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The Vaccine Competition Will Be Ruthless
Debs is dead writes:
[T]he pushback against AstraZeneca including the latest link which is all speculation mixed with the same trash talk wall st analysts have been making, is a blatant move by big pharma to edge AstraZeneca out of the market.
There is more testing to be done on the AstraZeneca vaccine. Yes the discovery of a half dose followed by a full dose seeming to be more efficacious was the result of a distribution accident in one particular cohort comprised of Englanders under 55, AstraZeneca have realised that and have undertaken to extend the 50/100 trial across all age groups and ethnicities in the next testing round.
Also despite the fact that the big pharma mRNA vaccines have published no peer reviewed results, AstraZeneca report that they have sent a peer reviewed study of their complete test results thus far, to the Lancet and they expect these to be published in the next edition of the journal – likely within the next few days.
However many people whine, bitch about all others, then salute the results of Russian & Chinese vaccines the simple fact is a great many communities will be denied access to Russian or Chinese vaccines – that is a reality. Some of these states are in no shape to subscribe to the mRNA vaccines without 'aid' (i.e. ripoff loans) because their health budgets are still having to cover the double Tamiflu scam (they had to sign contracts to replace 'expired' Tamiflu stocks used or not after 3 years) and the more recent Remdesivir scam, all perpetrated by Gilead.
In the real world that means if the AstraZeneca vaccine is more than 60% efficacious (which is better than any flu vaccine – 95% is new big pharma BS IMO) and has no major side effects (one case of MS tells us nothing for the reason I outlined above), then it will be that or nothing for a sizeable slab of the world's population.
If everyone falls for big pharma's transparent attempt to stop this possible vaccine in its tracks, prior to testing completion, then that will mean no vaccine for billions of our fellow humans, so rather than joining in the big pharma sabotage, it makes better sense to consider that vaccine more objectively than de Noli, that Harvard minion of corporations seems to do.
Of course for some theoretical Marxist whose crazed ramblings remind me of the immature garbage one could hear around any Lisbon praça, circa 1975, that will mean little. As the humans of Mozambique, Angola and in particular since I lost friends there , Timor Leste, discovered to their cost.
I agree with the above.
Sure, AstraZeneca has not communicated well. They should have published their trial protocols. They should have been more explicit about their dosing 'mistake'. But the results of their trials are encouraging and the explanation for the higher efficacy with a lower first dose, see below, makes sense.
The AstraZeneca vaccine uses an adenovirus as 'vector' to deliver a DNA sequence that human cells then use to create one specific (but harmless) SARS-CoV-2 protein. The immune system will then learn to attack that protein. Afterwards it should be able to protect against SARS-CoV-2 infections.
There are 57 different adenovirusus that usually occur in humans. Most of us have been infected by some of them, likely in our youth, and have developed some grade of immunity against them. An adenovirus that has been modified to become a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 may therefore be attacked by our immune system before it can achieve its purpose. We may have some 'vector immunity' against some of the adenovirus based vaccines.
In order to safeguard against cases where an already existing immunity to human adenoviruses may impede inoculation AstraZeneca is using a chimpanzee-originated version of an adenovirus as a vector. The Russian Sputnik V vaccine, hyped by Prof. de Noli on RT, uses two doses with different human adenoviruses (Ad-26, Ad-5) as vectors to increase the chance of inoculation. Other vaccine developers, CanSino Biologics and Johnson & Johnson, are also using adenovirus vectors. Sinopharm's vaccine uses an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus.
AstraZeneca found by chance that its vaccine works best when the first dose is smaller than the second one. Vector immunity can explain why this is the case. A first high dose will create some immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also some immunity against the vector virus, the chimpanzee-originated adenovirus. When a first high dose has trained the immune system to fight the vector virus the second 'booster' vaccine dose using the same vector will become inefficient. A lower first dose can make sure that the second higher dose is not prematurely defeated by vector immunity but can still do its work.
The AstraZeneka vaccine was developed by Oxford University. It will be a no-profit vaccine as its development was financed by public money. The cost per dose will be below $3-4.
Both of the mRNA vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer are for-profit vaccines. They seem to be quite good (and no, they do not modify your DNA) but they will cost between $25 and $35 per shot. They also require an elaborate and expensive distribution chain as they can only be stored at very low temperatures. The adenovirus based vaccines can be stored in a normal refrigerator.
