Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 24.2 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 4.3 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 18,016
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 478
- U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 84.9 doses per 100 people.
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases improved and deaths improved
- CDC Changes Test Thresholds To Virtually Eliminate New COVID Cases Among Vaxx’d
- Pfizer and AstraZeneca ‘highly effective’ against India Covid variant
- The women possibly at higher risk for Covid-19 that no one is talking about
- Big hospital chains used federal pandemic aid to buy their competitors
- IBS patients’ symptoms improved under COVID-19 lockdown orders
- The C.D.C. is investigating a heart problem in a few young vaccine recipients
- COVID-19 survivor has rare side effect of COVID-19 treatment — a massively swollen tongue
- Nobel Prize Winner Warns Vaccines Facilitate Development of Deadlier COVID Variants, Urges Public to Reject Jabs
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Hospitalizations Are The Only Accurate Gauge
Hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays. The hospitalization growth rate trend continues to improve.
source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html
Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.
As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.
The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked in early December 2020 for Thanksgiving, and early January 2021 for end-of-year holidays – and it now shows that the coronavirus effect is improving.
In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths. The potential fourth wave did not materialize likely due to immunizations.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Today, Econintersect published two summary posts for coronavirus news for this past week:
Big hospital chains used federal pandemic aid to buy their competitors. – New York Times
Billions of dollars in Covid aid cushioned financial losses caused by the pandemic at some of the largest hospital chains in the United States. But those bailouts also helped to sustain the big chains’ spending sprees as they expanded even more by scooping up weakened competitors and doctors’ practices.
More consolidation by several major hospital systems enhanced their market prowess in many regions of the country, even as rural hospitals and underserved communities were overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients and struggled to stay afloat.
The buying spree is likely to prompt further debate and scrutiny of the Provider Relief Fund, a package of $178 billion in congressional aid that drew sharp criticism early on for allocating so much to the wealthiest hospital systems, and that had no limits on mergers and acquisitions.
The Biden administration is now weighing which hospitals and health providers will get the remaining $25 billion.
Have COVID vaccine, will travel: These are the countries open to fully vaccinated Americans – USA Today
…. If Americans do decide to travel abroad, no matter which country they decide to visit, they’ll still need to be tested for COVID within three days of an international flight back to the U.S. – even vaccinated travelers. You can find available testing sites in your destination country and turnaround times on the website for the U.S. embassy there.
Some resorts are also offering COVID testing on site to help satisfy the U.S. requirement.
… If you would like to find out how much of the local population is at least partially vaccinated in a country you plan to visit, you can find the latest data on USA TODAY. Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked COVID infection and death statistics since the earliest days of the pandemic, drills down even further, with percentages for both the partially and fully vaccinated.
[editor’s note: from this article, the following is a table summary of the requirements to enter. If not on the list, the country is not accepting visitors. Additional requirements may not have been listed]
Requirements Of Countries Allowing American’s To Enter
Country Negative COVID Test Fully Vaccinated instead of COVID test Anguilla yes Armenia yes Aruba yes Austria yes yes Bahamas yes yes Bahrain yes yes Belize yes yes Benin yes Bermuda yes Bonair yes Botswana yes Brazil yes Bulgaria yes yes Burkina Faso yes Cameroon yes Cape Verde yes Congo yes Costa Rica no requirement to enter Côte d’Ivoire yes Croatia yes yes Curacao yes Cyprus yes yes Djibouti yes Ecuador yes yes Egypt yes El Salvador yes yes Eswatini yes Georgia yes yes Germany yes yes Ghana yes Greece yes yes Guam must quarantine yes Guatemala yes yes Guinea yes Guyana yes Haiti yes Iceland yes, but 5 day quarantine Iran yes Iraq yes Israel yes, but 10 day quarantine yes but must be tested in country Italy yes Jamaica yes Kenya yes Kyrgyzstan yes Lebanon yes with a 72 hour quarantine yes with an antibody test Lesotho yes Liberia yes Malawi yes Maldives yes Mali yes Morocco yes Mozambique yes Namibia yes Northern Mariana Islands yes Paraguay yes Puerto Rico yes Romania yes, but 10 day quarantine yes Senegal yes Seychelles yes Singapore yes Somalia yes South Africa yes Spain yes yes St Barts yes St Martin/St. Maarten yes Sudan yes Tajikistan yes Tanzania yes Togo yes Turkey yes U.K. yes, but 10 day quarantine Uganda yes US Virgin Islands yes Uzbekistan yes Venezuela yes
CDC Changes Test Thresholds To Virtually Eliminate New COVID Cases Among Vaxx’d – ZeroHedge
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) is altering its practices of data logging and testing for “Covid19” in order to make it seem the experimental gene-therapy “vaccines” are effective at preventing the alleged disease.
They made no secret of this, announcing the policy changes on their website in late April/early May, (though naturally without admitting the fairly obvious motivation behind the change).
The trick is in their reporting of what they call “breakthrough infections” – that is people who are fully “vaccinated” against Sars-Cov-2 infection, but get infected anyway.
