Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 15.2 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 20.9 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 11,590
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 338
- U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 87.8 doses per 100 people.
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases worsened and deaths improved
- Fauci In 2012: Gain-Of-Function Research ‘Worth Risk Of Lab Accident Sparking Pandemic’
- Quit Ignoring Natural COVID Immunity
- US companies can mandate vaccinations, federal agency says
- Could a distaste for broccoli indicate greater resistance to COVID-19?
- Biden walks fine line with probe into coronavirus origins
- Percentage of Americans Saying They’ll Never Get COVID Vaccine Drops
- U.S. vaccination rates improve, with a boost from adolescents
- Is Ivermectin The New Penicillin?
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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
Econintersect posted two summary articles today for COVID news this past week:
US companies can mandate vaccinations, federal agency says – USA Today
U.S. companies can mandate that employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced in a Friday statement.
Federal EEO laws do not prevent employers from requiring that all employees physically entering a workplace be vaccinated as long as employers comply with the reasonable accommodation provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws, according to the statement.
Employers may also offer incentives to employees to get vaccinated, “as long as the incentives are not coercive,” the statement said.
“Because vaccinations require employees to answer pre-vaccination disability-related screening questions, a very large incentive could make employees feel pressured to disclose protected medical information,” according to the statement.
“The updated technical assistance released today addresses frequently asked questions concerning vaccinations in the employment context,” EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows said in the statement. “The EEOC will continue to clarify and update our COVID-19 technical assistance to ensure that we are providing the public with clear, easy to understand, and helpful information.”
Fauci In 2012: Gain-Of-Function Research ‘Worth Risk Of Lab Accident Sparking Pandemic’ – ZeroHedge
America’s top virologist, Anthony Fauci, argued in 2012 that the risks of a lab accident sparking a pandemic are outweighed by the potential benefits of manipulating viruses via gain-of-function research, according to previously unsurfaced remarks reported by Sharri Markson via The Australian.
“In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?” Fauci wrote in the American Society for Microbiology in 2012, adding “Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario – however remote – should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?”
“Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks,” Fauci continued. “It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.“
In the paper, Dr Fauci also writes: “Within the research community, many have expressed concern that important research progress could come to a halt just because of the fear that someone, somewhere, might attempt to replicate these experiments sloppily. This is a valid concern.”
Dr Fauci has led the US response to the outbreak but is now facing serious questions about his role in funding the radical experiments being conducted inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
…
Dr Fauci on May 11 reversed his position on whether Covid-19 had leaked from the WIV, and said he was now “not convinced” the virus had developed naturally and authorities needed to find out “exactly what happened”.
Gain-of-function experiments – often with bat-derived coronaviruses – centre on manipulating, splicing and recombining viruses potentially into strands of highly infectious and little understood diseases. -The Australian
Gambling with your life? – American Thinker
Why the sudden urge to bribe people to take their shots so they can hug Grandma again? The CDC is reporting a steady decline for the injections since March 31.
Shots declined from 4,304,851 on April 1 to 1,111,141 on May 21, a 74% drop in just 50 days.
The odds of winning the cash or prizes vary among the different states, but the odds of coming in second are clearly understood.
VAERS.com is a government website that tracks adverse side-effects from getting the shot. And OpenVAERS.com summarizes the results.
So while you might have a 1 in 100,000 chance of winning a state lottery after your injection, here are your odds of a different kind of second-place prize…
- A trip to Urgent Care: 133 in 1,000
- Getting Hospitalized: 60 in 1,000
- A Severe Allergic Reaction: 40 in 1,000
- A Heart Attack: 7 in 1,000
- Bell’s Palsy: 6 in 1,000
- Anaphylactic Shock: 5 in 1,000
- A Miscarriage: 1 in 1,000
And the grand prize?
- Sudden Death: 21 in 1,000
And now reports are emerging of side-effects not just from taking the shot, but simply by being around someone else who has gotten the injection. Women in particular, are reporting horrific side effects such as heavy vaginal bleeding, unusual menstrual cycles, miscarriages, and stillbirths just hours or days after being exposed to people who have gotten the shot. An independent study is underway to quantify these effects.
Quit Ignoring Natural COVID Immunity – MedPage
Epidemiologists estimate over 160 million people worldwide have recovered from COVID-19. Those who have recovered have an astonishingly low frequency of repeat infection, disease, or death. That immunity from prior infection protects many people now where vaccines are not yet available.
Earlier this month the World Health Organization released a scientific update stating that most people who have recovered from COVID-19 develop a strong protective immune response. Importantly, they summarize that within 4 weeks of infection, 90% to 99% of people who recover from COVID-19 develop detectable neutralizing antibodies. Furthermore, they conclude — given the limited amount of time to observe cases — that the immune response remains strong for at least 6 to 8 months after infection.
This update echoes what the NIH reported in January 2021: The immune response of more than 95% of people who recovered from COVID-19 had durable memories of the virus up to 8 months after infection. The NIH went further to state that those findings “provide hope” that people who get vaccinated will develop similar lasting immunity.