The mRNA vaccines hyped in the U.S. media are simply too expensive to be used around the world. If we want to limit the global effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic we will have to use the cheaper vector based vaccines.
That the AstraZeneka vaccine was immediately attacked in U.S. media by an unqualified writer quoting an investment bank and the U.S. pharma promoting (Remdesivir!) Antony Fauci is quite suspicious. Pfizer and Moderna expect to make billions of dollars with their vaccines. They will use all possible ways and means to defeat any potential competition.
None of the results of the ongoing trials under discussion have so far been published in a peer reviewed format. We will have to wait until the end of the trials and the reviewed publication of the results to judge about their real efficacy and potential side effects.
Until then we should be careful not to fall for misinformation from big pharma interests. Nor should we fall for the nonsense from the anti-vaccine crowd.
So far all of the vaccines under discussion seem to be safe and efficient enough to defeat the pandemic. I for one see no reason to reject any of them.
Of course that, as long as the trials are not peer-reviewed a published, we won’t be able to reach any 100% definite conclusion.
I’m not a bio-scientist, all I can do is analyze the available evidence through the prism of historical investigation.
With the evidence available so far, I’ll repost my recently Open Thread comment here and add some new opinion (which was in response to Debsisdead @ 69, the original content for this post):
1) Western Big Pharma “forgot” how to develop new vaccines over these last decades because they’re not profitable. That opened the gates for Gamaleya to occupy the sector, therefore dominating the main technology used today, human adenovirus; (see Dmitriev’s “forbidden op-ed”).
Proof of this is J&J’s difficulty in developing a simple human adenovirus vaccine (by the time they finish theirs, we’ll already have billions of Sputnik V and Sinovac doses produced). The reason we still don’t have an effective cold vaccine is because we don’t have enough investment, not because it is impossible;
2) Sputnik V and Sinovac (and other Chinese variants) use a known, tested and tried technology for their vaccines – human adenovirus -, while Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca use untested and untried technologies (mRNA and chimpanzee adenovirus). It is the difference between the known and the unknown, except that this time hundreds of millions of human lives are at the table. We suspect the Western pharmaceuticals are resorting to these exotic technologies because they want something they can patent and sell at monopolistic prices to national governments; (see Dmitriev’s “forbidden op-ed” and his “questions”)
3) mRNA technology is only effective theoretically. In the real world, it potentially has devastating effects on the human body. It is already known it can potentially cause infertility. It very likely has carcinogenic properties; (see Dmitriev’s “questions”)
4) chimpanzee adenovirus technology doesn’t make any sense when you already have a viable human adenovirus option. Besides the fact that it can cause more adverse effects on a human (because the virus is strange to the human organism), the doctor I linked raised the question of contamination when extracting the adenovirus from the chimpanzees (contamination rate of 10%, or one in ten). It also cause sever spinal cord inflammation – contrary to the official version in much more than one patient. It also probably killed a healthy 28-year old subject in the Brazilian trials (the Brazilian MSM initially “leaked” he was on the placebo group; later even this version was put into doubt)
5) silver bullet vaccines are very rare (e.g. polio). Most likely scenario, these vaccines will just shield you from a severe case of COVID-19, thus relieving the pressure over the national healthcare systems. Deaths of COVID-19 only begin to pile up exponentially after the limit of the healthcare system is surpassed (Italy). That’s the “line of death”, after which COVID-19 really begins to ravage entire populations. In this scenario, it doesn’t make any sense not to go with the tried and tested technology of human adenovirus, over which Gamaleya has primacy, or, second best, the Chinese vaccines, which will be produced the most because China has manufacture supremacy. In the Russian and Chinese options, you have the choice between the best and the most available – a common decision any working class family takes daily in the free market for the purchase of their goods;
6) AstraZeneca will still have privileges in the British market. Evidence of this is the British MSM being the first to publish the fake news that it had 90% efficacy, while the American MSM went with the 70% figure. Make no mistakes: the AstraZeneca will be the only option in the NHS for the British people, with or without transverse myelitis;
7) The “half dose” mistake simply doesn’t happen in the Big Pharma. It is simply not believable. The story is clearly a pathetic attempt of the British to create a comparison with the story of the penicillin discovery (by a British scientist), which also happened by accident. There wasn’t half dose and, even if that really happened (the doctors involved should be immediately fired), you would be giving credence to the homeopathy thesis, which states the lower the dose, the stronger the effect. Doesn’t make any sense.
