Vaccine

[mrmicawbers]

2014 on vaccines for FLU.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/12/novartis-flu-vaccine-hold-italy-after-suspicious-deaths.

Why are the number of flu cases not reported everyday? How many people have died from flu since this started?

Protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life. The Governments have ROYALLY screwed up and the WHO worse.
You can not prosecute the firms making the vaccines? Why not? If they are so sure that its safe? Government inadequacies will kill far more people than this virus will. They will also leave many mentally scarred, many in abject poverty, and the world economies in tatters.

My daughter in law caught covid, yet my son living in the same house did not. So I too have first hand experience of c19.

Why did the Chinese and WHO not shut down international borders last December?

Why did the WHO say that masks were not needed then change their mind?

Why are there curfews in place, does c19 switch off after say 6pm?

So many questions without answers here and no one takes responsability for any of it. If you want to have a go at anyone, blame world governments for failing to act sooner allowing the spread and for destroying their countries economies over a virus with a 99.7% survival rate.

I can't believe more people do not question these actions.

There are far more questions than answers here and im sorry but im not convinced at all.

Lots of what's ifs .What if you contract it and pass it round when you carry on as normal when things open up as you plan to do.What if you contract it and die and even worse spend a month in icu before it kills you.

[toshes mate]

Has the Evidence of Asymptomatic Spread of COVID-19 been Significantly Overstated? by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath and Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB (12.20)

Abstract

Evidence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients who remain asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) is found in a body of numerous meta-analyses. Evidence of asymptomatic transmission has been based on only a handful of instances which themselves are questionable. The existence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from asymptomatic individuals has become an accepted truth but the evidence for this phenomenon being anything other than mistaken interpretation of false positive test results is weak ...

Seek out the whole paper which can be searched for if you are interested in the science rather than the hyperbole.

[Beamer]

If your wary of the vaccine think about this.
It is being given to NHS and other front line staff as a priority. If there turns out to be major unforseen problems with it, as some would have us believe, there won't be anyone to look after you anyway so if you get the virus badly then your stuffed whichever way you look at it.

[Logicalman]

Has the Evidence of Asymptomatic Spread of COVID-19 been Significantly Overstated? by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath and Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB (12.20)

Abstract

Evidence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients who remain asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) is found in a body of numerous meta-analyses. Evidence of asymptomatic transmission has been based on only a handful of instances which themselves are questionable. The existence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from asymptomatic individuals has become an accepted truth but the evidence for this phenomenon being anything other than mistaken interpretation of false positive test results is weak ...

Seek out the whole paper which can be searched for if you are interested in the science rather than the hyperbole.

I have read this paper, and found that it has an issue with it's basis of the meaning of asymptomatic.

"This paper reviews the evidence that people who are asymptomatic (defined in this paper as not only having no symptoms but also never developing symptoms) are capable of carrying SARS-CoV-2 and infecting others. This must be clearly distinguished from pre-symptomatic – there is evidence that some patients can be infectious for a brief period before developing symptoms."

This interpretation is an exact and narrow medical one, that excludes the alternate of pre-symptomatic.
They are correct, though, in the same way that laymen might refer to a common term to cover a wider  meaning of related items, then we have come to understand the term asymptomatic to include both true asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic, by simply meaning that it is a condition at which time there are no symptoms present, notwithstanding they may or may not appear in due course. Medical professionals do tend to dumb down certain terms so that the general public can more easily identify a meaning, even if that is not strictly medically accurate.

The paper even falls into this trap itself in the introduction, by stating "Many of the world's economies have been seriously damaged on the basis of alleged evidence that people with no symptoms can spread SARS-CoV-2." Surely they do mean truly asymptomatic people, don't they, because pre-symptomatic people also show so signs of symptoms.

It does concern me that this article fails to take that into account, and that such titles (headlines) like this impacts the truth of pre-symptomatic infections, simply because people do not differentiate between the two. Overall, the paper does not fully exonerate truly asymptomatic infection, but simply points out the various studies have failed to adhere to that differentiation.

[Peabody]

But let's not rewrite the past. In mid-March it wasn't just us, but Germany and all our other peers, who weren't closing borders, weren't mandating masks, weren't even contemplating a lockdown etc. All the talk then was just about letting the virus run it's course like a bad flu season. IIRC it only really kicked off when the Imperial College modelling came out showing the proportion of people that were going unto ICU and how that would overwhelm hospitals. Easy to say now we should have done this or that sooner but we didn't know then what we know now. Even in relation to masks the scientific advice was inconsistent.

Also IMO there's a chance that in further time, once the deaths stop and the economic damage sets in, the pendulum will swing the other way and people will start saying we should never have done any of the things we've done in the last 9 months, we should have just carried on as normal and taken it on the chin in March.

