Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2676
Because the airlines need to make money. And business people need to sign deals. And pretty much because you can.

Folks these days don’t think of community but mainly in terms of the bottom line. Unless it gets real bad.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2677
Bisbee wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 3:33 pm Indian Variant of the Coronavirus Arrives in Greece
https://greekreporter.com/2021/04/25/in ... in-greece/
The Indian variant of the coronavirus, or B.1.617, has arrived in Greece, as two cases of the mutation were confirmed in the country in late April...

...The latest case of the mutation involves a foreign-born woman who lives in Attica, where the Greek capital of Athens is located.

The 33-year-old woman traveled to Dubai in April, where her Covid-19 test, required to travel to Greece, came back negative.

Upon returning to Greece, symptoms of the virus began to appear. Although her symptoms were not severe enough to require hospitalization, the woman did take a Covid test to confirm that she had the virus.

After analyzing her results, the laboratory then confirmed that she had the Indian variant or the virus....

...The first case of the viral mutation was found in Patra, in the Peloponnese. Much like with the other case of the mutation, the person infected with the variant did not present severe symptoms.

However, the person with the Indian coronavirus variant in Patra had not traveled, nor could experts determine with certainty that they had come in contact with someone who had the coronavirus, leaving the case a mystery....
Community transmission of the Indian variant found in Greece. -Not good.
The first case of the India variant of COVID-19 has been identified in Clinton County north of Lansing, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Bob Wheaton told The Detroit News Friday.

The new variant, B.1.617, was initially detected in India in October with two mutations, E484Q and L452R, according to the World Health Organization.

The state health department did not release further information about the infected Michigan resident or how many people may have been exposed.

Emerging research indicates the India variant may be more transmissible than previous variants.

The variant is the sixth found in Michigan.

As of Thursday, Michigan has the second-highest number of cases of the United Kingdom variant B.1.1.7. with 5,616 cases in 80 jurisdictions.

The first case of the South African variant B.1.351 was confirmed by the state Bureau of Laboratories in a boy living in Jackson County. There are a total of 26 cases of the variant now.

The first case of the P.1 variant from Brazil was identified in a Bay County resident. There are now 66 confirmed cases of P.1.

There are also 231 confirmed cases of B.1.427 and B.1.429, two variants formed in California.

Wayne County has the largest spread of the B.1.1.7 variant with more than 556 cases including 157 in Detroit. Wayne, Washtenaw, Macomb and Genesse counties have five of six variants. Clinton County has all the reported variants.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 896521001/

I suspect the Indian variant is in more US states.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2679
featureless wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 11:29 am Yup. It would be foolish to think the India variant isn't already all over the world. It seems to be attacking young and healthy people as well. The scenes coming out of India are not dissimilar to those of China when this shit show started. I really hope we're not going to do 2020 over.
Amen to that. I think there would be rebellion. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are working on boosters, I hope the feds are prepared to pay for them like they are doing for the initial vaccinations and for semiannual or annual ones like the flu vaccine.

Countries like India and Brazil were disasters waiting to happen, large countries like Indonesia and Nigeria are also worrying. Chile in South America is a great success story along with Uruguay. While the US has fully vaccinated 30% of its population, Japan has only fully vaccinated 0.8% of its population.https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... acker.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2680
We're finally getting somewhere with our understanding of how Covid works.
COVID-19 Is a Vascular Disease: Coronavirus’ Spike Protein Attacks Vascular System on a Cellular Level

Scientists have known for a while that SARS-CoV-2’s distinctive “spike” proteins help the virus infect its host by latching on to healthy cells. Now, a major new study shows that they also play a key role in the disease itself.

The paper, published on April 30, 2021, in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. The findings help explain COVID-19’s wide variety of seemingly unconnected complications, and could open the door for new research into more effective therapies.

“A lot of people think of it as a respiratory disease, but it’s really a vascular disease,” says Assistant Research Professor Uri Manor, who is co-senior author of the study. “That could explain why some people have strokes, and why some people have issues in other parts of the body. The commonality between them is that they all have vascular underpinnings.”
https://scitechdaily.com/covid-19-is-a- ... level/amp/

On a related note, my (almost) brother in law is Indian, living in the US. His sister, still in India, is 10 days into Covid and desperately seeking medical assistance. None to be had. :( I hope she makes it through.

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2682
That Covid-19 wreaks havoc on our circulatory system has been known for at least 6 months and quite some time before that by the researchers searching for best treatments. That it seems to be primarily transmitted via the respiratory system and does damage the lungs of the new host as it spreads throughout the body is undeniable. But it is believed that airborne spread is merely the most efficient method of transmission to new hosts so the lungs become the “landing and organizing point” for Covid-19’s invasion of our bodies.

In truth, this virus does a whole lot of damage to various (interdependent) systems within our body. To narrow the focus down to its injury of our circulatory (vascular) system is to recognize that it is attacking the transportation/communication system on which every other system within our body rely (including our defensive immune system).

Imagine this: Covid-19 is like a foreign enemy which enters a country and seeks to take it over by carpet-bombing not just cities for military and industrial targets but first the interstate highways that connect them (kinda the way we ended up bombing the hell out of the jungles in Vietnam/Cambodia). Knowing this about our enemy is really the best way to establish a defense against its strategy for invasion.

Doctors have the best chances of saving patients when they have drugs and treatments which focus on protecting the vascular system against Covid-19.

