Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 43.5 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 29.8 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago.
Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 112,270
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 725
- CDC Admits Their Data Being Used To Compare Hospitalizations and Deaths Of Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Has Not Been Updated Since The Delta Variant Took Hold
- Flu vaccine may provide vital protection against COVID-19, study shows
- 90% of patients treated with new Israeli drug discharged in 5 days
- New COVID Cases Among Children Far Outpace Vaccinations
- What is the new delta plus variant?
- COVID Researcher Predicts Lambda Variant Will ‘Run Into a Problem’ in the U.S
- The NIH Has Updated The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines
- Full-Dose Heparin Benefit in Certain COVID-19 Patients Confirmed
- Delta variant challenges China’s costly lockdown strategy
- Nursing Homes Confront New Covid Outbreaks Amid Calls for Staff Vaccination Mandates
- Fauci Predicts ‘Turnaround’ in U.S. Pandemic Curve
- What you should know about indoor dining amid the delta variant
- NOAA’s updated hurricane outlook calls for even more storms in 2021
- Plus many more headlines …
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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 and Recovery News You May Have Missed
Delta variant challenges China’s costly lockdown strategy – AP
The delta variant is challenging China’s costly strategy of isolating cities, prompting warnings that Chinese leaders who were confident they could keep the coronavirus out of the country need a less disruptive approach.
As the highly contagious variant pushes leaders in the United States, Australia and elsewhere to renew restrictions, President Xi Jinping’s government is fighting the most serious outbreak since last year’s peak in Wuhan. The ruling Communist Party is reviving tactics that shut down China: Access to a city of 1.5 million people has been cut off, flights canceled and mass testing ordered in some areas.
That “zero tolerance” strategy of quarantining every case and trying to block new infections from abroad helped to contain last year’s outbreak and has kept China largely virus-free. But its impact on work and life for millions of people is prompting warnings that China needs to learn to control the virus without repeatedly shutting down the economy and society.
Zhang Wenhong, a Shanghai doctor who became prominent during the Wuhan outbreak, suggested in a social media post that China’s strategy could change. “We will definitely learn more” from the ongoing outbreak, he said, calling it a stress test for the nation.
“The world needs to learn how to coexist with this virus,” wrote Zhang, who has 3 million followers on the widely used Sina Weibo platform.
China’s controls will be tested when thousands of athletes, reporters and others arrive for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. And the ruling party faces a politically sensitive change of leadership in late 2022, for which leaders want upbeat economic conditions.
Fauci Predicts ‘Turnaround’ in U.S. Pandemic Curve – MedPage
Anthony Fauci, MD, chief medical advisor to President Biden, said he anticipates a “turnaround” in the pandemic and a trajectory that mirrors the experience of the U.K., but warned that cases here haven’t peaked yet.
During an interview hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Tuesday, the NIAID director also plugged the launch of the NIH’s Antiviral Program for Pandemics, and described his vision of an antiviral that would fight COVID-19.
“I want a pill that blocks a specific viral function,” Fauci said. “I want to give it once a day, if possible, I want it to be low in toxicity, and I want it to have very minimal drug-drug interactions.”
“Give me that, and I’ll be really happy,” Fauci told webinar host and interviewer J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at CSIS and director of its Global Health Policy Center.
Manufacturing would need to be “scaleable,” Fauci stressed, to ensure that low- and middle-income countries would have access to any new therapy, and he underscored the need to factor in variants.
“When you have variants, you’ve got to be ready,” he said, noting that it’s unlikely it will be as simple as “one pathogen and one drug that’s the knock-out home-run drug. You always have to be ready to continue to develop alternatives that could keep up with the variants.”
NOAA’s updated hurricane outlook calls for even more storms in 2021 – Axios
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday updated its 2021 Atlantic hurricane seasonal forecast, slightly increasing expectations for the number of named storms and powerful hurricanes.
… The updated forecast is based on conditions observed across the North Atlantic Ocean basin, including sea surface temperatures, upper-level winds, rainfall in West Africa, and the potential development of another La Niña event in the tropical Pacific, among other factors.
- This hurricane season comes in the wake of the North Atlantic basin’s most active season on record, with 30 named storms occurring in 2020, 11 of which struck the U.S., setting a benchmark.
