GENERAL and UPDATES
The new White House Covid czar says avoiding all virus infections isn’t the goal of U.S. pandemic policy.
The death rate from COVID in the US is relatively low, and hospitalizations are at the lowest point in the pandemic, despite a mild increase in cases. A zero COVID policy is an unrealistic goal and is not the policy aim of the US. The goal is to minimize infections (this will reduce overall immunity so seems ill advised). Dr Jha also announces what he sees as a need to make Paxlovid available to "vulnerable people", which in the case of Paxlovid are people who have not had either the infection or a vaccine, which at this point is very few people at all. Dr Jha opines that doctors are too hesitant to prescribe Paxlovid, despite there being no evidence that Paxlovid offers a benefit for the current US population. Paxlovid is not FDA approved, it's an investigational medicine. It can cause serious side-effects if combined with some other medications and the patient data sheet published by Pfizer tells people to go to the nearest emergency room or contact their doctor right away. Paxlovid has been projected to make 22 billion dollars in the year 2022. A 5-day course costs $530.
There is now an antibody saliva test available for COVID. Dr Campbell says that this should be given to everyone before they are vaccinated, so that if they already have immunity they should not receive the vaccine. This is because there is no evidence that vaccinating people who are already immune benefits them, but there is evidence that it can harm them.
The F.D.A. further limits the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine
"The agency said 60 cases of a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder have been identified, including nine deaths, out of about 18 million doses administered. The action comes about five months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines over Johnson & Johnson’s for booster shots.
The F.D.A. said that weighing the risks of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine against the benefits, it had decided to limit its use to adults who cannot access Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccines, or for whom those shots are not “clinically appropriate.” One example would be people who experienced an extreme allergic reaction to the other two vaccines..."
This quote "Trying to cast the tight new restrictions in a positive light, Johnson & Johnson said: “Data continue to support a favorable benefit-risk profile for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in adults, when compared with no vaccine.” is a tacit acknowledgement that corporate PR regarding vaccines spins the evidence in their favor financially.
FACT SHEET FOR PATIENTS, PARENTS, AND CAREGIVERS
EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION (EUA) OF PAXLOVID FOR CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19)
"When the coronavirus was in retreat across the United States in late February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new recommendations that veered away from depending on the number of new cases in a community to determine the need for pandemic safety measures.
The focus shifted more toward the number of hospitalized people with the virus. Far more new cases than before would be required to push a community into the medium or high-risk categories.
The change turned most of the U.S. map green at a stroke. Until then, 95 percent of counties in the United States were considered high-risk, but afterward, fewer than one-third of Americans were living in places in that category, the agency said. The new guidelines gave millions of people confidence to remove their face masks, and recommended that as long as the pressure on hospitals remained manageable, the country could return to some version of normal life."
How the CDC Abandoned Science | My Article in Tablet Magazine
Mask mandates fall, but in a strange order | Surgeon General wants data from Big Tech | Reflections
The surgeon general of the US has told social media companies to provide him with information regarding users who have spread "misinformation". Dr Prasad points out that it's disturbing to have a political appointee (the surgeon general is appointed by the president) making these decisions without the involvement of science at any level.
Judge strikes down TSA mask mandate | Airplanes Drop Masks | What are the Implications?
What little scientific evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of masks to curtail the transmission of COVID shows no benefit from the use of just any masks, which includes cloth masks of any kind. Specific masks including surgical masks, N95 or N100 masks have been shown to be effective in general at reducing or eliminating the spread of viruses that can be passed via droplets in the air. The question is do we want public health agencies to have the power to implement policies that are not supported by evidence but that impose very real and onerous restrictions on people anyway? The idea that mask mandates exist to protect others doesn't hold water because the mandates don't require the use of specific kinds of masks that have been shown to provide any level of actual protection, so any protection that someone perceives from these mandates is illusory and can actually lead to less safety if people alter their behavior out of a false sense of security from the mandates.
Iceland's Plan To Stop Covid-19 Actually Works
Why Is Removing Restrictions So Acrimonious? | A Doctor Reflects on COVID 19
Why Has Public Health Lost Trust | A Brief Recap of Things We Got Wrong | A Prof reflects
FDA's flimsy excuse | Why Didn't they Hold an Advisory Meeting BEFORE the 4th dose authorization?
What Happens When COVID Cases Rise? What Policies Make Sense and What Don't
Biden's Vaccine Plan | Benefits & Harms | Will It Slow Covid? Improve Overall Health? | A Doc's Take
What we got WRONG! || COVID19 policy with an ID ethicist || I interview Zeb Jamrozik
Fauci's boss Francis Collins redefines ‘gain-of-function’ lab research
UCSF ER Doctor talks about Failed COVID19 Policy | Dr Jeanne Noble on kids, masks, quarantine,
This interview was given on January 11, 2022 (during the omicron surge). At this time about 40% of hospitalized patients who tested positive (at UCSF) were admitted for reasons other than COVID, the COVID diagnoses were incidental. Distinguishing between people hospitalized "with COVID" as opposed to "because of COVID" is necessary for proper policy responses.