In the meantime: Vit C as an antioxidant to reduce inflammation, Vit D to boost your immune system efficacy, and Lysine as a general anti-viral (replicator disruptor).
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2683
Bisbee wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 12:19 pm But it is believed that airborne spread is merely the most efficient method of transmission to new hosts so the lungs become the “landing and organizing point” for Covid-19’s invasion of our bodies.

Yes an efficient system to spread the virus with people unmasked in close proximity.
The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus.

Respiratory droplets are produced during exhalation (e.g., breathing, speaking, singing, coughing, sneezing) and span a wide spectrum of sizes that may be divided into two basic categories based on how long they can remain suspended in the air:

Larger droplets some of which are visible and that fall out of the air rapidly within seconds to minutes while close to the source.

Smaller droplets and particles (formed when small droplets dry very quickly in the airstream) that can remain suspended for many minutes to hours and travel far from the source on air currents.

Once respiratory droplets are exhaled and as they move outward from the source, their concentration decreases through fallout from the air (largest droplets first, smaller later) combined with dilution of the remaining smaller droplets and particles into the growing volume of air they encounter.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... cov-2.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2684
Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives.

Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.

Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.

“The virus is unlikely to go away,” said Rustom Antia, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “But we want to do all we can to check that it’s likely to become a mild infection.”

The shift in outlook presents a new challenge for public health authorities. The drive for herd immunity — by the summer, some experts once thought possible — captured the imagination of large segments of the public. To say the goal will not be attained adds another “why bother” to the list of reasons that vaccine skeptics use to avoid being inoculated.

Yet vaccinations remain the key to transforming the virus into a controllable threat, experts said.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on Covid-19, acknowledged the shift in experts’ thinking.

“People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is,” he said.

“That’s why we stopped using herd immunity in the classic sense,” he added. “I’m saying: Forget that for a second. You vaccinate enough people, the infections are going to go down.”
Once the novel coronavirus began to spread across the globe in early 2020, it became increasingly clear that the only way out of the pandemic would be for so many people to gain immunity — whether through natural infection or vaccination — that the virus would run out of people to infect. The concept of reaching herd immunity became the implicit goal in many countries, including the United States.

Early on, the target herd immunity threshold was estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population. Most experts, including Dr. Fauci, expected that the United States would be able to reach it once vaccines were available.

But as vaccines were developed and distribution ramped up through the winter and into the spring, estimates of the threshold began to rise. That is because the initial calculations were based on the contagiousness of the original version of the virus. The predominant variant now circulating in the United States, called B.1.1.7 and first identified in Britain, is about 60 percent more transmissible.

As a result, experts now calculate the herd immunity threshold to be at least 80 percent. If even more contagious variants develop, or if scientists find that immunized people can still transmit the virus, the calculation will have to be revised upward again.

Polls show that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is still reluctant to be vaccinated. That number is expected to improve but probably not enough. “It is theoretically possible that we could get to about 90 percent vaccination coverage, but not super likely, I would say,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Though resistance to the vaccines is a main reason the United States is unlikely to reach herd immunity, it is not the only one.

Herd immunity is often described as a national target. But that is a hazy concept in a country this large.
How insulated a particular region is from the coronavirus depends on a dizzying array of factors.

Herd immunity can fluctuate with “population crowding, human behavior, sanitation and all sorts of other things,” said Dr. David M. Morens, a virologist and senior adviser to Dr. Fauci. “The herd immunity for a wealthy neighborhood might be X, then you go into a crowded neighborhood one block away and it’s 10X.”

Given the degree of movement among regions, a small virus wave in a region with a low vaccination level can easily spill over into an area where a majority of the population is protected.

At the same time, the connectivity between countries, particularly as travel restrictions ease, emphasizes the urgency of protecting not just Americans but everyone in the world, said Natalie E. Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Any variants that arise in the world will eventually reach the United States, she noted.

Many parts of the world lag far behind the United States on vaccinations. Less than 2 percent of the people in India have been fully vaccinated, for example, and less than 1 percent in South Africa, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

“We will not achieve herd immunity as a country or a state or even as a city until we have enough immunity in the population as a whole,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the Covid-19 Modeling Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin.
If the herd immunity threshold is not attainable, what matters most is the rate of hospitalizations and deaths after pandemic restrictions are relaxed, experts believe.

By focusing on vaccinating the most vulnerable, the United States has already brought those numbers down sharply. If the vaccination levels of that group continue to rise, the expectation is that over time the coronavirus may become seasonal, like the flu, and affect mostly the young and healthy.

“What we want to do at the very least is get to a point where we have just really sporadic little flare-ups,” said Carl Bergstrom, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “That would be a very sensible target in this country where we have an excellent vaccine and the ability to deliver it.”

Over the long term — a generation or two — the goal is to transition the new coronavirus to become more like its cousins that cause common colds. That would mean the first infection is early in childhood, and subsequent infections are mild because of partial protection, even if immunity wanes.

Some unknown proportion of people with mild cases may go on to experience debilitating symptoms for weeks or months — a syndrome called “long Covid” — but they are unlikely to overwhelm the health care system.

“The vast majority of the mortality and of the stress on the health care system comes from people with a few particular conditions, and especially people who are over 60,” Dr. Lipsitch said. “If we can protect those people against severe illness and death, then we will have turned Covid from a society disrupter to a regular infectious disease.”