Essentially, Covid19 has long been shown – to those willing to pay attention – to be an entirely created pandemic narrative built on two key factors:
False-positive tests. The unreliable PCR test can be manipulated into reporting a high number of false-positives by altering the cycle threshold (CT value)
Inflated Case-count. The incredibly broad definition of “Covid case”, used all over the world, lists anyone who receives a positive test as a “Covid19 case”, even if they never experienced any symptoms.
Without these two policies, there would never have been an appreciable pandemic at all, and now the CDC has enacted two policy changes which means they no longer apply to vaccinated people.
Firstly, they are lowering their CT value when testing samples from suspected “breakthrough infections”.
From the CDC’s instructions for state health authorities on handling “possible breakthrough infections” (uploaded to their website in late April):
For cases with a known RT-PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value, submit only specimens with Ct value ≤28 to CDC for sequencing. (Sequencing is not feasible with higher Ct values.)
Throughout the pandemic, CT values in excess of 35 have been the norm, with labs around the world going into the 40s.
Essentially labs were running as many cycles as necessary to achieve a positive result, despite experts warning that this was pointless (even Fauci himself said anything over 35 cycles is meaningless).
But NOW, and only for fully vaccinated people, the CDC will only accept samples achieved from 28 cycles or fewer. That can only be a deliberate decision in order to decrease the number of “breakthrough infections” being officially recorded.
Secondly, asymptomatic or mild infections will no longer be recorded as “covid cases”.
That’s right. Even if a sample collected at the low CT value of 28 can be sequenced into the virus alleged to cause Covid19, the CDC will no longer be keeping records of breakthrough infections that don’t result in hospitalisation or death.
From their website:
As of May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause. This shift will help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance. Previous case counts, which were last updated on April 26, 2021, are available for reference only and will not be updated moving forward.
COVID-19 survivor has rare side effect of COVID-19 treatment — a massively swollen tongue – YouTube
[editor’s note: also read Handful Of Black COVID Survivors Experience Massively Enlarged Tongues]
Nobel Prize Winner Warns Vaccines Facilitate Development of Deadlier COVID Variants, Urges Public to Reject Jabs – New American
Luc Montagnier, a French virologist and recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has recently exposed the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines. Montagnier discussed the issue in an interview with Pierre Barnérias of Hold-Up Media earlier this month, which was exclusively translated from French into English for RAIR Foundation USA.
The vaccines don’t stop the virus, argues the prominent virologist, they do the opposite — they “feed the virus,” and facilitate its development into stronger and more transmittable variants. These new virus variants will be more resistant to vaccination and may cause more health implications than their “original” versions.
During the interview, professor Montagnier referred to the vaccine program for the coronavirus as an “unacceptable mistake.” Mass vaccinations are a “scientific error as well as a medical error,” he said. “The history books will show that, because it is the vaccination that is creating the variants.” Montagnier explained that “there are antibodies, created by the vaccine,” forcing the virus to “find another solution” or die. This is where the variants are created. It is the variants that “are a production and result from the vaccination.”
Montagnier details that the mutation and strengthening of the virus occurs owing to the phenomenon known as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE). ADE is a mechanism that increases the ability of a virus to enter cells and cause a worsening of the disease. ADE occurs when the antibodies generated during an immune response recognize and bind to a pathogen, but they are unable to prevent infection. Instead, these antibodies act as a “Trojan horse,” allowing the pathogen to get into cells and exacerbate the immune response.
IBS patients’ symptoms improved under COVID-19 lockdown orders – EurekAlert
Patients’ irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms unexpectedly improved when they were under COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, reaffirming the gut-brain connection in functional gastrointestinal disorders, according to research that was selected for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2021.
“One of our main hypotheses was that these patients were going to be worse because of pressure and stress due to COVID-19,” said Juan Pablo Stefanolo, MD, a lead author on the study and a physician with the Neurogastroenterology and Motility section, Hospital de Clínicas José de San Martín, Buenos Aires University, Argentina. “We think the results have something to do with people staying at home. They were not exposed to outside stress, and at home they were able to avoid food triggers.”
Pandemic lockdown orders in Argentina created a unique opportunity for researchers to study the impact of pandemic stressors and reduced social interaction on 129 IBS patients whose pre-pandemic data had already been collected through an earlier research project. The patients were re-assessed during the lockdown with the same online survey that included multiple validated measures of IBS severity, anxiety and depression, along with questions about co-occurring illnesses, including heartburn, regurgitation, indigestion, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and nonmigraine headaches.
The women possibly at higher risk for Covid-19 that no one is talking about – CNN
More than a year into the pandemic, one study has found that some women are at higher risk for Covid-19 compared to others in their age and sex groups. These women, often young and otherwise healthy like Aguilar, have an underlying condition that isn’t mentioned on any Covid-19 comorbidity list: polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS.
PCOS, which affect about 1 in 10 women of “childbearing age,” is an imbalance of reproductive hormones that can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, high androgen levels and ovarian cysts. But it can also come with a host of other health problems, nearly all of which overlap Covid-19 comorbidities.