By the numbers: NOAA is forecasting a 65% chance of an above-average season, with a 70% probability of 15-21 named storms. Of these named storms, NOAA is predicting that 7-10 will be hurricanes and 3-5 will be major hurricanes of Category 3, 4 or 5 strength.
- These numbers reflect the five named storms that have already formed this season, including the earliest fifth-named storm on record for the Atlantic basin (Hurricane Elsa).
- While the season has slowed its pace since the early storms, NOAA meteorologist Matthew Rosecrans said that quiet is not likely to remain.
- “NOAA forecasters do anticipate that a busy hurricane season lies ahead,” Rosecrans said.
- NOAA typically updates its outlook as the peak of the hurricane season during August, September and October begins.
What is the new delta plus variant? – Fox
As cases of COVID-19 surge in the United States due to the highly contagious delta variant, a new version of that mutation called the delta plus is causing concern among many health care professionals.
The delta plus variant is similar to the delta variant, but unlike delta, this sub-strain has a spike protein mutation called K417N; these spike proteins latch onto human cells with the external bumps that are found on the virus, Fox 5 in San Diego reported.
Although there is no wide consensus, many people believe that this sub-strain of COVID-19 can be even more contagious than the original delta variants due to its ability to latch onto human cells with their spike proteins, though it has the same mutation as the beta variant.
There have only been a few cases of the delta plus variant, and they have been detected in the United States, the United Kingdom and India. South Korea also detected two cases of the delta plus variant, and one of the cases is a person reportedly traveling back to the United States.
According to researchers in the United States, it is too early to determine whether the delta plus variant is more contagious or resistant to vaccines than the original delta strain.
What you should know about indoor dining amid the delta variant – Seattle Times
… Based on interviews with several experts, the ideal dining situation would look something like this:
You are vaccinated. (The three major vaccines are highly effective against the worst effects of COVID-19 and critical illness, experts say.)
You are dining with others who are vaccinated, and none of them are showing signs of sickness.
You are eating either outside (the best situation) or in a restaurant that is well-ventilated, not packed with diners and located in a community that has a low transmission rate.
You wear a mask whenever talking to a server or moving about the restaurant.
“If the servers are wearing masks and if they’re vaccinated, you’re not going to have a lot of ping-ponging of the virus back and forth” inside the restaurant, said Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious-disease specialist at the University of California at San Francisco.
90% of patients treated with new Israeli drug discharged in 5 days – Jerusalem Post
The Phase II trial for an Israeli COVID drug confirmed the results of Phase I, which was conducted in Israel last winter and saw some 29 out of 30 patients moderate to serious recover within days.
Some 93% of 90 coronavirus serious patients treated in several Greek hospitals with a new drug developed by a team at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center as part of the Phase II trial of the treatment were discharged in five days or fewer.
The Phase II trial confirmed the results of Phase I, which was conducted in Israel last winter and saw 29 out of 30 patients in moderate to serious condition recover within days.
“The main goal of this study was to verify that the drug is safe,” Prof. Nadir Arber said. “To this day we have not registered any significant side effect in any patient from both groups.”
The trial was conducted in Athens because Israel did not have enough relevant patients. The principal investigator was Greece’s coronavirus commissioner, Prof. Sotiris Tsiodras.
COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines – NIH
Key Updates to the Guidelines
Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Monoclonal Antibodies
This section has been updated to incorporate information that was previously included in the Panel’s anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibody statements. The changes to this section include:
- Adding sotrovimab as a recommended treatment for nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for clinical progression.
- Revising the dosing and administration information for casirivimab plus imdevimab.
- Recommending against the use of bamlanivimab plus etesevimab at this time because the Gamma (P.1) and Beta (B.1.351) variants of concern (VoC), which have reduced susceptibility to both agents, are circulating in the United States.
- Discussing the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revise the Emergency Use Authorizations for anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies to include a broader range of conditions that place patients at high risk for clinical progression.
- Clarifying and updating the discussion on using anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies in patients who are hospitalized for severe COVID-19.
- Updating the information on the in vitro susceptibility of circulating VoC and variants of interest to different anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies, as well as the potential activities of these antibodies against these variants. The Panel has also added a new table to the section to summarize this information.