If communities maintain vigilant testing and tracking, it may be possible to bring the number of new cases so low that health officials can identify any new introduction of the virus and immediately stifle a potential outbreak, said Bary Pradelski, an economist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France. He and his colleagues described this strategy in a paper published on Thursday in the scientific journal The Lancet.

“Eradication is, I think, impossible at this stage,” Dr. Pradelski said. “But you want local elimination.”
The endpoint has changed, but the most pressing challenge remains the same: persuading as many people as possible to get the shot.

Reaching a high level of immunity in the population “is not like winning a race,” Dr. Lipsitch said. “You have to then feed it. You have to keep vaccinating to stay above that threshold.”

Skepticism about the vaccines among many Americans and lack of access in some groups — homeless populations, migrant workers or some communities of color — make it a challenge to achieve that goal. Vaccine mandates would only make that stance worse, some experts believe.

A better approach would be for a trusted figure to address the root cause of the hesitancy — fear, mistrust, misconceptions, ease of access or a desire for more information, said Mary Politi, an expert in health decision making and health communication at Washington University in St. Louis.

People often need to see others in their social circle embracing something before they are willing to try it, Dr. Politi said. Emphasizing the benefits of vaccination to their lives, like seeing a family member or sending their children to school, might be more motivating than the nebulous idea of herd immunity.

“That would resonate with people more than this somewhat elusive concept that experts are still trying to figure out,” she added.

Though children spread the virus less efficiently than adults do, the experts all agreed that vaccinating children would also be important for keeping the number of Covid cases low. In the long term, the public health system will also need to account for babies, and for children and adults who age into a group with higher risk.

Unnerving scenarios remain on the path to this long-term vision.

Over time, if not enough people are protected, highly contagious variants may develop that can break through vaccine protection, land people in the hospital and put them at risk of death.

“That’s the nightmare scenario,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University.

How frequent and how severe those breakthrough infections are have the potential to determine whether the United States can keep hospitalizations and deaths low or if the country will find itself in a “mad scramble” every couple of years, he said.

“I think we’re going to be looking over our shoulders — or at least public health officials and infectious disease epidemiologists are going to be looking over their shoulders going: ‘All right, the variants out there — what are they doing? What are they capable of?” he said. “Maybe the general public can go back to not worrying about it so much, but we will have to.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/heal ... ccine.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2685
Bisbee wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 4:19 pm Because the airlines need to make money. And business people need to sign deals. And pretty much because you can.

Folks these days don’t think of community but mainly in terms of the bottom line. Unless it gets real bad.
Then they bitch about how their "rights" are being violated by un'mer-cun lib'rul soshulests.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2686
A federal government official told CNN the Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine in children and teens 12 to 15 years old by early next week. A federal government official told CNN the Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize Pfizer/BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine in children and teens 12 to 15 years old by early next week.

Pfizer has applied for emergency use authorization. The FDA, which is currently reviewing data submitted by Pfizer, will have to amend the emergency use authorization for the vaccine, but the process should be straightforward, the official said. A group of advisers to the CDC will schedule a meeting for after any FDA decision to extend the EUA to new age groups and will advise the CDC on whether to recommend the use of the vaccine in 12 to 15 year-olds.

Walensky will then have to decide whether the agency will recommend the vaccine's use in the new age group. "That will immediately add millions of more people eligible for vaccination. I bet a lot of those kids will get vaccinated," Jha told CNN. "That will make a big difference as well in terms of building up population immunity."

Pfizer and Moderna are both testing their vaccines in children as young as 6 months old and expect to ask the FDA for EUAs covering infants and children later this year.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/health/u ... index.html


Then Pfizer and Moderna need to be formally approved after which healthcare, the military, emergency services, school districts...can mandate that their personnel get vaccinated.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2687
While the Biden administration has been racing to maximize the number of Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, government researchers have also been working on what form the next generation of vaccines will take.

They may be combined with the seasonal flu vaccine, or could come in the form of pills or patches instead of shots. Scientists also envision vaccines that might shield against viruses beyond SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) that could avert future pandemics.

And they're evaluating whether those who are fully vaccinated might need booster shots later this year. Additional shots could be virtually identical to the first doses, given as a safeguard against the possibility of waning immunity or tweaked to defend against mutant strains that are raising concerns.
Here's what we know about the next-generation landscape of coronavirus vaccines:

Booster shots

The three major vaccine manufacturers with shots authorized in the U.S., Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, have plans for — or are already testing — an additional shot. The booster shots are expected to be very similar to current vaccines but could come in a smaller dose.

"With many vaccines, we understand that at a certain point in time we need to boost, whether that's 9 months, 12 months. And we are preparing for that," Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for the administration's COVID-19 response, told lawmakers last month. Boosters might also be blended with the annual seasonal flu shot. Moderna said it's planning early trials of these kinds of combined shots this year. Other combinations of vaccines are already frequently used to immunize younger children against multiple diseases in a single doctor's visit.

However, administration officials say no decision has yet been reached on how booster shots would be used — or whether they would even be needed.
What about variants?

While booster shots renew the body's immunity to the virus by mimicking parts of the original strain first identified in China, vaccine makers are also trying to tweak their doses to address newer variants of SARS-CoV-2, some of which are spreading more quickly and may cause more severe illness.

