise.”14
Goodman’s
recommendation was to rapidly convert the trials into crossover
studies, enabling those on placebo to get vaccinated (and vice versa),
while maintaining the blind. The companies challenged the feasibility,
calling it “onerous,” and a crossover never occurred.15
The BMJ
asked Moderna, Pfizer, and Janssen (Johnson and Johnson) what
proportion of trial participants were now formally unblinded, and how
many originally allocated to placebo have now received a vaccine. Pfizer
declined to say, but Moderna announced that “as of April 13, all
placebo participants have been offered the Moderna covid-19 vaccine and
98% of those have received the vaccine.”2 In other words, the trial is unblinded, and the placebo group no longer exists.
Janssen told The BMJ:
“We do not have specific figures on how many of our study participants
have received a vaccine at this time.” But the company confirmed it was
implementing an amended protocol across all countries to unblind all
participants in its two phase III trials, the earlier of which passed
the median of two month follow-up mark in January.
How
the FDA will weigh the loss of blinding and placebo controlled
follow-up is unclear, but just months ago the agency said these trial
properties were vital.
“Continuation of placebo
controlled follow-up after EUA will be important and may actually be
critical to ensure that additional safety and effectiveness data are
accrued to support submission of a licensure application as soon as
possible following an EUA. … Once a decision is made to unblind an
ongoing placebo controlled trial, that decision cannot be walked back.
And that controlled follow-up is lost forever,” the FDA said last
October.3
At
its next advisory committee in December 2020, the FDA reiterated the
importance of the placebo group: “Placebo controlled follow-up can be
very important in showing that whatever happened in the vaccine group
also happened in the placebo group. Because that’s our best way of
knowing.”13
What’s the rush?
The
US’s “Operation Warp Speed” delivered on its promise to get a novel
vaccine into arms in record time (box). Millions of doses of vaccines
are being administered daily across the US, making clear that lack of
FDA approval is no barrier to access. So just what benefit is there in
seeking, and granting, a BLA?
The BMJ
asked the manufacturers why they were seeking a BLA. Moderna did not
respond and Janssen only confirmed it intended to apply for a BLA “later
in 2021.” Pfizer likewise did not answer but instead quoted an FDA
webpage on medical devices, which stated: “Sponsors of EUA products are
encouraged to follow up the EUA with a pre-market submission so that it
can remain on the market once the EUA is no longer in effect.”16
But EUAs have no built-in expiry date—in fact, 14 EUAs for Zika
diagnostic tests remain active despite the public health emergency
expiring in 2017.17
Cody Meissner told The BMJ
he saw some distinct advantages of a BLA over EUA. An approved vaccine,
for one, would provide “an element of assurance,” increasing public
trust in the vaccines, particularly for those currently sitting on the
fence. It would also pave the way for claims of vaccine injury to be
routed through a more established compensation programme, and for adding
the vaccine to government funded schemes to reach children in financial
need.18
Finally, it may affect the potential for vaccine mandates: “It is
unlikely these vaccines will be mandated while an EUA is in place.
Remember that currently these vaccines are still considered
experimental.”
While still under EUA, an increasing
number of educational and other institutions have already mandated
vaccines, but debates over the legality of these actions has hinged on
the distinction between authorisation and approval.19
But
approving a vaccine in order to legally support mandates or convince
people of its safety arguably puts the cart before the horse. Meissner
responded that a BLA would not be issued until the FDA is convinced of
the short and long term safety of these vaccines.
roundingtheearth | What if it turns out that vaccines are killing and crippling millions
of people around the world, but that those harmed are just well enough
spread out that almost nobody saw sufficient signals to build an
intuition about the problem? And what if the agency most responsible for
examining safety signals defines their algorithm using a nonsensical
mathematical formula that hides nearly all serious problems?