“PCOS is completely underestimated in its impact. It’s sort of seen as some reproductive issue that is not clinically relevant. But this is completely wrong … Patients need to be seen as a high-risk population,” said Dr. Wiebke Arlt, director of the Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
More than half of people with PCOS develop diabetes before their 40th birthdays, and up to 80% are overweight. They have higher risk of insulin resistance, heart disease and endometrial cancer, a cancer that begins in the uterus. Many have high blood pressure and low levels of vitamin D. These complications of PCOS have also been associated with a potentially higher risk for severe Covid-19.
Despite how common PCOS is, as well as the serious complications it can come with, health experts say the condition has long been overlooked, misunderstood and under-researched, leaving patients to advocate for themselves or even educate practitioners to get treatment. And with very little research looking at whether women with PCOS are at higher risk for more severe Covid-19 or long-term symptoms, some fear the same is happening with public health policy around the pandemic.
“My advice would be to include women with PCOS as … potentially a high-risk group,” said Dr. Katherine Sherif, chief of Women’s Health at Jefferson University’s Department of Medicine and a leading PCOS expert. But she warned: “We’re working in a very large system that is full of silos. Nobody’s going to jump up and say, ‘Oh, well, don’t forget about PCOS.'”
Pfizer and AstraZeneca ‘highly effective’ against India Covid variant – The Guardian
Both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs are highly effective at protecting people from the strain of the Covid-19 virus first found in India, a study by Public Health England (PHE) has found.
The analysis, carried out between 5 April and 16 May, found the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain. For its part, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective, compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period.
The difference in effectiveness between the two vaccines could be due to the rollout of second AstraZeneca doses taking place later than those for the Pfizer jab, PHE said on Saturday. Data suggests that it takes longer for the AstraZeneca jab to reach maximum effectiveness, so the protection it provides could increase further.
… It was also found that both vaccines were 33% effective against symptomatic disease caused by the India variant, three weeks after the first dose. This compared with about 50% effectiveness against the Kent variant.
The C.D.C. is investigating a heart problem in a few young vaccine recipients. – New York Times
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking into reports that a very small number of teenagers and young adults vaccinated against the coronavirus may have experienced heart problems, according to the agency’s vaccine safety group.
The group’s statement was sparse in details, saying only that there were “relatively few” cases and that they may be entirely unrelated to vaccination. The condition, called myocarditis, is an inflammation of the heart muscle, and can occur following certain infections.
The C.D.C.’s review of the reports is in the early stages, and the agency has yet to determine whether there is any evidence that the vaccines caused the heart condition. It has posted some guidance on its website for doctors and clinicians to be alert to unusual heart symptoms among young people who had just received their shots.
“It may simply be a coincidence that some people are developing myocarditis after vaccination,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “It’s more likely for something like that to happen by chance, because so many people are getting vaccinated right now.”
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
The number of global deaths from the coronavirus is probably two to three times higher than the official data, the World Health Organization said. Above, São Paulo, Brazil. Six to eight million people may have died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, compared with 3.4 million deaths recorded in countries’ official reporting.
More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated for Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.
Gaza struggles with twin health crises of war injuries and feared coronavirus surge
Germany suspends travel from the U.K. amid concerns of a variant’s spread.
Pakistan’s private vaccine sales highlight the world’s rich-poor divide.
Norway has decided to set aside 500 vaccine doses for persons in socially critical functions, the government said in a statement Saturday. Members of parliament, government and the health directorate are among those who will be prioritized.
India: New Delhi to relax lockdown as COVID cases decline
India trying to save vaccines by delaying shots for COVID patients
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
1 in 14 migrant workers at a food plant died of COVID-19
Coronavirus infections drop below 30,000 daily in continuing sign of recovery
More states turn to lotteries in vaccine hesitancy fight
Vaccinations are lagging at many U.S. prisons, where major virus outbreaks have been common.
Once banned, New York City plans to offer vaccines to tourists.
Colleges are increasingly requiring that students get vaccinated, except in red states.
Wages are rising at the fastest pace in years. Firms’ profits could take a hit
The pandemic has pushed more than 250 public health officials out the door
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
Most Companies Do Not Have Return Dates Yet 39% Would Consider Vaccine Incentives
Investigating The U.S. Reliance On Foreign Suppliers
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 23May 2021
Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 23May 2021
Can ‘Vaccinated’ Breast Milk Protect Kids? The Science Is Hazy.
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19 when recovering from COVID-19. Herd immunity does not look like an option as the variants are continuing to look for ways around immunity.
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus.
What we do or do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work. Unfortunately, early in the pandemic, many health experts — in the U.S. and around the world — decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.
- Current thinking is that we develop at least 12 months of immunity from further COVID infection.
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have an effectiveness rate of about 95 percent after two doses. That is on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. The 95 percent number understates the effectiveness as it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission? Research early in the pandemic suggested that the rate of asymptomatic infections could be as high as 81%. But a meta-analysis, which included 13 studies involving 21,708 people, calculated the rate of asymptomatic presentation to be 17%.
- The accuracy of rapid testing is questioned – and the more accurate test results are not being given in a timely manner.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are a minor source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- Air conditioning contributes to the pandemic spread.
- It appears that there is increased risk of infection and mortality for those living in larger occupancy households.
- Male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission compared to females.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
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