This isn't unusual; seasonal flu vaccines are regularly changed to address mutations spotted in the virus around the world.

Dr. John Mascola, head of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says understanding SARS-CoV-2's mutations is "a major focus" for federal scientists.

The NIH has devoted funding and researchers from across its campus to answering key questions about variations in the virus. Some scientists are focused on testing the impact mutations could have on vaccine efficacy. Others are working to better understand and map its "epitopes," spots where antibodies can target SARS-CoV-2's signature spike protein.

"That's sort of a basic scientific body of knowledge that, in the long run, can guide antibody therapies but also guide vaccine design. Basically saying, 'Can I understand how the virus is going to escape and can I account for that,'" Mascola explained.

Moderna and Pfizer are both pursuing possible versions of their doses adjusted for the B.1.351 variant first spotted in South Africa, though research so far suggests their current vaccines may remain mostly effective against the mutant. The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which isn't authorized for use in the U.S., has been found to provide only "minimal" protection against the South African variant.

"The reason they are choosing that strain is it's one of the ones we know about now, with the variants of concern that are out there, that's the most antigenically different," said Mascola.

Mascola also raised the possibility that developing a booster with the South Africa variant could provide more protection.

"For example, if we boost with the B.1.351 strain and we see that the serum antibodies are broader, not only do they neutralize the original strain but also B.1.351 and other variants, then that may be a preferred approach," added Mascola.

Skipping the needle

There's also a substantial effort underway to come up with vaccines that don't rely on needles and syringes to be administered, after record demand strained the complex global supply chain amid the pandemic. Some projects could make it easier to store and transport the vaccine, without the expensive freezers and dry ice currently required for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

For example, future doses could be inhaled through the nose instead of shot into arms. The NIH recently touted promising results from a single-dose intranasal vaccine tested on monkeys, similar to AstraZeneca's.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) last year also announced millions of dollars in contracts to develop a handful of other alternatives delivered by wearable patches or pills, deploying the agency's experts to shepherd developers through early trials and regulatory approvals.

Vaxess Technologies claims its self-applied patch is shelf stable and painless, delivering its vaccine through microscopic "projections" that dissolve into the skin.

"We're working with the companies, with the different technologies, to potentially partner them with the six vaccine candidates that are currently being supported by the U.S. government," said BARDA Director Gary Disbrow.

BARDA hopes the firms can show in smaller trials that they trigger the same kind of immune response as the currently authorized vaccine doses, which could speed their availability to the general public.

"The technologies have been shown for other viral pathogens, but we are trying to support them for the clinical trials. And again, the timing is really dependent upon whether we can identify those correlates for protection," added Disbrow.

A "pan-coronavirus" vaccine

Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research recently announced early trials of a vaccine relying on a "spike ferritin nanoparticle" that has shown some promising results against variants of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the earlier, related virus known as SARS-CoV-1.

"Over the last four years, we've been working on trying to move away from one virus, one vaccine. And try to really have vaccines for the future," says M. Gordon Joyce, a top scientist at WRAIR's emerging infectious diseases branch.

Unlike the other currently authorized vaccines, WRAIR's experimental doses are designed to deliver engineered triplets of the spike proteins they hope will train immune systems to produce a greater quantity and diversity of antibodies. Similar to other classic "protein vaccines," developers say these doses could prove to be sturdier than vaccines that require carefully controlled climates to keep stable.

The researchers say they are in talks with commercial partners for possible next steps for their shots. The current batch of doses being tested could be developed into a "variant-proof" vaccine, booster shots, or serve just as a "proof of principle" for future vaccines aimed at broader groups of coronaviruses.

"We didn't think that we would already be here with a pan-SARS-like virus vaccine, but it appears we may be there," says Kayvon Modjarrad, director of WRAIR's emerging infectious diseases branch.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-v ... r-options/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2688
The White House on Tuesday told states that coronavirus vaccine doses they choose not to order will become available to other states — the most significant shift in domestic vaccine distribution since President Biden took office, and part of an effort to account for flagging demand in parts of the country.

The changes were unveiled to governors as Biden set a goal of providing at least one shot to 70 percent of adults by July 4, an increase that would account for about 40 million more people in the next two months. That level of coverage could drive down cases sharply, as it did in Britain and Israel. But achieving it, experts said, depends on efficiently delivering shots to places where people are still rolling up their sleeves — or can be persuaded to do so.


“The sooner we get the most people vaccinated not only in our local regions, but around the country, the sooner we will have fewer variants developing and less spread in general,” said David Kimberlin, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Now that there are places saying, ‘Our freezers are full, so please don’t send any more,’ there needs to be an ability to reallocate.”

Each state’s share of the total U.S. adult population will still determine weekly allocations. But instead of carrying over unordered doses week to week, the White House will steer untapped vaccine into a federal bank available to states seeking additional supply. Those states will be able to order up to 50 percent above their weekly allocation, while states declining their complete allotments one week will still have access to their entire share the following week.
The strategy, designed to maximize flexibility for states, could transform how vaccine flows across the country. In recent weeks, numerous states have begun leaving significant quantities of doses unordered. Last week, officials in Arkansas declined the state’s entire share. The state’s Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, said he favored the changes because doses that may be unneeded in Arkansas “can be used for the urgent needs across the country, where there’s a higher acceptance rate, where there’s a higher demand.”