Last
night I tried to go to sleep early in order to shift my exercise routine
to a morning schedule. But I'd received a late phone call from a friend
whom I work with researching vaccine safety/danger, just as I was
brushing my teeth. He remains anonymous for now due to fear of job loss
or reprisal. I let the phone call go, but I couldn't just let it go. I
needed to know why he would call me that late, so after spending an hour
in bed not sleeping, I checked my email. I understood immediately.
Definitions
To
a mathematician, everything depends on definitions. Whatever we state
mathematically, the definitions of the terms we use should be traceable
back to the axioms
of the field we're working in. Mathematics is an artfully woven
tapestry of axiomatic structure, lit brightly by definitions. Often, we
create new definitions for the task at hand, but make sure that these
relate clearly to the pyramid of definitions that come before
it---generally as standard as possible to language common within the
field. This becomes both a habit and also a part of the self-reinforcing
social structure of the mathematics community. We talk definitions that
sound boring to untrained ears, but we recognize that definitions are
our palettes. We port definitions to applied fields, and we create new
ones to use where needed. No mathematician or statistician with a soul
forgets the well from which they draw energy and meaning.
During the past few months, many people (including myself) have learned for the first time about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
(VAERS) where health care workers and patients can submit adverse
events (AEs) suffered post-vaccination. While the VAERS database is
understood to record an often small subset of the AEs, the information
can still be used for purposes of establishing safety signals. A new
influenza vaccine can be compared to other influenza vaccines, for
instance. If the old ones were safe enough, and the reported AEs of a
new one are in line or better than for past vaccines, then the
risk-benefit analysis for the new vaccine (assuming sufficient efficacy)
either remains the same or improves.
As with a great deal of
health care regulation during the declared pandemic, changes were made
to the VAERS system and also to safety signal analysis leading up to the
experimental mass vaccination program officially targeting COVID-19.
Without much fanfare, the CDC published a document on January 29, 2021 entitled Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Standard Operating Procedures for COVID-19.
There is a lot to talk about in this document, but let us focus on
Section 2.2, which begins on page 14. Here, the CDC states that, "A
series of tables will be generated using the VAERS automated data," and
that these, "will be refreshed daily for internal use," but "not for
public release". One might wonder why the CDC would not want additional
outside eyeballs on such data---particularly since it took them two full
months to figure out that myocarditis was an issue with the vaccines
despite Israel warning about it two full months before
the CDCs scheduled, delayed, and finally held meeting in late June.
Maybe the CDC should hire somebody to read the pertinent news?
We
get to section 2.3, and this is where things get really crazy. This is
where signals (for assessing safety/danger of the vaccines) get defined.
Subsection 2.3.1 begins (emphasis mine),
CDC will
perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed. PRRs compare the
proportion of a specific AE following a specific vaccine versus the
proportion of the same AE following receipt of another vaccine (see
equation below Table 4). A safety signal is defined as a PRR of at least
2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest.
Only a real dork would emphasize the word 'and', right? A logic dork, mind you, but we'll get to that...
WaPo | President
Biden said that the federal government was considering making vaccines
mandatory for its workforce — what would be a significant escalation in
push to expand vaccine coverage as the coronavirus surge from the Delta variant sends shock waves through the country.
“That’s
under consideration right now,” he said in response to a reporter’s
question at an appearance Tuesday. “If you’re not vaccinated, you’re not
nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
The
news comes as the exponential growth of cases in many areas around the
country concerns public health officials and other authorities.
Vaccination rates have been waning for weeks, despite slightly less than half of the country being fully vaccinated
— well under the targets public health officials say is necessary to
control outbreaks of more virulent strains of the virus like the Delta
variant.
And
the public and political appetite for restrictions and closures, always
fraught, appears to be waning even further, more than 16 months into
the pandemic.
The
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which addresses workplace
complaints about discrimination over race, religion, sex and other
characteristics, issued guidance in May that said that employers could mandate vaccines
for workers to work onsite, as long as they do it in ways that don’t
run afoul of civil rights and disability statutes. And the Justice
Department followed with a similar memo on Monday that said that federal law does not prohibit public and private employers from requiring the vaccine, even if it has only been approved for emergency use, by the Food and Drug Administration.