It's alrleady happening. There's a demo on today, of anti lockdown people.

[toshes mate]

Has the Evidence of Asymptomatic Spread of COVID-19 been Significantly Overstated? by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath and Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB (12.20)

Abstract

Evidence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients who remain asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) is found in a body of numerous meta-analyses. Evidence of asymptomatic transmission has been based on only a handful of instances which themselves are questionable. The existence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from asymptomatic individuals has become an accepted truth but the evidence for this phenomenon being anything other than mistaken interpretation of false positive test results is weak ...

Seek out the whole paper which can be searched for if you are interested in the science rather than the hyperbole.

I have read this paper, and found that it has an issue with it's basis of the meaning of asymptomatic.

"This paper reviews the evidence that people who are asymptomatic (defined in this paper as not only having no symptoms but also never developing symptoms) are capable of carrying SARS-CoV-2 and infecting others. This must be clearly distinguished from pre-symptomatic – there is evidence that some patients can be infectious for a brief period before developing symptoms."

This interpretation is an exact and narrow medical one, that excludes the alternate of pre-symptomatic.
They are correct, though, in the same way that laymen might refer to a common term to cover a wider  meaning of related items, then we have come to understand the term asymptomatic to include both true asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic, by simply meaning that it is a condition at which time there are no symptoms present, notwithstanding they may or may not appear in due course. Medical professionals do tend to dumb down certain terms so that the general public can more easily identify a meaning, even if that is not strictly medically accurate.

The paper even falls into this trap itself in the introduction, by stating "Many of the world's economies have been seriously damaged on the basis of alleged evidence that people with no symptoms can spread SARS-CoV-2." Surely they do mean truly asymptomatic people, don't they, because pre-symptomatic people also show so signs of symptoms.

It does concern me that this article fails to take that into account, and that such titles (headlines) like this impacts the truth of pre-symptomatic infections, simply because people do not differentiate between the two. Overall, the paper does not fully exonerate truly asymptomatic infection, but simply points out the various studies have failed to adhere to that differentiation.

A reasonable summary which really states that nobody knows but should one assumption trump all other assumptions? 

I also considered that what they had struggled with is proving what 'asymptomatic' means, period, since you can only know that after the event i.e. you get ill or you don't, and if you don't get ill then how do you prove you transmitted the disease without a really good and reliable test saying you had Covid-19 on the day an infected person caught it from you.  They sought to do so using the wealth of papers that were claiming to have found asymptomatic transmissions when there was very little reliable evidence (other than circumstantial) on very small numbers of cases and in reality suggested that if it is possible to transmit the disease asymptomatically then it happens very rarely. 

For the pre-symptomatic the situation gets even more difficult since what is the period between infection and being symptomatic, does it vary considerably between people and, since it is anecdotal, is it also too subjective?  But I do feel they make the point that accurate testing is a number one priority for any test and rather than ramp up the numbers tested governments should be concentrating on the quality of the test regime and not the quantity of tests.  If we don't do this we are never going to know anything solid about how transmissions occur, when, and why.   

This is why I believe the kind of forensic detail the Iceland test and trace system contains means they can understand and demonstrate these factors much better than many, and, as far as I can tell, they had no asymptomatic infections.

[blingo]

2014 on vaccines for FLU.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/12/novartis-flu-vaccine-hold-italy-after-suspicious-deaths.

Why are the number of flu cases not reported everyday? How many people have died from flu since this started?

Protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life. The Governments have ROYALLY screwed up and the WHO worse.
You can not prosecute the firms making the vaccines? Why not? If they are so sure that its safe? Government inadequacies will kill far more people than this virus will. They will also leave many mentally scarred, many in abject poverty, and the world economies in tatters.

My daughter in law caught covid, yet my son living in the same house did not. So I too have first hand experience of c19.

Why did the Chinese and WHO not shut down international borders last December?

Why did the WHO say that masks were not needed then change their mind?

Why are there curfews in place, does c19 switch off after say 6pm?

So many questions without answers here and no one takes responsability for any of it. If you want to have a go at anyone, blame world governments for failing to act sooner allowing the spread and for destroying their countries economies over a virus with a 99.7% survival rate.

I can't believe more people do not question these actions.

There are far more questions than answers here and im sorry but im not convinced at all.

Lots of what's ifs .What if you contract it and pass it round when you carry on as normal when things open up as you plan to do.What if you contract it and die and even worse spend a month in icu before it kills you.

What if i walk out in front of a bus? There's no logic behind any of this.

[MikeTheCubed]

The key difference is that the risks attached to the virus can be reliably quantified at this time, whereas potential long-term risks attached to the vaccine are still a relative unknown.