“Maybe that’s a motivator — that if we don’t use the vaccines that are available to us here in Arkansas, then those vaccines might go to Massachusetts, because there’s a higher acceptance rate there,” he said during a briefing, noting in an appeal to state residents, “We have to increase our demand for it.”

The scramble to use all available shots is intensifying as the pace of daily vaccinations decreases significantly — and as health authorities pivot to inoculating hesitant and hard-to-reach populations. The seven-day average of daily shots administered dropped by 17 percent during the past week, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post, and by 33 percent since April 13.
Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said the changes reflect how quickly the government has been able to make shots available to everyone who wants them.

People willing to drive long distances have been covered, he said. More than 80 percent of people older than 65 have received at least one dose. In the next phase of the immunization campaign, defined by efforts to improve access and build confidence, “there is a need to add more flexibility to the current system,” Zients said in an interview.

The White House was at pains to avoid the perception of penalizing states — or of picking winners and losers. Those deciding not to order their full allocation in a given week will not lose out permanently, instead ceding supply on a one-time basis. The changes are sensitive because governors have grown protective of vaccine supply, eager to tout expanding availability after a period of intense scarcity in the winter.
Freeing up unordered doses “accomplishes what we all want to accomplish,” New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), chairman of the National Governors Association, said on Tuesday’s White House call with governors, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Post. “You have state control of your allocation. If a state isn’t using it, then a state that can use it has access to it, which makes a lot of sense to all of us, I think.”

Governors requested additional flexibility, including the option to take control of doses currently being directed to pharmacies in their states.

“I just think we can better use those doses,” Delaware Gov. John Carney (D) said on the call, pointing to the state’s efforts to achieve equity in access to immunization by “intentionally doing that kind of outreach.” Zients said he would examine the issue.
As part of the changes announced Tuesday, pharmacies will have greater flexibility to redistribute doses to places where demand is greatest. Guidelines for the federal program made 80 percent of the pharmacy supply tethered to a state’s population and the remaining 20 percent available for stores to reallocate. Going forward, only a majority of the supply will be dictated by a state’s population, and pharmacies will have discretion over as much as 49 percent of the deliveries.
Nearly 30 million doses were allocated this week, Zients told governors, with about 18.5 million doses made available to states and other jurisdictions. He said the Food and Drug Administration could authorize use of the Baltimore plant producing Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine in a “matter of a week or two,” making significantly more of the single-shot vaccine available in the United States.

That vaccine, because of its easier handling and storage requirements, is key to expanding access in rural areas and among other hard-to-reach groups, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) said. It could also be a major asset for primary care physicians poised to build confidence in the shots, he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ion-biden/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2689
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses.

“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in a statement.

“As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts — working with the private sector and all possible partners — to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines,” the statement added.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised the U.S. decision as a “monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19” that reflects the “moral leadership” of the White House in the fight to end the pandemic.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses.

“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai wrote in a statement.

“As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts — working with the private sector and all possible partners — to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution. It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines,” the statement added.

The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised the U.S. decision as a “monumental moment in the fight against Covid-19” that reflects the “moral leadership” of the White House in the fight to end the pandemic.
Stocks of major pharmaceutical companies that have produced vaccines, including Moderna, BioNTech and Pfizer, dropped sharply after news of the potential waivers first broke. Pfizer ended its trading day flat, while Moderna lost 6.1%; Johnson & Johnson shed a modest 0.4%.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America expressed pointed opposition to the Biden administration’s support for waiving IP protections. The trade group’s members include vaccine makers such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

“In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety,” said Stephen J. Ubi, the group’s president and CEO. “This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines. ”

World Trade Organization leaders reportedly urged member nations this week to quickly hash out the details of an agreement to temporarily ease the rules protecting intellectual property behind coronavirus vaccines. The waiver, proposed by South Africa and India, could remove obstacles to ramping up the production of vaccines in developing countries.

An administration official with knowledge of Tai’s decision cautioned that the WTO’s discussions over waivers could take time and, since the body’s rulings are based on consensus, will require approval from all 164 members.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that Tai held at least two dozen meetings and calls with various industry stakeholders, including the major vaccine manufacturers. The person added that Tai plans to advocate for friendly cooperation between global firms to ease supply-chain bottlenecks.

President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday affirmed that the White House would back the World Trade Organization’s IP waiver proposal. “Yes, I’m going to talk about that later today. Yes,” Biden said shortly before Tai’s statement was released.

The Biden administration’s move comes as coronavirus infections surge to their highest levels in countries that have struggled to procure or distribute vaccines, highlighting a contrast with other nations, including the U.S., Canada and the U.K.
In April, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed lifting the patent protections of coronavirus vaccines with Biden, according to a readout of their call. The relaxation would grant governments quicker and more affordable access to the lifesaving doses.

Last week, the Biden administration announced that it will immediately make raw materials needed for India’s coronavirus vaccine production available.

Critics have argued that patents on vaccines and other protections are not the central obstacle to producing more vaccines for the nations that need them most. Some also suggest such agreements could harm companies’ incentives to innovate during future pandemics.

“This is a huge misstep by the Biden Administration that will do nothing to increase vaccine distribution and will endorse China’s ability to piggyback on U.S. innovation to further its vaccine diplomacy aims,” Clete Willems, a former attorney at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said of the decision.