Recent court rulings, in cases filed by groups opposed to mandates, have upheld these requirements too.
But many companies so far have avoided vaccine mandates, opting instead for guidance urging or recommending the vaccine.
The
tide may be turning, as the spike in cases from the Delta variant
begins to threaten hopes for a return to anything resembling a
pre-pandemic normal.
wikipedia |Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting or the Hoskins effect,[1] refers to the propensity of the body's immune system to preferentially utilize immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen,
and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during
subsequent infections. Antibodies or T-cells induced during infections
with the first variant of the pathogen are subject to a form of original
antigenic sin, termed repertoire freeze.
This phenomenon was first described in 1960 by Thomas Francis Jr. in the article "On the Doctrine of Original Antigenic Sin".[4][5] It is named by analogy to the theological concept of original sin. According to Thomas Francis, who originally described the idea,[4] and cited by Richard Krause:[5]
"The antibody of childhood is largely a response to
dominant antigen of the virus causing the first type A influenza
infection of the lifetime. [...] The imprint established by the original
virus infection governs the antibody response thereafter. This we have
called the Doctrine of the Original Antigenic Sin."
During a primary infection, long-lived memory B cells
are generated, which remain in the body, and provide protection from
subsequent infections. These memory B cells respond to specific epitopes on the surface of viral proteins in order to produce antigen-specific antibodies,
and are able to respond to infection much faster than B cells are able
to respond to novel antigens. This effect shortens the amount of time
required to clear subsequent infections.
Between primary and secondary infections, or following vaccination, a virus may undergo antigenic drift,
in which the viral surface proteins (the epitopes) are altered through
natural mutation, allowing the virus to escape the immune system. When
this happens, the altered virus preferentially reactivates previously
activated high-affinity memory B cells and spurs antibody production.
However, the antibodies produced by these B cells generally
ineffectively bind to the altered epitopes. In addition, these antibodies inhibit the activation of higher-affinity naive B cells that would
be able to make more effective antibodies to the second virus. This
leads to a less effective immune response and recurrent infections may
take longer to clear.[6]
Original antigenic sin is of particular importance in the application of vaccines.[7] In dengue fever,
the effect of original antigenic sin has important implications for
vaccine development. Once a response against a dengue virus serotype has
been established, it is unlikely that vaccination against a second will
be effective, implying that balanced responses against all four virus
serotypes have to be established with the first vaccine dose.[8]
The specificity and the quality of the immune response against
novel strains of influenza is often diminished in individuals who are
repeatedly immunized (by vaccination or recurrent infections).[9]
However, the impact of antigenic sin on protection has not been well
established, and appears to differ with each infectious agent vaccine,
geographic location, and age.[6] Researchers found reduced antibody responses to the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenzavaccine in individuals who had been vaccinated against the seasonal A/Brisbane/59/2007 (H1N1) within the previous three months.[7]
The “crits,” as they are known, disagreed over whether their framework for examining systemic racismwas too far removed from activists, and if their approach focused enough on the struggles of the poor.
“This
was before the internet, before email. If you wanted exchange of ideas,
you met face-to-face,” Mari Matsuda, a law professor at the University
of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in an email. “This allowed for expressions of
difference, questioning, arguing, while forging solidarity.”
But in recent months, critical race theory has leaped from the classroom to conservative news networks, where
it has been attacked as divisive. Conservative activists and
politicians have seized on the issue, often redefining the academic term
to encompass nearly any examination of systemic racism. Several state
legislatures are considering whether to ban teaching critical race theory in schools.
In
interviews, the scholars who helped create this academic framework said
they’re angry about the way the current debate distorts their ideas.
They worry about chilling effect this backlash could have on teaching
about race and racism in America.