This section now includes a discussion on the use of inhaled corticosteroids in nonhospitalized patients with COVID-19. Based on available clinical trial data, the Panel has determined that there is currently insufficient evidence to recommend either for or against the use of inhaled budesonide for the treatment of COVID-19.
Nursing Homes Confront New Covid Outbreaks Amid Calls for Staff Vaccination Mandates – New York Times
Late last month, the company became one of the largest long-term care chains in the country to order mandatory vaccines for staff, highlighting turmoil within an industry desperate to avoid a repeat of the devastation that swept through this highly vulnerable population.
After sharp drops in infections over the last several months, the number of Covid cases among U.S. nursing-home residents and staff roughly tripled from the week of July 4 to the week ending July 25, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency’s data show that cases of Covid among residents had risen to 1,312, the highest figure reported since early March.
About 133,000 nursing home residents died of Covid over the course of the pandemic, although the death rate has plummeted in recent months with more than 80 percent of residents now vaccinated. Overall, Covid deaths among nursing home residents and staff members accounted for nearly one-third of the nation’s pandemic fatalities.
Growing calls for vaccine mandates among health care workers have gained urgency but also met resistance in the nursing home industry, where some homes say it will cost them staff members in an industry already plagued with high turnover. Only about 60 percent of nursing home staff members are vaccinated, and some states report an even lower rate, with less than half inoculated, according to the most recent government data.
… But, he said, nursing home providers are wary of mandates, worrying that they could lose workers during “one of the worst labor shortages” in the nation’s recent history.
Several states appear to be experiencing outbreaks of breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated residents, who number about 1.2 million in skilled nursing homes.
In light of concerns that elderly residents who are vaccinated may be more susceptible to breakthrough infections, especially from the Delta variant, West Virginia’s governor last week announced a program to test the antibodies in vaccinated nursing home residents to determine waning immunity to the virus. This test, available on a volunteer basis, will look at how strong their antibody protection remains six months after getting the vaccine as a way to decide whether this population should get booster shots.
Full-Dose Heparin Benefit in Certain COVID-19 Patients Confirmed – MedPage
A therapeutic dose of heparin was associated with increased probability of survival for non-critically ill COVID-19 patients versus usual-care thromboprophylaxis, but not for the most severe patient population, peer-reviewed results from the REMAP-CAP, ACTIV-4a, and ATTACC multi-platform trial showed.
In the non-critically ill cohort, therapeutic dose anticoagulation with heparin was superior to usual care prophylaxis, with higher odds of increasing organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with moderate COVID-19 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.27, 95% credible interval [CrI] 1.03-1.58), reported Ryan Zarychanski, MD, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and colleagues.
… However, a second NEJM study from this multi-platform trial in a critically ill population did not find the same benefits.
So why did each population respond differently? In an accompanying editorial, Hugo ten Cate, MD, PhD, of Gutenberg University Medical Center in Mainz, Germany, speculated that “the underlying thrombotic and inflammatory damage may have been too advanced to be influenced by higher doses of heparin” in the critically ill group.
He also noted the differences in patient populations between the three platforms, where the majority of critically ill patients were from REMAP-CAP in the U.K, while the majority of patients with moderate disease were from ATTACC and ACTIV-4 in the U.S. and Brazil.
Israeli scientist says COVID-19 could be treated for under $1/day – Jerusalem Post
Ivermectin, a drug used to fight parasites in third-world countries, could help reduce the length of infection for people who contract coronavirus for less than a $1 a day, according to recent research by Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba, conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial from May 15, 2020, through the end of January 2021 to evaluate the effectiveness of ivermectin in reducing viral shedding among nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.
Ivermectin has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 1987. The drug’s discoverers were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for its treatment of onchocerciasis, a disease caused by infection with a parasitic roundworm.
Over the years, it has been used for other indications, including scabies and head lice. Moreover, in the last decade, several clinical studies have started to show its antiviral activity against viruses ranging from HIV and the flu to Zika and West Nile.
The drug is also extremely economical. A study published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics showed that the cost of ivermectin for other treatments in Bangladesh is around $0.60 to $1.80 for a five-day course. It costs up to $10 a day in Israel, Schwartz said.
In Schwartz’s study, some 89 eligible volunteers over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with coronavirus and staying in state-run COVID-19 hotels were divided into two groups: 50% received ivermectin, and 50% received a placebo, according to their weight. They were given the pills for three days in a row, an hour before a meal.