“A solution more in line with the Administration’s stated objectives of improving U.S. competitiveness and keeping jobs in America would be to produce and export vaccines from the United States,” said Willems, who worked under both the Obama and Trump administrations.

A Washington Post editorial this week said the goal of creating a “people’s vaccine” to defeat Covid is “more slogan than solution.”

McNeal acknowledged the concerns voiced by Willems, but noted that Tai’s decision to make its vaccines broadly available may offer the Biden administration a backdoor way to improve American geopolitical standing abroad.

“There is no question that vaccine diplomacy has become a major part of the geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China, and to some extent Russia and its Sputnik vaccine,” McNeal wrote. “This move it will severely undercut the Chinese efforts to spread its vaccine (and influence) globally.”

“If the U.S. doesn’t move on something like this with India in particular, it begs the question for many U.S. allies and partners ‘what’s in it for us?’ to move closer to the U.S. versus China if we can’t even get assistance in our time of need,” he added.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/05/us-back ... dwide.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2691
This very issue of relaxing Covid vaccine patents was raised last year by India’s President Modi and other the leaders. The rich countries opposed it and the WTO weighed in against it. This was during the time of huge infections rates and deaths in America and the West so it couldn’t be said that nobody could have predicted the humanitarian disaster and escalating crisis happening in India right now.

This reversal by the Biden Admin is welcome news. But the greed and ignorance of some humans really make me sick to my stomach.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2692
Producing any vaccine takes raw material, equipment and most importantly expertise and every underdeveloped country doesn't have it. Moderna and AstraZeneca got federal funds, but Pfizer did not. Their partner BioNTech got some funds from the German government.

Yes, it behooves wealthy western countries to get the rest of the world vaccinated as fast as it can to reduce the number of variants. If the price of the vaccines could be radically reduced western countries could help subsidize vaccines in poorer countries.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2693
When it comes to the pandemic, if there's anything world leaders agree on it's that no one is protected until everyone is.

But they are struggling to agree on how to boost vaccine production amid a huge difference between vaccination rates in advanced and poorer nations.

This week, the US voiced its support for a temporary lift on the patents on vaccinations. But some countries have pushed back, insisting there are better options.
Medicines and other inventions are covered by patents which provide legal protection against being copied, and vaccines are no exception.

Patents give makers the rights to their discoveries as well as the means to make more money from them - which is an incentive to encourage innovation.

But these are not normal times.

Last autumn, developing nations led by India and South Africa proposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that the patents on vaccinations and other Covid-related items should be waived.

They argued that, given the extreme nature of the pandemic, the recipe for the life-saving jabs should be made widely available so they could be produced locally in bulk by other manufacturers.
The proposals were met with immediate criticism from pharmaceutical companies and Western nations including the EU, UK and - at that point - the US.

Most of the costs involved in coming up with vaccines are incurred in research and development: the manufacturing bit tends to cost less.

The obvious objection to lifting patents is that it could erode revenue and deter innovation.
So, does this just come down to money? No. The waiver would be temporary - and some vaccine makers like AstraZeneca are offering doses at cost.

The key argument from vaccine producers and their home countries is that waiving patents alone wouldn't solve much. It would, they say, be like handing out a recipe without the ingredients or instructions.

The patent covers the bare bones of the blue print but not the precise production process. That's crucial here. Vaccines of the mRNA type - such as Pfizer and Moderna - are a new breed and only a small number of people understand how to make them.


BioNTech, the German company which partnered with Pfizer, have said that developing the manufacturing process took a decade and validating production sites can take up to a year. The availability of the raw materials needed has also been an issue.

Industry bodies fear that without access to all the know-how and parts, a waiver could result in quality, safety and efficacy issues and possibly even counterfeits. They point out that Moderna has already said it would not prosecute those found to be infringing their patent - but no one has yet.
The EU says it is ready to talk, but it previously said the best short-term fix would be supply chain improvements and pushing richer countries to export more jabs.
The UK says it is one of the biggest donors to Covax, which is masterminding the rollout of vaccines to many poorer countries. It also favours voluntary licensing - such as collaborations between the Serum Institute of India and Oxford-AstraZeneca. It wants the WTO, which oversees the rules on global trade, to support more partnerships.

The WTO system allows for this licensing arrangement to go even further. Governments can impose compulsory licenses on vaccine makers, compelling them to share their know-how and overseeing the production process along the way. But those pharmaceutical companies would have to be compensated for doing so.
The announcement came after the US Trade Representative Katharine Tai held meetings with the big vaccine makers in an effort to supercharge vaccine production.

But some trade specialists must have queried if the move might be a negotiating tactic, to persuade vaccine makers to cooperate to a greater degree with licensing, either voluntarily or for a reduced charge.

Now the discussions will continue at the WTO where decisions are made by consensus.

Without the backing of other key nations, the proposals may stall. But they may pave the way to a compromise that could boost production.

The key question is when - and by how much.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57016260


Angela Merkel the leader of the largest EU country has come out against waving the patents and Vladimir Putin of Russia is in favor of it. I assume Xi of China will come out in favor.

None of the major vaccine manufacturers want to just give out their formulas and then have some country make what they call a vaccine using the "Pfizer formula" and people start dying or get seriously ill. Just look at how a US manufacturer, Emergent Biosolutions screwed up making the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines in a Baltimore plant under FDA supervision.