Sorry but how do you come to that conclusion?

All we know at the moment is that if 10,000 people catch the virus, around 50 will die and several hundred will be severely ill in the near term. As to long-term effects (long Covid, permanent lung damage etc) we don't know anything for sure, because it's a novel virus. We'll know more in time.

Whereas if 10,000 take the vaccine, none will die or be severely ill in the near term. As to the long-term effects, there's no evidence or reasoning that it'll have any, but of course we can't know for sure because again, it's a novel treatment.

Now I could perhaps understand some mild concern about the vaccine but there is no way you can bend logic or numbers to make taking it seem more risky than catching the virus.

According to data published by the ONS the total number of men within England & Wales in my age group (30 - 34) attributed to a Covid death up until December 4th is 63.

If we assume that the official number of detected cases (1.8 million in England & Wales, so let's say 900,000 men) represents the real number of cases, extrapolating from that would give approximately a 1 in 14,285 chance of a Covid infection resulting in a death within my age group.

Of course the real number of cases is several times higher than the detected number of cases, especially as most people are asymptomatic, but for the sake of argument if we take that bare minimum number, if there was a potential fatal reaction to the vaccine with an equal chance of occurring it could have very easily evaded the clinical trials in their relatively short scale & time period.

[blingo]

Glad I'm not at yours for dinner lol

[Logicalman]

Has the Evidence of Asymptomatic Spread of COVID-19 been Significantly Overstated? by Dr Clare Craig FRCPath and Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB (12.20)

Abstract

Evidence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients who remain asymptomatic (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) is found in a body of numerous meta-analyses. Evidence of asymptomatic transmission has been based on only a handful of instances which themselves are questionable. The existence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from asymptomatic individuals has become an accepted truth but the evidence for this phenomenon being anything other than mistaken interpretation of false positive test results is weak ...

Seek out the whole paper which can be searched for if you are interested in the science rather than the hyperbole.

I have read this paper, and found that it has an issue with it's basis of the meaning of asymptomatic.

"This paper reviews the evidence that people who are asymptomatic (defined in this paper as not only having no symptoms but also never developing symptoms) are capable of carrying SARS-CoV-2 and infecting others. This must be clearly distinguished from pre-symptomatic – there is evidence that some patients can be infectious for a brief period before developing symptoms."

This interpretation is an exact and narrow medical one, that excludes the alternate of pre-symptomatic.
They are correct, though, in the same way that laymen might refer to a common term to cover a wider  meaning of related items, then we have come to understand the term asymptomatic to include both true asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic, by simply meaning that it is a condition at which time there are no symptoms present, notwithstanding they may or may not appear in due course. Medical professionals do tend to dumb down certain terms so that the general public can more easily identify a meaning, even if that is not strictly medically accurate.

The paper even falls into this trap itself in the introduction, by stating "Many of the world's economies have been seriously damaged on the basis of alleged evidence that people with no symptoms can spread SARS-CoV-2." Surely they do mean truly asymptomatic people, don't they, because pre-symptomatic people also show so signs of symptoms.

It does concern me that this article fails to take that into account, and that such titles (headlines) like this impacts the truth of pre-symptomatic infections, simply because people do not differentiate between the two. Overall, the paper does not fully exonerate truly asymptomatic infection, but simply points out the various studies have failed to adhere to that differentiation.

A reasonable summary which really states that nobody knows but should one assumption trump all other assumptions? 

I also considered that what they had struggled with is proving what 'asymptomatic' means, period, since you can only know that after the event i.e. you get ill or you don't, and if you don't get ill then how do you prove you transmitted the disease without a really good and reliable test saying you had Covid-19 on the day an infected person caught it from you.  They sought to do so using the wealth of papers that were claiming to have found asymptomatic transmissions when there was very little reliable evidence (other than circumstantial) on very small numbers of cases and in reality suggested that if it is possible to transmit the disease asymptomatically then it happens very rarely. 

For the pre-symptomatic the situation gets even more difficult since what is the period between infection and being symptomatic, does it vary considerably between people and, since it is anecdotal, is it also too subjective?  But I do feel they make the point that accurate testing is a number one priority for any test and rather than ramp up the numbers tested governments should be concentrating on the quality of the test regime and not the quantity of tests.  If we don't do this we are never going to know anything solid about how transmissions occur, when, and why.   

This is why I believe the kind of forensic detail the Iceland test and trace system contains means they can understand and demonstrate these factors much better than many, and, as far as I can tell, they had no asymptomatic infections.

:54: 

[Statto]

According to data published by the ONS the total number of men within England & Wales in my age group (30 - 34) attributed to a Covid death up until December 4th is 63.