AstraZeneca, by the way, is already feeling the heat. It will have to redo its trials because nobody was born yesterday:
AstraZeneca considers extra global vaccine trial as questions mount
Let me just reiterate: in theory, both technologies (mRNA and chimpanzee adenovirus) are sound. But there’s a chasm between what works theoretically and what works in practice. The real world is dependent on manufacturing precision and domination of the technique (art). A badly manufactured (because of technological restrictions) mRNA vaccine can damage the human body, with theoretically carcinogenic potential. This is not me talking, this is Kiril Dmitriev.
Also, the British MSM and AstraZeneca clearly tried to hide the extent of the number of “transverse myelitis” cases. We can infer that from The Guardian’s interview with the discovered subject, where it accidentally reveals the subject knew “more cases” (like his) were found. From the point of view of a historian, this indicates corporate cover-up, which indicates the collateral effects are more likely real than not.
As of the “half dose serendipity” episode, see my point #7. Those kind of accidents happened until the beginning of the 20th Century. I find it hard to believe it to happen in Big Pharma – even if in an European one with university support. When I first read this story in The Guardian, it immediately came to my mind Alexander Fleming’s discovery of the penicillin. In my view (as a historian), this was a clear attempt of the British press to evoke this episode in the British imaginary, thus opening a psychological flank for AstraZeneca to the British market.
Either way, this Alexander Fleming-like story doesn’t seem to be fooling the financial markets: its shares fell 2% the day it was announced, and:
AstraZeneca vaccine trial mishap may dent SK Bioscience IPO
Such blatant error of dosage rises the question: if they were unable to get even the dosage correctly, why wouldn’t the screw up the research per se? A valid question.
A big pharmaceutical doesn’t need to produce a vaccine for profit to profit. As I mentioned, AstraZeneca is a public company that can profit through the stock market. To say they won’t profit with the vaccine is social-democratic/center-left nonsense.
Besides, there’s the issue of timing: mRNA technology was going nowhere until the pandemic. Same for the chimpanzee adenovirus one. Then, all of a sudden, just because some Western governments shook their central banks’ money tree, those technologies suddenly became viable? Suddenly, breakthroughs (even by accident!) begun to happen? As a historian, I tend not to believe in such patterns – unless they happen in moments where a given economic system is on the rise (e.g. Second Industrial Revolution, WWII). Wouldn’t it make more sense, in moments of societal desperation when time is too short, to resort to the things you know and dominate instead of trying to jump into the unknown? After all, it’s human nature to try to go back – and not forward – when it’s afraid of the path it’s taking.
Posted by: vk | Nov 27 2020 12:51 utc | 7
This is to elaborate on my post #14…… There are so many things going on with Covid that do not pass the sniff test, vaccination being one of them. Unfortunately, b is not helpful here.
Let’s look at vaccines. A decision to get vaccinated is a matter of risk analysis. On the left-hand side is the risk of Covid and the right side is the risks posed by a vaccine.
Every risk has two components – an (objective) risk profile and a (subjective) perception of risk. My objective risk from Covid depends on my age, comorbidities, lifestyle, etc. I am not young but I am healthy and have a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, my objective risk from Covid is not the highest. This will be different for different peoplw. Then there is the (subjective) perception of risk. Even if two people have similar objective risk profiles, their decisions will be different based on their perception of risk. My perception of risk from Covid is significantly lower than most other people, and that’s because the risk from Covid is being fantastically overblown in the media, including by b. Here are the reasons why.