Children and masking- there is no scientific data on this topic. Very little has been done on the effectiveness of masking at all. There is a study from Bangladesh showing surgical masks to be effective in limiting spread of COVID, but not cloth masks (given that some cloth masks are effective but they are not required). Extrapolating from this to vaccinated children in the US is too far of a stretch to be scientifically justified. There has been a very significant rise in mental health problems in children in the US throughout the pandemic. Children have been seen in COVID policy only as potential vectors for disease transmission without their own needs ever being considered. The potential risks faced by healthy children (no severe risk factors such as obesity, transplant, cancer, etc) have been so overblown that students are seen riding bikes with a face mask and no helmet, and parents taking their children to school on a bicycle through heavy traffic have the child wearing a mask which suggests that they see COVID as a bigger threat than the potential for being hit by a car. The risk of serious complications, hospitalization, and death are extremely low in children 5 to 11 (who are otherwise healthy).
As for vaccinations, Dr Noble describes her change of heart from supporting vaccine mandates believing that mass vaccination would result in schools reopening and staying open and an end to wearing masks, but regretting that because as she says "good behavior is not being rewarded" and neither of these has happened. She also points out that US policy is emphasizing boosters more than primary vaccination, which aside from being iffy as far as scientific evidence, comes with safety concerns for young males such that the harm may outweigh the benefit. She talks about the ethic of "do no harm". Children should be low priority for vaccines given that the risks for them are so low. Berkeley schools requiring masks with one of the highest vaccine rates.
She describes disagreements between doctors as "political tribalism" rather than based on evidence. Dr Prasad points out that journalists probably over-represent the "pro mask, pro mandate, etc" strategies and that in general we don't know what most doctors think on the subject. Both doctors agree that restrictions are excessive. Dr Prasad is an oncologist and that specialty deals with life and death all the time and they understand that for many patients living life in a worthwhile way means accepting risk. Dr Noble says that in the ER none of the doctors or staff is afraid of getting sick, but they are all afraid of the inconvenience that comes from testing positive, which is entirely about the regulations not the disease. Omicron is infecting nearly everyone, even people who've had vaccines and followed the other rules, and may be bursting the bubble of what people are willing to do to prevent infection. Vaccine mandates that result in medical staff being fired hurt patient care more than having unvaccinated providers providing care. Loss of staff in ERs means that some patients leave after getting no care for many hours, other patients get poor quality of care, and the sum total of this harm outweighs what would be a small benefit (if any at all) of having unvaccinated providers (wearing N95 masks correctly). Hospitals are less able to deal with an influx of patients than they were at the beginning of the pandemic. Hospitals would be better served if there were teams of people and equipment that could travel to places having surges of cases.
What Is The Future For Vaccines (and Trust)?
The conversation about what COVID 19 policies should be has become too polarized to be functional. At the beginning of the pandemic, very little was known about the virus and how it could best be dealt with, but two years into it there is no excuse for making health policies based on fear-mongering rather than the ever growing and ever evolving evidence-based picture.
Biden's Covid Policy & Vaccine Mandates: The Growing Backlash - Steve Forbes
Another perspective on the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of US policies around COVID 19.
When Vaccinated College Kids Without Symptoms get Tested Weekly | Good for Public Health?
Saagar Enjeti: We MUST Stop Booster Mandates For Kids
A Skeptic's Case Against Boosting Everyone
Follow the Science is a Broken, Empty Slogan | A Doctor Reflects
Progressivism is dead | COVID19 killed it | One Doctor Reflects
Will Science Survive COVID19? | A Scientist Reflects
YouTube bans Dr Dhand’s videos for “Misinformation” | Now Closing My Channel
Public Health Law after Covid-19
Paul Kingsnorth: why I changed sides in the vaccine wars
Interview
with Paul Kingsnorth, a writer, about the culture wars and divisiveness
in western societies (mostly the US and the UK). Discussion of
questions such as how much is it acceptable to impose limitations on
societies including lockdowns, forced medication, individual rights to
make personal choices, what are our rights when other people's choices
put us in danger.
CENSORSHIP (and restrictions on doctors' practices)
NIH Director tried to stop an needed scientific debate
NEWS- Pfizer CEO calls people who spread “Misinformation”: CRIMINALS
Dr
Dhand responds to the accusation by Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer,
that anyone who spreads "misinformation" about COVID 19 vaccines is a
criminal. Dr Dhand points out that pharma companies are some of the
most prolific criminals of all and reviews the frequency and magnitude
of their criminal behavior. Given the extreme backlash against Ivermectin from mainstream media and
medicine, which tends to center on the fact that Ivermectin is often
used as a veterinary medicine in addition to it's widespread use as a
medicine for humans, that the CEO of Pfizer (Albert Bourla) is himself a
doctor of veterinary medicine NOT an MD for humans.