So why are we so focused on vaccine-induced immunity — in our goals to reach herd immunity, our gatekeeping on travel, public or private events, or mask use — while ignoring natural immunity? Shouldn’t those who have natural immunity also be able to return to “normal” activities?
Numerous scientists have found that there is a decreased risk of re-infection and extremely low rates of hospitalization and death due to repeat infection. The range of reduction of re-infection from COVID-19 was between 82% to 95% among six studies that encompassed nearly 1 million people conducted in the U.S., the U.K., Denmark, Austria, Qatar, and among U.S. Marines. The study in Austria also found that the frequency of re-infection from COVID-19 caused hospitalization in only five out of 14,840 (0.03%) people and death in one out of 14,840 (0.01%).
In addition, newer U.S. data, released after the January NIH announcement, found protective antibodies lasting up to 10 months following infection.
Could a distaste for broccoli indicate greater resistance to COVID-19? – National Geographic
It sounds a little hard to swallow, but a new study suggests that how people react to bitter flavors correlates with the severity of their COVID-19 infection.
It’s an exciting insight because during the past 16 months, it’s become clear that people don’t respond to SARS-CoV-2 predictably. It’s been impossible to determine whether someone will experience mild symptoms or develop life-threatening respiratory disease. Imagine if a simple taste test could indicate a person’s risk of developing severe COVID-19.
Henry Barham, a rhinologist at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center, in Louisiana, published a study in the medical journal JAMA Network Open on May 25 that analyzed nearly 2,000 patients and found that “supertasters”-individuals who are overly sensitive to some bitter compounds-were less likely to test positive for the virus. If this association holds true, it implies, for example, that people who don’t find broccoli too bitter are in a higher risk group for severe COVID-19.
“This is a very interesting study that suggests that receptors on our tongue that allow us to sense bitter flavors are also linked to our vulnerability to respiratory infections like COVID-19,” says David Aronoff, director of the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved with this research. That taste receptors may also be involved with immunity is surprising, he says.
Biden walks fine line with probe into coronavirus origins – The Hill
President Biden is turning to confront the mystery surrounding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a move that provides political cover at home but could fuel greater tensions with China.
Biden is under pressure to reveal what the U.S. intelligence community knows about the possibility the coronavirus first leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China following reports that at least three scientists were hospitalized weeks before the first infections were reported to the international community.
Amid allegations that his administration shut down an investigation into the matter at the State Department begun by the former Trump administration, the president has given intelligence officials 90 days to declassify a report surrounding the lab theory, which contradicts the long-held zoonotic rationale for the coronavirus.
Former President Trump and some of his top administration officials repeatedly suggested last year that the virus could have come from a lab in Wuhan, though they could not provide evidence to support their claims. While the theory gained traction in conservative circles, it was dismissed among many public health experts, and Democrats brushed it off as an effort by Trump to deflect from his troubled pandemic response in an election year.
Biden’s move follows passage of legislation in the Senate on Wednesday night requiring the Office of Director of National Intelligence to release its report about the virus’s origins, spearheaded by GOP Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Mike Braun (Ind.).
Republicans have homed in on the unanswered questions as evidence Biden is failing to confront China with sufficient force, as the two countries are locked in a battle for global influence.
“The American people deserve to have all of the evidence,” Hawley said on the Senate floor Wednesday ahead of the bill’s passage, “and deserve to have this government’s full effort, and the effort of our allies and partners in holding accountable, China, for what it has done not just to this country but to the world, and to make sure that something like this never happens again.”
Percentage of Americans Saying They’ll Never Get COVID Vaccine Drops – Newsweek
As President Joe Biden pushes for 70 percent of Americans to receive at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine by July, the number of those who said they would never be inoculated has reached an all-time low, according to a new poll.
In a Yahoo News/YouGov poll published Friday, just 18 percent of Americans reported that they would never receive a coronavirus vaccine. That number marks a two-point decrease from a similar poll released on May 1.
According to the survey, the number of “never-vaxxers” appears to have declined throughout the month since states began incentivizing vaccinations with cash prizes and other rewards. Among key groups who have previously leaned toward anti-vaccination – Republicans, Latinos, and Americans making less than $50,000 – each have reported being more inclined to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at some point.
The poll also found that the general anxiety surrounding the pandemic has fallen to its lowest levels, with just 15 percent of Americans saying they are now “very worried” about COVID-19. Only 35 percent reported being “somewhat worried” about the virus, while 30 percent said they are “not very worried,” and 20 percent said they were “not worried at all.”
The poll was conducted by YouGov from May 24 to May 26 using a sample of 1,588 U.S. adults interviewed online. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.8 percent.
U.S. vaccinations rates improve, with a boost from adolescents. – New York Times
Shots for newly eligible teens and tweens have delivered a much-needed boost to the United States’ Covid-19 inoculation campaign at a time when vaccination rates have fallen among the oldest age groups and stalled among young adults.