Every headline you see about “xyz new Covid cases” is overblown because
a. PCR test is not an approved diagnostic test. Not only does it not diagnose a disease called “Covid-19”, it does not diagnose any disease whatsoever. Instead, it looks at fragments of a virus called “SARS Cov-2”, that can (but must not) cause the disease. The virus and the disease are two different things. From those who get a positive PCR reading, a minute fraction will get the infection (depending on the dose and the strength of the immune system) – from which again, a minute fraction will get sick – from which a minute fraction will have a serious case – from which a minute fraction will die. (If you are asking why so many people are dying, then see below).
b. A positive identification is NOT a “case”. In epidemiology, a case is defined as an event when medical intervention is needed (or when the patient dies). That’s why epidemiology deals with Case Fatality Rate CFR and Infection Fatality Rate IFR. Not every positive PCR identification is an “infection”, let alone a “case”.
c. The essence of a PCR test (Polymerase Chain Reaction) is that with every cycle it multiples the target molecule. By running many cycles, it can rapidly identify minute quantities of the molecule. Unfortunately, there is no single standardized PCR test – there are hundreds of them being used.
d. PCR is a very sensitive test. Depending on how many cycles are run, it can detect extremely minute quantities of fragments of the target virus – even levels that will never cause an infection. See a recent ruling in Portugal https://www.rt.com/op-ed/507937-covid-pcr-test-fail/. A simple presence of a virus does not mean that it will cause infection – it depends on the dose. Even an infection does not mean that there will be a “case” – it depends on the strength of the immune system. Remember, there is no standardized PCR test. Also remember that each of us carries several trillion of viruses and bacteria (in our microbiome), many of which are useful, but some are harmful. If a simple presence of virus/bacteria were diseases, then we should all be declared sick. Also remember that about 30% world population carry the TB bacterium, but I have never seen a headline proclaiming that we have 2+ billion TB cases.
e. The (cumulative) number of PCR test positives can only go up. That by itself means nothing.
f. I am told that WHO’s definition of a pandemic used to include mortality as one of several conditions. That condition was removed several years ago without any explanation. If this is true (I haven’t checked the validly myself) then Covid-19 wouldn’t even be a pandemic spreading fear and panic.
g. Every projection of Covid death was higher by several orders of magnitude. Just a coincidence?
As a result of all the above, many people are panicked beyond justification. They also equate the reported number of PCR positives as severely ill COvid-19 patients! No wonder, their perception of danger from Covid is much, much higher than mine. This is not a failure to communicate by the media but the objective.
Here I should point out that I do think Covid to be a serious disease that I do not want to get. I take practical measures to avoid getting Covid. But it is nowhere as dangerous as it is being portrayed.
Since my objective risk profile, as well as my perception of its risk from Covid are not high, any vaccine I might take has to have a low risk. None of the vaccines pass that test.
Now to vaccines. It has taken 8-10 years to develop most traditional vaccines – I think there is one exception with 4.5 years. The primarily reason is the time needed to understand long-term effects. Strangely, multiple governments are on record having said at the beginning of the pandemic that we’ll get back to normal only after there will be an effective vaccine. Did they really mean after 8-10 years, which would be the logical conclusion from past history? What did they know that we did not?
Equally stunningly, are we to believe that all of a sudden, the long term effects of vaccines that are based on new technologies (m-RNA or DNA or Virus Vector), whose mechanisms of action and long-term effects are not fully understood, can be assessed in 1-2 years? I understand that vaccines based on such technologies have been limited to livestock only (they are not expected to live long, are they?). See, why Covid needs to be portrayed as sooooo dangerous?
I have professional experience in developing medical devices at a multinational corporation. Those devices could equally fall in the drug category. We had decided to stay on the device side – for strategic reasons. (That is sometimes possible by not using new molecules, by limiting the claims, and by choosing how to describe the mechanism of action). Bottom line, I have a reasonable understanding of FDA drug approval process and have worked on projects all the way from in-vitro, to in-vivo, to animal study, to human clinical study. The entire development process, through approval, is FDA regulated, with very specific deliverables at different gates. In the end, it comes down to three main deliverables: safety, efficacy and risk assessment. From what I can see, if the old regulatory guidelines were used, then all these new vaccines would get a failing grade in safety and risk assessment. Efficacy is uncertain because even after reading Pfizer’s clinical study protocol, I was not able to clearly understand how they define efficacy – it is all a matter of definition. https://pfe-pfizercom-d8-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-09/C4591001_Clinical_Protocol.pdf
So how is it possible that the decades-old regulatory process for drug development, that have served us well, have been thrown out the window? OH, Covid is sooooo dangerous!