The volunteers were tested using a standard nasopharyngeal swab PCR test with the goal of evaluating whether there was a reduction in viral load by the sixth day – the third day after termination of the treatment. They were swabbed every two days.
Nearly 72% of volunteers treated with ivermectin tested negative for the virus by day six. In contrast, only 50% of those who received the placebo tested negative.
IN ADDITION, the study looked at culture viability, meaning how infectious the patients were, and found that only 13% of ivermectin patients were infectious after six days, compared with 50% of the placebo group – almost four times as many.
“Our study shows first and foremost that ivermectin has antiviral activity,” Schwartz said. “It also shows that there is almost a 100% chance that a person will be noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to shortening isolation time for these people. This could have a huge economic and social impact.”
The study appeared on the MedRxiv health-research sharing site. It has not yet been peer reviewed.
Flu vaccine may provide vital protection against COVID-19, study shows – News-Medical
In a newly published study, physician-scientists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have shown that the flu vaccine may provide vital protection against COVID-19.
The study, titled “Examining the potential benefits of the influenza vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: A retrospective cohort analysis of 74,754 patients,” was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS One on August 3. This was the largest study of its kind and analyzed deidentified patient records from around the world, which strongly suggested that the annual flu shot reduces the risks of stroke, sepsis, and DVT in patients with COVID-19. Patients with COVID-19 who had been vaccinated against the flu were also significantly less likely to visit the emergency department and be admitted to the intensive care unit.
Only a small fraction of the world has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to date, and with all the devastation that has occurred due to the pandemic, the global community still needs to find solutions to reduce morbidity and mortality.”
Devinder Singh, M.D., senior study author, chief of plastic surgery, and professor of clinical surgery at the Miller School
“Having access to the real-time data of millions of patients is an incredibly powerful research tool,” added Dr. Singh, who conducted the study with medical student Susan Taghioff and plastic surgery resident Benjamin Slavin, M.D., both of whom were lead authors. “Together with asking important questions, my team has been able to observe an association between the flu vaccine and reduced morbidity in COVID-19 patients.”
New COVID Cases Among Children Far Outpace Vaccinations – Medscape
New COVID-19 cases in children soared by almost 86% over the course of just 1 week, while the number of 12- to 17-year-old children who have received at least one dose of vaccine rose by 5.4%, according to two separate sources.
There were 71,726 new cases reported during the week of July 23-29, compared with 38,654 the previous week, an increase of 85.6%. Meanwhile, the increase over the past 2 weeks — from 23,551 new cases for July 16-22 to almost 72,000 — works out to almost 205%, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Children represented 19.0% of the cases reported during the week of July 23-29, and they have made up 14.3% of all cases since the pandemic began, with the total number of cases in children now approaching 4.2 million, the AAP and CHA said in their weekly COVID report. About 22% of the US population is under the age of 18 years.
As of August 2, just over 9.8 million children aged 12-17 years had received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, which was up by about 500,000, or 5.4%, from a week earlier, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
COVID Researcher Predicts Lambda Variant Will ‘Run Into a Problem’ in the U.S. – Newsweek
As health officials prepare for another coronavirus variant, Lambda, to spread, one researcher says she believes the mutation will “run into a problem” in becoming the dominant strain in the U.S.
Dr. Anna Durbin, a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek that the Lambda variant “is going to run into a problem here in the U.S. and that is the Delta variant.”
“These viruses are all competing with each other for advantage to be the one that survives,” Durbin said. “We know that the Lambda variant has some of the same mutations as the Delta variant that we think [will] allow it to be more transmissible, so it would be difficult to outcompete the Delta variant.”
While the Lambda variant, which was first detected in Peru and has predominately spread in South America, only makes up 0.17 percent of the variant cases in the U.S., the Delta variant is responsible for more than 93 percent of circulating U.S. cases.
Durbin thinks that because the Delta variant has become so prevalent in the U.S., Lambda won’t be able to outcompete the highly transmissible strain currently surging across the country.
[editor’s note: also read Lambda COVID Variant ‘a Potential Threat to Human Society,’ Researchers Say]
Walensky spoke in response to a question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on whether data indicating 99% of Covid-19 deaths and 95% of Covid-19 hospitalizations are occurring in unvaccinated people still holds up in the context of the Delta variant.