If we assume that the official number of detected cases (1.8 million in England & Wales, so let's say 900,000 men) represents the real number of cases, extrapolating from that would give approximately a 1 in 14,285 chance of a Covid infection resulting in a death within my age group.

Of course the real number of cases is several times higher than the detected number of cases, especially as most people are asymptomatic, but for the sake of argument if we take that bare minimum number, if there was a potential fatal reaction to the vaccine with an equal chance of occurring it could have very easily evaded the clinical trials in their relatively short scale & time period.

But more than 14,285 people had the vaccine in trials. And none of them died from it. Say it's safer than Covid.

[toshes mate]

The WHO have issued a medical alert:

"The probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as positivity rate decreases, irrespective of the assay specificity. Therefore, healthcare providers are encouraged to take into consideration testing results along with clinical signs and symptoms, confirmed status of any contacts, etc.

Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU (instructions for use) carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.  The design principle of RT-PCR means that for patients with high levels of circulating virus (viral load), relatively few cycles will be needed to detect virus and so the Ct value will be low. Conversely, when specimens return a high Ct value, it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain. Thus, the IFU will state how to interpret specimens at or near the limit for PCR positivity. In some cases, the IFU will state that the cut-off should be manually adjusted to ensure that specimens with high Ct values are not incorrectly assigned SARS-CoV-2 detected due to background noise."

[blingo]

The WHO have issued a medical alert:

"The probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as positivity rate decreases, irrespective of the assay specificity. Therefore, healthcare providers are encouraged to take into consideration testing results along with clinical signs and symptoms, confirmed status of any contacts, etc.

Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU (instructions for use) carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.  The design principle of RT-PCR means that for patients with high levels of circulating virus (viral load), relatively few cycles will be needed to detect virus and so the Ct value will be low. Conversely, when specimens return a high Ct value, it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain. Thus, the IFU will state how to interpret specimens at or near the limit for PCR positivity. In some cases, the IFU will state that the cut-off should be manually adjusted to ensure that specimens with high Ct values are not incorrectly assigned SARS-CoV-2 detected due to background noise."

If i'm not mistaken, that says it's all been a cockup

[toshes mate]

The WHO have issued a medical alert:

"The probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as positivity rate decreases, irrespective of the assay specificity. Therefore, healthcare providers are encouraged to take into consideration testing results along with clinical signs and symptoms, confirmed status of any contacts, etc.

Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU (instructions for use) carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.  The design principle of RT-PCR means that for patients with high levels of circulating virus (viral load), relatively few cycles will be needed to detect virus and so the Ct value will be low. Conversely, when specimens return a high Ct value, it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain. Thus, the IFU will state how to interpret specimens at or near the limit for PCR positivity. In some cases, the IFU will state that the cut-off should be manually adjusted to ensure that specimens with high Ct values are not incorrectly assigned SARS-CoV-2 detected due to background noise."

If i'm not mistaken, that says it's all been a cockup

In a nutshell for the many tests that have been questioned by experts since PCR was adapted as the first testing regime.  In the UK, as an example, the Ct value for positivity has been regularly reported to be above 30 when that number has been recognised as the threshold for reliabilty.   

[toshes mate]

Here is Vincent Raccaniello's take on the UK's variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  It is, unlike NERVTAG's advice to the UK Government, both measured and informative and suggests something I think we can all agree on we need a lot more of this year – good science.

He is a Higgins Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is a co-author of a textbook on virology, Principles of Virology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC8ObD2W4Rk

[sunburywhite]

Wasnt Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady?

[john dempsey]

Whilst I am awaiting my jab
my wife has made me a necklace, consisting of
two free range scotch eggs and some chips
which I wear on a regular basis and
so far so good...

[rebel]

Whilst I am awaiting my jab
my wife has made me a necklace, consisting of
two free range scotch eggs and some chips
which I wear on a regular basis and
so far so good...

May I inquire if the chips are made from organic potatoes?

[Logicalman]

Just as an aside to the vaccine shots, comes a story from California this past week.

A Nurse got the first jab, 7 days later presented with Covid symptoms, and tested positive - not from the jab it appears.

Medical experts are stating that it can take 10-14 days for the body to create the required immune reaction from the first jab, and that will account for 50% protection, with the second injection given 21 days following the first which will raise the protection to 95%.

[Statto]

Just as an aside to the vaccine shots, comes a story from California this past week.

A Nurse got the first jab, 7 days later presented with Covid symptoms, and tested positive - not from the jab it appears.

Medical experts are stating that it can take 10-14 days for the body to create the required immune reaction from the first jab, and that will account for 50% protection, with the second injection given 21 days following the first which will raise the protection to 95%.

Why did that even make the news?
Did the reporters over there think it was (a) 100% effective and (b) effective immediately?