And finally, let’s think about an analogy. Imagine that the likelihood of a person to die from a gunshot wound in Country A is 4,000 times higher than in Country B. What would you expect from your government to do? Mandate that everyone in Country A must wear full body armor, made from depleted Uranium, without knowing if there will be long term damages, including ergonomic and skeletal problems? Or would you expect the authorities to first explore what causes a 4,000-fold difference in mortality. Well, we are being told to wear a full body armor as the first and the best measure! I will neither be wearing the full body armor made from depleted Uranium, nor will be taking any Covid vaccine (without waiting for several years to see its side effects.) BTW, I take my flu shot every year, keep al my regular vaccines u to date, and even took the shingles vaccine regularly. I am not fundamentally opposed to vaccination.
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WHY ARE THEN SO MANY PEOPLE DYING FROM COVID?
We need to realize that a virus does not kill people – it initiates a cascade of events that can (but must not) ultimately kill a person. For example, the AIDS virus compromises the immune system of the host. But the host ultimately dies from other causes. If you look at the difference in Covid-19 mortality rate by country, (caused by the virus SARS Cov-2), as measured by “death per million inhabitants”, then you’ll find that there is a 4,656-fold difference between the best and the worst country (Taiwan and Belgium; US falls somewhere on the upper end. See https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and NOTE below).
That means, it is probably not the inherent lethality of the virus that is killing such high number of people (unless mutations are playing a role). It is very likely that there are other parameters (completely unrelated to the lethality of the virus) that impact subsequent events in the cascade of events that are much more important. Some of them, in no particular order, could be – access to healthcare, quality of public health, population demography, prevailing comorbidities, societal and political norms and structures, etc. Why are there no discussion about these issues. Instead we have a mad rush to vaccines from the get go. Hmmm…
As a rough example, if USA had the same mortality as in Taiwan then the USA would have barely 100 deaths in total instead of 269,692!!. If that is an extreme case, then we can use the world average value. That would mean 61,400 total deaths in the USA. Just 100 or 61k total deaths in the USA doesn’t seem that scary, does it?
NOTE
I calculated mortality values based on the data from the Worldometer website. I understand that the date is not clean. But that alone cannot explain a spread of three orders of magnitude.
The values I used are as follows (total population / total death / death per million):
USA: 331,790,984 / 269,802 / 813
Taiwan: 23,834,350 / 7 / 0.3
Belgium: 11,610,138 / 16,219 / 1,397
Average value for the world is 185.2 deaths per million population
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Posted by: nathan Mulcahy | Nov 27 2020 18:57 utc | 53
I am 80. Shall I rush to be vaccinated? No. But that’s not a ‘one person’s choice/everyone should follow’ statement. The conflicting arguments above are most useful, thanks to everyone. I’m not an expert. I only try to know what’s right for me. It will sound silly, but in doing that, I listen to my body first.
As an 80 year old, I can be classed with those who are expendable. I’ve had my ‘triple twenty plus ten’ allowance plus an additional ten. Well, not to boast but lots was really helpful in my upbringing. I was privileged, not in riches but in environment. Pre-war (by two weeks) birth, healthy outdoor entertainment, no tv, no internet, no video games, islandic ocean-exposed existence in formative years; non smoker, no psychodelic drugs, not much alcohol, great education through college in the liberal arts (which promoted independent thinking – you had to or you didn’t survive the program) etc. etc. That all came to me; it was not my doing. I simply lucked into it.
I’m not superhuman, not hugely athletic — but there was nothing nuclear fusion related in my environment for my first five years. The only vaccination I can remember having as a child was for diptheria. There’s a photo of me and my mum standing in line with my sister in a pram, so I figure I was about five when that happened. I got mumps, measles, and later on chicken pox. As a teen in the US now, had the oral polio vaccination and got small pox shot to come over to the US. Was tested for TB and got a positive on that, the assumption being I had been exposed to cowpox on my uncle’s dairy farm. And that’s it. No ‘flu shots period. I’d had the ‘Asian’ ‘flu pretty badly in high school here – my body tells me that has helped, but who knows for sure? Okay, body. Been there, done that.
I mask. I stay away from people, even loved ones, since this epidemic began. I remember the polio epidemic in New Zealand as a child. It was scary, and it lasted a long time. We stayed away from beaches, crowds, school – had correspondence classes that were in the newspaper. Children in our community died; it was a hot spot for the disease. I didn’t get it. There was still no vaccine, and the contagion went away after two years. Still no vaccine, but we went back to normal.