Biden's just looking ahead to the time when we can use our excess supply for "vaccine diplomacy" around the world like Modi and Xi were doing. India is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, but they only make the Oxford-AstraZeneca under license called Covidshield which Modi was giving away, they don't make the mRNA vaccines.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2694
Meanwhile, back in Japan, they've recorded high daily new infections (6,000+) and highest daily deaths (141). Governent extended and expands the State of Emergency while officials remain committed to holding the Tokyo Olympic Games.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2695
Bisbee wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 9:50 pm Meanwhile, back in Japan, they've recorded high daily new infections (6,000+) and highest daily deaths (141). Governent extended and expands the State of Emergency while officials remain committed to holding the Tokyo Olympic Games.

They were originally set to take place in 2020 but were delayed a year. Guess they don't want to tarnish their image by delaying it again, but even without foreign visitors the virus could surge among the athletes. And unless they ban the world's media, they will have foreigners in Japan. The pace of vaccination rollout in Japan is mindboggling.
Unused COVID-19 vaccines in Japan are set to reach tens of millions of doses, as the country is poised to approve two more shots in coming weeks and the pace of its inoculation campaign remains slow due to manpower and logistical bottlenecks.

Japan imported 28 million doses of Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N) COVID-19 vaccine through late April, but has so far used only 15% of the stockpile, with the remaining 24 million doses sitting in freezers.

Japan's vaccine supply is set to increase sharply as regulators are preparing to decide on May 20 on approval of the shots developed by Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L), national broadcaster NHK reported late on Thursday.

The first batch of the Moderna vaccine had already arrived and an estimated 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca shot are being prepared by its local domestic partners.

Pfizer shipments are also due to accelerate to more than 35 million doses this month and next. But against all this supply -- Japan has secured the largest amount of COVID-19 vaccines in Asia, as it gears up for the Olympics in the summer-- just over 4 million doses have administered to health care workers and the elderly.

It has inoculated only 2.2% of its population so far, the slowest among wealthy countries, and the government has an ambitious target of inoculating its 36 million elderly people by July.

To achieve that goal, Japan would need to administer about 800,000 shots per day, according to a group of business leaders urging the government to speed up the campaign, more than double the pace of the best days so far.

Taro Kono, the minister in charge of vaccines, said that there were snags in inoculation reservation system and that demand in large cities had outstripped capacity.

"Local government employees are really working hard, as are the call center staff so I ask that people refrain from issuing complaints as much as possible," Kono told reporters on Friday.

Japan began its vaccination push in February, later than most major economies, and logistical hurdles, mainly manpower, has also slowed the pace of its campaign.

About 2 million healthcare workers are still waiting for their first of the two shot regimen, and that has led to some frustration in the medical community, said Kazuaki Jindai, a physician and researcher in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo.

"It's not very transparent in terms of what's going on," said Jindai, who is still waiting for a second shot.


The government tasked the Defense Ministry to set up a mass inoculation site in Tokyo and Osaka by May 24. But there is still no timetable for when the general population will receive the shots and some health experts expect it could take until the winter or longer.

Representatives for AstraZeneca and Kono’s office declined to comment on the NHK report on approval timeline. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co (4502.T), which is handling imports of Moderna’s vaccine, did not immediately respond.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 021-05-07/
Participants in this summer’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will have access to donated doses of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccines, the International Olympic Committee said Thursday, as the Games’ organizers attempt to boost the prospects of a giant global event whose status remains uncertain. The vaccines are approved for use in less than half the nations around the world, however, and some public health advocates believe they are coming too late to make a significant difference. (Bachman and Radnofsky, 5/6)
https://khn.org/morning-breakout/pfizer ... speeds-up/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2696
A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures.

Worldwide, the study's authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million.


The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical non pandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors.
Researchers estimated dramatic undercounts in countries such as India, Mexico and Russia, where they said the official death counts are some 400,000 too low in each country. In some countries — including Japan, Egypt and several Central Asian nations — the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's death toll estimate is more than 10 times higher than reported totals.
Researchers at UW ultimately concluded that the extra deaths not directly caused by COVID-19 were effectively offset by the other reductions in death rates, leaving them to attribute all of the net excess deaths to the coronavirus.

"When you put all that together, we conclude that the best way, the closest estimate, for the true COVID death is still excess mortality, because some of those things are on the positive side, other factors are on the negative side," Murray said.
Experts are in agreement that official reports of COVID-19 deaths undercount the true death toll of the virus. Some countries only report deaths that take place in hospitals, or only when patients are confirmed to have been infected; others have poor health care access altogether.

"We see, for example, that when health systems get hit hard with individuals with COVID, understandably they devote their time to trying to take care of patients," Murray said.

Because of that, many academics have sought to estimate a true COVID-19 death rate to understand better how the disease spreads.

The revised statistical model used by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation team produced numbers larger than many other analyses, raising some eyebrows in the scientific community. "I think that the overall message of this (that deaths have been substantially undercounted and in some places more than others) is likely sound, but the absolute numbers are less so for a lot of reasons," said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, in an email to NPR.

Last month, a group of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University published a study in the medical journal JAMA that examined excess mortality rates in the U.S. through December. While that team similarly found the number of excess deaths far exceeded the official COVID-19 death toll, it disagreed that the gap could be blamed entirely on COVID-19 and not other causes.