After falling sharply in April and May, daily vaccinations have been inching upward again, in large part thanks to immunizations among 12- to 15-year-olds. In the two and a half weeks that this group has been eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, nearly 2.5 million have gotten their first shot, making up about a quarter of all new vaccinations.
Even though 12- to 15-year-olds are just 5 percent of the population, experts say that reaching this group of nearly 17 million people has benefits for the rest of the country. Beyond reducing infections in their communities, vaccinated youth could encourage older family members to get a shot and help their families return to a feeling of normalcy.
Is Ivermectin The New Penicillin? – ZeroHedge
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug placed the same radioactive category as Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for the treatment of COVID-19, has reemerged as a promising treatment in the battle to extinguish the pandemic.
New York Times best-selling author Michael Capuzzo has called it the “drug that cracked Covid,” writing that there are “hundreds of thousands, actually millions, of people around the world, from Uttar Pradesh in India to Peru to Brazil, who are living and not dying.”
Doctors in India are big fans.
As those Indian States using Ivermectin continue to diverge in cases and deaths from those states that forbid it, the natural experiment illustrates the power of Ivermectin decisively.
Cases in Delhi, where Ivermectin was begun on April 20, dropped from 28,395 to just 2,260 on May 22. This represents an astounding 92% drop. Likewise, cases in Uttar Pradesh have dropped from 37,944 on April 24 to 5,964 on May 22 – a decline of 84%.
Delhi and Uttar Pradesh followed the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) guidance published April 20, 2021, which called for dosing of .2 mg per kg of Ivermectin per body weight for three days. This amounts to 15 mg per day for a 150-pound person or 18 mg per day for a 200-pound individual.
The other three Indian states that adopted it are all down as well. Goa is down from 4,195 to 1,647, Uttarakhand is down from 9,624 to 2,903, and Karnataka is down from 50,112 to 31,183. Goa adopted a pre-emptive policy of mass Ivermectin prevention for the entire adult population over age 18 at a dose of 12 mg daily for five days.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu announced on May 14 they were outlawing Ivermectin in favor of the politically correct Remdesivir. As a result, Tamil Nadu’s cases are up in the same time frame from April 20 to May 22 – 10,986 to 35,873 – more than a tripling.
Although Big Pharma and Big Media have scrambled to try, they cannot explain away this natural experiment. As I predicted May 12, they would first argue “the lockdowns worked.” The problem with this is that Tamil Nadu has been on strict lockdown for weeks as their cases have done nothing but climb. So the lockdown did not work.
Vietnam identifies new, highly transmissible variant of coronavirus – The Hill
Vietnam has detected a new, highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, the Vietnamese Health Ministry announced Saturday.
The variant, which is believed to have spurred a recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the country, has a mix of characteristics from both the strains first found in the United Kingdom and India, according to VnExpress, an international newspaper.
Specifically, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the new variant is a version of the one first found in India with mutations that originally belonged to the U.K. variant, according to the news outlet.
The new variant is highly contagious when spread through the air, and Long said viral cultures revealed the virus was able to replicate very quickly.
“The Ministry of Health would announce the new coronavirus variant on the global genome map,” Long said, according to VnExpress. The variant has yet to be named.
The news from Vietnam comes as India continues to struggle after the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals and created a dearth of medical supplies in the country.
In a potential sign of a coming reprieve, Reuters reported Saturday that the South Asian country has seen a decrease in cases for the first time in 45 days. India reported 173,790 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours. However, the wire service noted, the death toll rose to 3,617.
[editor’s note: also read ‘Very Dangerous’ COVID Variant Found in Vietnam Highly Transmissible and Vietnam says it has detected a more contagious hybrid of variants first seen in India and Britain.]
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
The world’s worst virus surge is changing the way Indians buy gold
Daily Covid count in India lowest in 45 days
Prepare for 45, 000 cases a day: IIT warns Delhi to be ready for worst-case scenario
Well-off Latin Americans are heading to the U.S. for Covid vaccine shots.
Demonstrators in London and Brussels protest vaccine passports and pandemic restrictions.
The pandemic spurred tens of thousands of New Zealanders to return. Will they now stay?
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Kroger offers $1M, free groceries to customers with COVID vaccine
Carnival gets OK from CDC on port plans to restart cruising
Americans read 73% more during COVID-19 pandemic
Cancer Patients Develop ‘Adequate’ Immune Response to COVID Vax
DeSantis Says Florida Won’t Waver in Fining Cruise Lines Over Vaccinations
Chinese masks are driving U.S. companies out of business.
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
Fit For Purpose – Adapting IMF Advice To A New Economic Landscape
Is The United States Relying On Foreign Investors To Finance Its Bigger Budget Deficit?
Who Should Get Vaccines First?
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 30May 2021
Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 30May 2021
As Pandemic Wiped Out Workers, Covid Crisis Proved No Obstacle To Soaring CEO Pay
Covid-19 Was America’s Third Leading Cause Of Death In 2020
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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