Am I an ‘anti-vaxxer’? No, I don’t think so. But I think vk was right when he said that the US (and other countries of similar experience) has mutated. I don’t trust government’s many departments that have the task of keeping people safe and allowing them a say with verifiable voting procedures the way I used to. The goals have changed. We have been documenting that here. Most particularly, the ability of individuals to think for themselves, and make right choices, is being infringed upon. It is not considered important by the ptb. But I’m one who believes that is critical – I do strongly believe that. We ought to make our own choices, now more than ever. So many wrong ones are being offered us.
Above all, everyone: you yourself are an unique person with an unique background of health exposures and experiences. I can’t judge for you; the task is for you to think for yourself. Listen to all sides, but do not be persuaded, if your own body says no.
Thanks, b, for this important subject.
Posted by: juliania | Nov 27 2020 20:14 utc | 56
nathan Mulcahy | Nov 27 2020 18:57 utc | 53 said:
WHY ARE THEN SO MANY PEOPLE DYING FROM COVID?
We need to realize that a virus does not kill people – it initiates a cascade of events that can (but must not) ultimately kill a person. For example, the AIDS virus compromises the immune system of the host. But the host ultimately dies from other causes. If you look at the difference in Covid-19 mortality rate by country, (caused by the virus SARS Cov-2), as measured by “death per million inhabitants”, then you’ll find that there is a 4,656-fold difference between the best and the worst country (Taiwan and Belgium; US falls somewhere on the upper end. See https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and NOTE below).
That means, it is probably not the inherent lethality of the virus that is killing such high number of people (unless mutations are playing a role). It is very likely that there are other parameters (completely unrelated to the lethality of the virus) that impact subsequent events in the cascade of events that are much more important. Some of them, in no particular order, could be – access to healthcare, quality of public health, population demography, prevailing comorbidities, societal and political norms and structures, etc. Why are there no discussion about these issues. Instead we have a mad rush to vaccines from the get go. Hmmm…
As a rough example, if USA had the same mortality as in Taiwan then the USA would have barely 100 deaths in total instead of 269,692!!. If that is an extreme case, then we can use the world average value. That would mean 61,400 total deaths in the USA. Just 100 or 61k total deaths in the USA doesn’t seem that scary, does it?
The factor that and pretty much all the others who wish to dismiss, at least in part, the danger from the virus, fail to include in your assessment is that of the “long-haulers”. It seems that a certain percentage of those who contract Covid-19 are experiencing long-term and quite severe ill-health from the disease, effects such as heart and lungs no longer functioning properly. This is pretty bad, dude! I personally know a man who contracted Covid-19 in early August. He has survived, but these several months later he still can’t walk to the end of his driveway. Now he was somewhat over-weight and had a couple of under-lying health issues. The group-spreading he was in, a school administration staff meeting, the others have fully recovered, as far as I know.
So, in this small sample group, it was only 20% of those contracting Covid-19 who have had their health, to date, completely wrecked. That one also had co-conditions, although not crippling ones at that time ~still working, going to meetings, etc. Well, hey, it’s okay, then! It’s not that big a deal. If you’re reasonably healthy then it probably won’t wreck you the rest of the way. Stop worrying so much, people!
Here’s my point: y’all who dismiss the dangers of SarsCov-2 by mentioning only the fatality rate are either making a simple mistake or being a bit disingenuous. Fatality is not the only bad effect of the disease, at least not to date. I believe you’re making the same error you accuse the promoters of the vaccines of doing. You’re leaving significant issues out which might mitigate against your argument. I don’t want to say you’re doing so deliberately, but it amounts to the same thing. Really sounding like you know whereof you speak, you end up glossing over (at least potentially) important factors. Are these post-Covid severe health issues truly long-term or just short to medium term? IE, do they abate eventually? What percentage of those who contract Covid-19 end up with these very severe long-term health problems? Do we really even have a clear idea, yet? You advocate for all this caution with regard to promoting newly developed vaccines, then you’re relatively blithely instist that Covid-19 isn’t that big a deal, this while completely ignoring the “long-haul” issue. Until some stuff like that is discussed you can’t really honestly suggest that Covid-19 only presents the danger of a bad flu or something like that. It ain’t smallpox or bubonic plague, but it may well be something in-between. That would be pretty bad! We have to discuss that possibility.