Report: Big Tech company removes top US Prof’s Natural Immunity study
Houston Methodist doctor who resigned following suspension over controversial COVID-19
Instagram vs. Cochrane | Big Tech Shuts Down a Misinformation Meta-analysis Mill!
DR DHAND DE-PLATFORMED? Don't tread on me..
DR DHAND’s latest DEPLATFORMING + a new way to FOLLOW ME…
This physician’s counter-petition: Please Do Not Censor Joe Rogan
TARGETING SPECIFIC POPULATIONS
UK Government official statement on NOT recommending COVID VACCINES to under-18s
DOCTORS refusing to see UNVACCINATED (against COVID) patients?
VACCINE MANDATES (requirements, passports)
This CDC graph shows it was wrong to fire people with Natural COVID immunity last year
Why this doctor DISAGREES with VACCINE PASSPORTS
Healthcare worker vaccine mandate to be scrapped in England
There was widespread pushback from doctors and other medical workers in England in response to a vaccine mandate imposed on health workers. Ethical considerations around vaccine mandates were openly discussed, whereas in the US that conversation is not allowed. In England, doctors are one of the professions least likely to be vaccinated. Many British health workers have natural immunity to COVID and so a vaccine is not needed and more potentially harmful. Also, if health workers are wearing their PPE correctly they are protected from infection anyway.
Fired ER doctor explains reason for not getting COVID-19 vaccine
Amish Covid | Full Measure
A large community of Amish allow the spread of COVID in their community and build herd immunity quickly.
LOCKDOWNS and QUARANTINE
New Lockdown Study | How Do We Know What Science is True in Era of Bad Studies?
SCHOOL CLOSURES
The Costs of School Closure | A New Department of Education Report
Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden
"Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low
incidence of severe Covid-19 among schoolchildren and children of
preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Among the 1.95 million
children who were 1 to 16 years of age, 15 children had Covid-19, MIS-C,
or both conditions and were admitted to an ICU, which is equal to 1
child in 130,000."
MASK REQUIREMENTS
Masking Kids 10-12: A New Natural Experiment From Finland. Did it work?
Short answer...no. This is one of the best studies on the subject.
MIT's anti-mandate? A new controversial policy at MIT
What face masks actually do against coronavirus
Face masks for the public during the covid-19 crisis
This paper reviews the available scientific evidence regarding the use of face masks to reduce the spread of COVID 19. There is very little scientific data available, and what data there is does not strongly support the use of masks. The authors argue however that the precautionary principle is applicable here and encouraging the public to wear face masks has the potential to reduce the severity of this pandemic. They do also point out that many people wear masks incorrectly, in ways that negate their effectiveness, and there is no data at all supporting the unspecified cloth masks that are promoted by the CDC.
CDC's New Masking Studies: The Double Standard of Medical Evidence
A
doctor discusses problems with study design, data collection, and
interpretation of scientific and medical studies done by the CDC
regarding COVID 19. Many studies have been done without controlling for
variables and presented without basic information needed to interpret
the results. He points out the double standard of studies being
presented as reliable or not, scientific or not, based more on the
political or social issues involved (what someone "wants" the data to
show) rather than any consistent objective criteria. He specifically
critiques a CDC study looking at the effectiveness of masking policies
in schools but with so many other factors also varying between the
schools that there's no way to know how much of a factor masking
policies played compared to other differences between the schools. He
also discusses a study done in Bangladesh regarding the effectiveness of
masks in which the conclusions drawn by the study authors is blatantly
inconsistent with the reported findings- namely the conclusion is drawn
that any mask is better than no mask, when the data indicated a benefit
from surgical masks but NOT cloth masks.
New CDC Mask study | Full of Errors | But many RTs | Science credibility dies slowly
The CDC releases a "study" showing masks (all masks) are very effective
but the study has a lot of serious problems. It is a test negative
design which is an appropriate design only when all participants are
getting the same test for the same reason, essentially that all other
variables are controlled. In this study those who tested positive for
COVID and those who tested negative reported getting tested for
different reasons. Other potentially significant variables include
vaccination status, whether participants were able to limit exposure to
the virus with social distancing or working from home, and possibly
other health risks including weight and blood sugar levels. Very few of
the people who were called in order to take the survey answered their
phone which introduces other potential confounding factors. Dr Prasad
points out that another flaw in the design of this study is that it is
collecting data on the mask-wearing behavior of the participant, when
the benefits of masking result from the masking behavior of the other
people around the participant. It's collecting information for the
wrong variables. Several additional criticisms of this study include
that anyone with a known COVID exposure in the two weeks prior to
testing was excluded from the study, which is illogical and therefore
suggests what Dr Prasad calls "data play" and other fields call "data
mining". In other words, it is possible to find a variety of mutually
exclusive correlations in a robust data set when there is time to test a
variety of different ways, especially when there are certain outcomes
that are preferred. The data used for this study showed a very large
difference in vaccination rates between the two study also didn't control
for particular vaccines when that would be relevant for many different
reasons