“This
is basically an effort to create a boogeyman and pour everything into
that category that they believe will prompt fear, discomfort and
repudiation on the part of parents and voters who are primed to respond
to this hysteria that they’re trying to create,” said Kimberlé Crenshaw,
a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and
Columbia Law School.
newyorker | The invention of the sensitivity-training group is often traced to a
specific evening: Lewin was running a workshop for teachers and social
workers in Connecticut, where he had been hired by the state to help
address racial and religious prejudice. After the participants had left,
a few stragglers returned and asked to be permitted to sit in on the
debriefings, and Lewin agreed. Though it was initially awkward to have
the participants present, Lewin realized that the setup led to frank and
open conversations. He saw the transformative possibilities of
uninhibited feedback in the real time of the group session, and
established the idea of the corporate T-group—shorthand for sensitivity
“training group”—at the National Training Laboratory, in Bethel, Maine.
His inroads into social engineering could also be put to less
conciliatory purposes; Lewin was a consultant for the Office of
Strategic Services and developed programs to help recruit potential
spies.
The T-group, which was sometimes called “therapy for
normals”—rather insensitively by today’s standards but with the intent
of destigmatizing the practice—was a therapeutic workshop for strangers
which would take place in a neutral locale and promote candid emotional
exchange. A typical T-group session would begin with the facilitator
declining to assume any active leadership over the session, a move that
would surprise and disconcert the participants, who would collectively
have to work out the problem of how to deal with a lack of hierarchy or
directives.
It sounds simple enough, but the experience could be
deeply unsettling, even life-changing, for some. As one contemporary
witness of the Bethel N.T.L. workshops remarked, “I had never observed
such a buildup of emotional tension in such a short time. I feared it
was more than some leaders and members could bear.” The T-group promised
an antidote to the oppressions of Dale Carnegie-style insincerity that
dominated the business world, and, crucially, the sessions seemed to
provide a glimpse of a reality in which it was finally possible to know
how one was really perceived.
the prize for the “toughest encounter seminar that had been ever
convened at Esalen” went to one run collaboratively by George Leonard
and Price Cobbs. Leonard was a white psychologist from the South, whose
youthful encounter with the terrified eyes of a Black prisoner
surrounded by a white mob instilled in him a lifelong commitment to
fighting racism. He implored Cobbs, an African-American psychiatrist who
was co-authoring the book “Black Rage,”
to come to Esalen to collaborate. They organized a storied,
twenty-four-hour-marathon racial-sensitivity workshop between Black and
white participants that became rancorous: “the anger rolled on and on
without end” and “interracial friendships crumbled on the spot.”
Finally, Anderson relates how, as the sun was beginning to rise, an
African-American woman was moved to spontaneously comfort a crying white
woman, and this shifted the tenor of the entire session. Though the
episode could easily be read less sunnily, as another troubling instance
of the oppressor requiring comfort from the oppressed, the facilitators
purportedly deemed it a success. Cobbs spoke to Leonard and declared,
“George, we’ve got to take this to the world.”
Cobbs’s
career encapsulates the shift of sensitivity training from its literary
roots to corporate argot. He was sparked by early epiphanies about
Black anger and injustice, inspired by reading Richard Wright, James
Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. He admired the plot of “Invisible Man,”
for instance, because “the unnamed main character’s sense of his own
invisibility fans his ultimate rage into flames of
self-expression. . . .” Cobbs credited Lewin’s research as a key
precedent when he went on to found Pacific Management Systems, a
training center for T-group leaders, and he played a role in the spinoff
of diversity training from sensitivity training. His years of advising
African-American businesspeople formed the basis of his guide, from
2000, “Cracking the Corporate Code: The Revealing Success Stories of 32 African-American Executives.”
In her provocative history “Race Experts,”
from 2002, the scholar Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn examines Cobbs’s career as
part of the larger story of how “racial etiquette” and sensitivity
training “hijacked” and banalized civil-rights discourse. Quinn
persuasively maintains that “sensitivity itself is an inadequate and
cynical substitution for civility and democracy—both of which presuppose
some form of equal treatment and universal standard of conduct,” and
neither of which, of course, the U.S. has ever achieved.
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