"Their estimate of excess deaths is enormous and inconsistent with our research and others," said Dr. Steven Woolf, who led the Virginia Commonwealth team. "There are a lot of assumptions and educated guesses built into their model."

Other researchers applauded the UW study, calling the researchers' effort to produce a global model important, especially in identifying countries with small reported outbreaks but larger estimates of a true death toll, which could indicate the virus is spreading more widely than previously thought.

"We need to better understand the impact of COVID across the globe so that countries can understand the trajectory of the pandemic and figure out where to deploy additional resources, like testing supplies and vaccines to stop the spread," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins.

Researchers at UW also released an updated forecast for the COVID-19 death count worldwide, estimating that roughly 2.5 million more people will die of COVID-19 between now and Sept. 1, driven in part by the dramatic surge of cases in India.

In the United States, researchers estimated roughly 44,000 more people will die of COVID-19 by September.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronaviru ... -19-in-u-s
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2697
Even as the pace of vaccinations falls in the U.S., the country reported passing two milestones on Friday: More than 150 million are now at least partially vaccinated, and more than a third of Americans are fully vaccinated, CDC data released Friday afternoon shows.

Data shows about 111 million Americans are fully vaccinated, about 33% of the total population in the U.S., and another 150 million people have received their fist shot of the vaccine. But the pace of vaccinations has been slowing from its peak on April 10 of 4.6 million daily shots. Public health agencies are working harder to get shots in arms, a critical effort that could help President Joe Biden's new goal of 70% of Americans getting at least one shot by July 4.

The milestones were announced after Pfizer and BioNTech said Friday they had submitted an application for full FDA approval of their COVID-19 vaccine for people ages 16 and older. Like other COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S., Pfizer-BioNTech is currently being administered under an emergency use authorization. In the midst of a pandemic, the FDA said it was more important to get vaccines to people quickly.

Pfizer's vaccine would become the first in the U.S. to be assessed for full FDA approval. It is unclear how long the review will take, but Pfizer's CEO Albert Bourla spoke of "the goal of securing full regulatory approval of the vaccine in the coming months," according to a prepared statement.

After trials and 134 million shots, the vaccine has been shown to safely and effectively prevent COVID-19, and no additional safety issues have come up since the vaccine was authorized, according to the companies and periodic safety reviews by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/hea ... 980126001/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2698
While hospitals plead for life-saving oxygen and Covid-19 patients die in their thousands, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing ahead with a $1.8 billion parliamentary revamp -- including a new home for the country's leader [Prime Minister].

The decision to continue with the project in the capital, New Delhi, has infuriated the public and opposition politicians, who have pointed to the apparent disconnect in pouring millions into a construction project when the country is struggling with its worst-ever public health crisis.

The pricey renovation, known as the Central Vista Redevelopment Project, has been categorized as an "essential service," meaning construction is allowed to continue even when most other building projects have been halted.
Two citizens -- including one with Covid-19 whose mother also has the virus -- lodged a case with the Delhi High Court on Wednesday to try to halt construction, which has continued even while the capital is in lockdown.

The petitioners argue the parliament buildings don't constitute an essential service and construction work could even become a Covid super-spreader event, according to special leave petition filed by lawyer Nitin Saluja. Workers are continuing to be ferried from their labor camp to the construction site, according to the document.

The High Court offered to hear the case later this month, but petitioners took the matter to the Supreme Court, arguing the lower court had "failed to appreciate the gravity" of the situation.
"People are dying of Covid but (Prime Minister Modi's) priority is the Central Vista project," tweeted Yashwant Sinha, the former minister of finance and external affairs. "Should we not be building hospitals instead? How much more price the nation must pay for electing a meglomaniac?"

Earlier this week, opposition MP Rahul Gandhi said: "The (Prime Minister's) ego is bigger than people's lives."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/06/india/in ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: New SARS type virus spreading in China

2699
highdesert wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 2:52 pm
A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures.

Worldwide, the study's authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million.


The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who looked at excess mortality from March 2020 through May 3, 2021, compared it with what would be expected in a typical non pandemic year, then adjusted those figures to account for a handful of other pandemic-related factors.
<snip>
I'm not smart enough to figure this out in detail, but yeah, it seems obvious to me that the reported COVID-19 death toll is an underestimate. Certainly there are more who died directly from the disease than we were able to count. But on top of that, how do you account for the patient of mine who recovered from COVID-19 after a prolonged hospitalization then died from a heart attack a month later? He died elsewhere so I didn't do his death certificate, but without current respiratory symptoms, I'll bet he wasn't listed as a COVID-19 death. No history of heart disease prior. Also, how about the nursing home residents who've just given up and died because of the severe isolation of 2020. I don't have cases to report on that, but anecdotally physicians I know have reported that (anectdote does not equal data, but still rings true). Also reports of increased drug overdoses, etc. Not COVID-19 deaths, but still.

In the end, it seems you look at excess mortality and unless there was something else going on you can pin a lot of it on the pandemic and/or the response.

To me, it's like counting war deaths. You didn't have to die by bullet, bomb, or bayonet to be counted as war dead. You include all the crap that happens because there is a war going on--starvation, infection, suicides, etc.

I don't know how to count the death toll from this pandemic--I'll leave that to people smarter than me. But the idea that it was much higher than we are saying rings very true to me.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Amazon [Bot] and 3 guests