Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:30 pm
As for why Pfizer and Moderna are developing Omicron-specific vaccines? Perhaps it is because we are now living in an Omicron world and the original alpha strain is all but extinct. Do you think it is a bad thing that medical science responds to changing variants and is seeking to improve on existing vaccines and therapies?
They are because the original vaccine does not work as well for Omicron, yet it is still being mandated my many states/cities. Why mandate something even big pharma is suggesting does not work as well since they are developing new treatments?
They may help, but at what cost? Each person should be able to decide for themselves. Human bodies are quite complex and a one size fits all is not easily found. For some, the vaccines are a good choice. For others, it is a bad choice because of health or religious reasons.
The evidence I have seen for Omicron is that the mRNA vaccines are reducing the chance of Covid infection by about 40%, reducing the chance of severe hospitalization by about 85% and reducing the chance of death by about 90%. Each jurisdiction has slightly different numbers but those are pretty close to what I have seen reported.
Those are not quite as good of numbers as for the original Alpha variant, especially for infections because Omicron is so much more infectious But they are still exceptionally good numbers for any sort of Coronavirus vaccine. That said, if the vaccines can be fine-tuned to be even more effective against Omicron and other future variants it seems that would be the correct thing to do as well.
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Author Declarations
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Ethical approval was not required for this work as public data analysis.
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The Author:
I do not think he is some high schooler. Great attempt to slay the messenger instead of addressing the message.
I did not say the author was a high schooler. I said that he (or they) didn't actually do any original research. All he did was compare two public data sets. The first data set is nothing more than a list of the 31 countries that participate in the WHO river blindness eradication program. It isn't data, just a list. And the other data set is simply the JHU country-by-country Covid mortality data from the JHU Covid portal. That is an exercise that most HS science students could do using Excel or Google sheets in about one class period.
Step 1: Download all the country-by-country weekly Covid mortality data for Africa
Step 2: Create a new data field or column to flag the 31 countries that are in the WHO river blindness program
Step 3: Sort the data based on this new data field and create summary tables or graphs showing death statistics for the 31 WHO program countries and the 22 non-WHO program countries.
As far as I can tell, that is all that they did.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:10 pm
Step 1: Download all the country-by-country weekly Covid mortality data for Africa
From what I understand, it is not Covid deaths, but deaths. Those who are using Ivermectin do not have the spikes the other countries do that have Covid and no Ivermectin in strong use.
We got to find a way to abbreviate Ivermectin. I suspect there is already one. Only know it? IVM?
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Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:10 pm
Step 1: Download all the country-by-country weekly Covid mortality data for Africa
From what I understand, it is not Covid deaths, but deaths. Those who are using Ivermectin do not have the spikes the other countries do that have Covid and no Ivermectin in strong use.
We got to find a way to abbreviate Ivermectin. I suspect there is already one. Only know it? IVM?
Not sure if this is an official abbreviation, but I use ivm as an abbreviation for ivermectin. I would not use it in official medical documentation just for clarity’s sake, but it can work for casual use.
Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:10 pm
Step 1: Download all the country-by-country weekly Covid mortality data for Africa
From what I understand, it is not Covid deaths, but deaths. Those who are using Ivermectin do not have the spikes the other countries do that have Covid and no Ivermectin in strong use.
We got to find a way to abbreviate Ivermectin. I suspect there is already one. Only know it? IVM?
This is what they say they did from page 2 of the article. I highlighted the Covid data part. Basically they (1) grouped Africa into two groups of countries based on participation in the WHO river blindness eradication program, (2) downloaded country-specific Covid mortality data from the WHO Covid dashboard (not the JHU Covid dashboard as I had assumed but it is probably the same data) and then (3) generated summary mortality numbers for each group of countries.