Key members of the federal Covid-19 response team, including Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, have repeated these numbers in recent weeks.
“Those data were data that were from analyses in several states from January through June and didn’t reflect the data that we have now from the Delta variant,” Walensky said in a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing. “We are actively working to update those in the context of the Delta variant.”
“I do want to reiterate though that based on the data we’re seeing, we don’t have fully updated numbers, universally, as we look at our hospitalizations, and as we look at our deaths, they are overwhelmingly unvaccinated people,” she said.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Full vaccination will be required to lift travel restrictions currently barring many foreign visitors to the U.S.
The W.H.O. called for a moratorium on booster shots to help all countries vaccinate at least 10 percent of their populations.
Turkey is experiencing its worst forest fires in decades. In Greece, a wildfire burned dozens of homes.
Mexico is suing 10 gun companies in the U.S., accusing them of facilitating the flow of weapons to drug cartels.
Tokyo logs record 5,042 cases as infections surge amid Games
The Greenland ice sheet experienced a massive melting event last week
Beijing canceling large exhibitions, events for rest of month as delta variant spreads
France and Germany will give booster shots this fall, ignoring calls from the W.H.O.
Germany will donate 30 million vaccines to poorer countries to offset booster plans
WHO: Coronavirus-related deaths in Africa reach record peak
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Delayed US imports holding back sales: shippers – Congested Asia-US ocean supply chains have left shippers battling to match import levels with high consumer demand.
LA-LB terminals sound congestion alarm well ahead of peak season
The Delta variant and the uncertainty over schools are keeping some parents from applying for jobs.
Mortgage rates fall below 3% for first time since February
California on fire: Satellite imagery captures Dixie Fire, other fires scorching the Golden State
Dixie Fire tears through California town as officials warn: ‘You MUST leave now’
COVID-19: Vaccine Confidence Grows, But Voters Expect Continuing Mask Mandates
Biden Wants Half of All Vehicles Sold in US by 2030 to Be Zero Emission
Moderna says its vaccine is 93 percent effective six months after full immunization
Moderna says booster likely needed before winter
The White House pushed back and said booster shots are still on the table in the U.S.
COVID-19 cases jumped 84% last week among U.S. children and teenagers, according to one estimate.
Immunocompromised patients could be potential hosts for immune-escape mutants of SARS-CoV-2. In a recently published article in The New England Journal of Medicine, scientists have described how multi-mutational variants of SARS-CoV-2 may evolve in patients with immunosuppression.
More People Opting for Boosters Amid Scientific Uncertainty
Biden administration sees ‘significant’ rise in vaccinations as cases surge
Florida Hospital Chain Admitted 1,600 Overnight, Put Beds in Cafeteria
Florida leads the nation in new Covid-19 adult and child hospital admissions
A Month Ago Biden Said U.S. Close to Freedom From COVID; Where Do We Stand?
Mississippi Left With 6 ICU Beds As Delta Variant Soars Among Unvaccinated
California Used COVID Funds to Build 6K Units to Combat Homelessness
A Russian-aligned disinformation campaign pretends that U.S. Covid vaccinations will be forced.
Cruise lines begin to impose more rules as a precaution against the Delta variant.
Covid vaccinations have more than doubled in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama since July
Third Covid vaccine shot for weakened immune systems high priority, Fauci says
Amazon postpones return to office until January 2022
US records 864,000 vaccinations in last 24 hours — highest since July, White House says
Moderna expects to complete submission for FDA full approval this month
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic and Recovery With Hyperlinks
July 2021 Conference Board Consumer Confidence Little Changed
31 July 2021 New York Fed Weekly Economic Index (WEI): Index Declines
June 2021 Trade Balance Again Worsens
31 July 2021 Initial Unemployment Claims Rolling Average Marginally Improves
July 2021 Job Cuts: Year-to-Date Cuts Fall to Lowest On Record
Global Food Production: Too Little And Too Much
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 update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts. This daily blog is not an echo chamber for any party line – and will publish controversial topics unless there are clear reasons why the topic is false. And I usually publish conflicting topics. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions. It is not my job to sell any point of view.
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.
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
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 remains 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.
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