Posted by: jonboinAR | Nov 28 2020 14:27 utc | 90
karlof1@68
How can someone having any amount of the virus be deemed to not have the virus? Yes, I understand that the severity of COVID is related to the amount of virus one ingests–the viral load–but if you have any amount, you’re still capable of spreading the virus.
Having “any amount” of the virus and “still [being] capable of spreading the virus” are two different things. The virus must be found “active” or “alive” (in as much as a strand of RNA code can be considered “alive”) in order to be qualified as a transmission agent. The experiment scientists devised to make this assertion is in-vitro cultures (in vero cells, extracted from monkeys) of the suspect biological material (nose/mouth swab, lung biopsies…), if these vero cells develop cythopathologic effects (CPE) it is presumed the foreign material is able to reproduce/multiply and these can be considered “active”. There are certain minute amounts which DO NOT achieve reproducibility. Source cited within the Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa decision (see Jaafar et al – Correlation Between 3790 Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction–Positives Samples and Positive Cell Cultures, Including 1941 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Isolates link ) states:
The correlation between the scanner values and the positivity of the culture allows us to observe that the image obtained with 10 times more isolates than in our preliminary work (1941 vs 129) does not change significantly (Figure 1). It can be observed that at Ct = 25, up to 70% of patients remain positive in culture and that at Ct = 30 this value drops to 20%. At Ct = 35, the value we used to report a positive result for PCR, <3% of cultures are positive.
my emphasis
If SARS-CoV-2 can’t reproduce in-vitro culture at those levels under controlled conditions, serious doubts are raised for it to be reproductive at much less controlled conditions in-vivo.
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vk@69
PCR tests are reliable – but not “beyond reasonable doubt”, i.e. 100% not rounding up. This doesn’t make a difference for a epidemiologist or a government desperate to contain the pandemic, but it makes all the difference in Law.
I am glad portuguese jurists and french epidemiologists care to disagree: from the same study cited by the tribunal (linked above):
From our cohort, we now need to try to understand and define the duration and frequency of live virus shedding in patients on a case-by-case basis in the rare cases when the PCR is positive beyond 10 days, often at a Ct >30. In any cases, these rare cases should not impact public health decisions.
my emphasis
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vk@69
The second technicality is in the fact that, indeed, only doctors can give you a diagnosis. PCR tests are only used for track and tracing, not for diagnosis.
PCR tests used for track and tracing alone, my *ss. I wonder why all the Constitutional trampling that goes with it does not figure in your considerations. They should! Call it a technicality all you want, this is no processual technicality these are constitutional level principles at stake!
However, I found this part weird, as governments do have the power and right to quarantine people with positive PCR tests – specially foreigners.
Under the Portuguese Constitution and outside a declared State of Emergency approved by the Parliament. NO they don’t!
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vk@69
The third technicality is in the fact that the judge cannot give a sentence on his personal knowledge of something that is not Law. He based his PCR judgement, probably, on the scientific “evidence” the defense presented to him/her. Props to the lawyers.
Vk you are being lazy, I know you read portuguese, what part of the following portuguese judge decision did you chose to ignore?
(…)o diagnóstico da patologia que pode levar ao internamento compulsivo, é obrigatoriamente realizado por médicos especialistas e o seu juízo técnico-científico – inerente à avaliação clínico-psiquiátrica – está subtraído à livre apreciação do juiz (vide artºs 13 nº3, 16 e 17 da dita Lei).
(with yandex translation for our readers)
(…) the diagnosis of the pathology that can lead to compulsive hospitalization is necessarily carried out by medical specialists and their technical-scientific judgment-inherent in clinical-psychiatric evaluation – is subtracted from the free assessment of the judge
The judge is explaining us that, without evidence produced by a medical specialist his assessment is bound by the existing law and the Constituion… precisely he is not “free to assess” (as opposed to you) he must uphold the principles of the law. This is another way of saying that the burden of proof remains on the side which seeks to remove rights and guarantees provided by portuguese law.
Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 28 2020 16:22 utc | 95
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