We could probably do the same thing ourselves in about a half an hour. The most tedious part would be creating a new data field and assigning each country individually to "Ivermectin" and "Non-Ivermectin" groups since those are made-up categories that won't already be in the Country-specific Covid data.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 1:58 pm
The evidence I have seen for Omicron is that the mRNA vaccines are reducing the chance of Covid infection by about 40%, reducing the chance of severe hospitalization by about 85% and reducing the chance of death by about 90%. Each jurisdiction has slightly different numbers but those are pretty close to what I have seen reported.
Those are not quite as good of numbers as for the original Alpha variant, especially for infections because Omicron is so much more infectious But they are still exceptionally good numbers for any sort of Coronavirus vaccine. That said, if the vaccines can be fine-tuned to be even more effective against Omicron and other future variants it seems that would be the correct thing to do as well.
When you say mRNA vaccines, do you mean with a recent booster, or broadly? I would like to see those numbers, because eg. Denmark actually showed negative efficacy for Omicron, if you recall.
Ken wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 1:58 pm
The evidence I have seen for Omicron is that the mRNA vaccines are reducing the chance of Covid infection by about 40%, reducing the chance of severe hospitalization by about 85% and reducing the chance of death by about 90%. Each jurisdiction has slightly different numbers but those are pretty close to what I have seen reported.
Those are not quite as good of numbers as for the original Alpha variant, especially for infections because Omicron is so much more infectious But they are still exceptionally good numbers for any sort of Coronavirus vaccine. That said, if the vaccines can be fine-tuned to be even more effective against Omicron and other future variants it seems that would be the correct thing to do as well.
When you say mRNA vaccines, do you mean with a recent booster, or broadly? I would like to see those numbers, because eg. Denmark actually showed negative efficacy for Omicron, if you recall.
Here are the infection numbers for NYC which got the first omicron wave in the US. These aren't broken out by booster status. But the data I have seen shows protection against infection for the regular 2-dose regimen that increases with a recent booster. So vaccination is good, booster is better. The press seems to think that everyone is getting Omicron, but that isn't really the case. It is still hitting the unvaccinated much more severely. And the hospitalization and death numbers are even more stark.
And no, I don't recall any negative effect in Denmark and have no idea what you are talking about. We did a deep dive into Denmark a couple of days ago. What are you referring to? Denmark showed increasing infections like everywhere else on the planet getting an Omicron wave, but 10-fold lower serious hospitalizations and 4-fold lower deaths than equivalent places like Wisconsin that have lower vaccination rates. So the vaccines seem to be holding up quite well in Denmark just like everywhere else.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Deaths from the Omicron surge have now exceeded the peak during "Delta." However, the Omicron surge looks to have peaked out, and the ratio of deaths to cases is drastically reduced from all previous waves of the virus.
Top 20 US states in rankings of Covid deaths/million:
Ken, this fails to show "partially vaccinated" and also fails to show if they've received a 3rd or 4th booster or not. This data is effectively worthless, since the data from Alberta show that a lot of vaccine related injuries happen between the 1st and 2nd shots of Pfizer or Moderna.
Ken wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:26 am
Here are the infection numbers for NYC which got the first omicron wave in the US. These aren't broken out by booster status. But the data I have seen shows protection against infection for the regular 2-dose regimen that increases with a recent booster. So vaccination is good, booster is better. The press seems to think that everyone is getting Omicron, but that isn't really the case. It is still hitting the unvaccinated much more severely. And the hospitalization and death numbers are even more stark.
And no, I don't recall any negative effect in Denmark and have no idea what you are talking about. We did a deep dive into Denmark a couple of days ago. What are you referring to? Denmark showed increasing infections like everywhere else on the planet getting an Omicron wave, but 10-fold lower serious hospitalizations and 4-fold lower deaths than equivalent places like Wisconsin that have lower vaccination rates. So the vaccines seem to be holding up quite well in Denmark just like everywhere else.
This doesn't show omicron, or booster status. As I've said, there are lots of statistically fraudulent ways to show vaccine efficacy. I simply don't believe the vaccinated / unvaccinated numbers that the US is publishing. They don't line up with the rest of the world.
