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Wouldn't the manufacturer of the drug be more knowledgeable on its uses?
Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Merck.comQuote:
It is important to note that, to-date, our analysis has identified:
No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies;
No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and;
A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.
My apologies if this ha already been posted, TD peer reviewed and dismissed as unscientific nonsense. I'm presuming she is capable to discus virus issues, or has been briefed on the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by Latindancer
CDC Director Makes Case Vaccination Passports are Futile, Vaccines Do Not Prevent COVID Infection or Delta Variant Transmission
August 6, 2021 | Sundance | 855 Comments
"The Director of the CDC made an important admission during an interview today on CNN.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated the vaccine does not prevent COVID-19 infection, nor does it stop the vaccinated person from transmitting the infection or the delta variant.
According to Director Walensky, the only benefit from the vaccine now is presumably that it reduces the severity of symptoms.
A vaccinated and non-vaccinated person have the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus – with or without symptoms
Then what difference does a (negative test or 3), vaccination passport or vaccination ID make?
According to the CDC TODAY:
Both the vaxxed and non-vaxxed person walking into a restaurant, store, group, (airplane), venue or workplace present the exact same risk to other people there.
So how does the presentation of proof of vaccine make any difference?"
A video of the media interview is at this site.
CDC Director Makes Case Vaccination Passports are Futile, Vaccines Do Not Prevent COVID Infection or Delta Variant Transmission - The Last Refuge
Additional examples, added for completeness, are in (yellow)
Allegedly, is has been pulled by other media sources.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
So what?
You're still going to need a PCR and a vaccine "passport" of some kind for the foreseeable future.
Suck it up, buttercup.
Bright enough to manage my immigration without ...Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
(but I would not like to denigrate you, dear 'arry...)Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
But not so bright as the scientists who know something about that virus - surely a bit more than our trustworthy politicians:
Oxford University adds ivermectin to PRINCIPLE trial for Covid-19
23 Jun 2021
Oxford University adds ivermectin to PRINCIPLE trial for Covid-19
Why can that be? Maybe because it is a blog under the conservative tree house which is known for inventing their story's.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
I guess that is good enough source for you..
Hoohoo is missing the important point that the tale of vaccinated and unvaccinated having the same viral loads is somewhat cancelled out by the fact that this only applies IF the vaccinated person is infected - which in the vast majority is not the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by lom
To use Massachusetts as an example, the witless banged on about there being load of breakthrough cases without the obvious context:
Doesn't matter anyway, hoohoo won't be flying anywhere soon. His shitty chinky vaccines will get him to Chinastan but that's about it.Quote:
Public health officials have tracked 7,737 "breakthrough" cases of COVID-19 among Massachusetts residents fully vaccinated against the disease, representing 0.18% of the roughly 4.3 million people immunized.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/breakthrough-covid-cases-in-massachusetts-what-we-know/2457920/
:bananaman:
A licensed drug normally used to treat abnormal levels of fatty substances in the blood could reduce infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus by up to 70 per cent, reveals a study in the laboratory by an international collaboration of researchers.
The research team, led by the University of Birmingham and Keele University in the UK and the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Italy, has demonstrated that fenofibrate and its active form (fenofibric acid) can significantly reduce SARS-COV-2 infection in human cells in the laboratory. Importantly, reduction of infection was obtained using concentrations of the drug which are safe and achievable using the standard clinical dose of fenofibrate.
Fenofibrate, which is approved for use by most countries in the world including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is an oral drug currently used to treat conditions such as high levels of cholesterol and lipids (fatty substances) in the blood.
The team is now calling for clinical trials to test the drug in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, to be carried out in addition to two clinical trials also currently underway in such patients in research being led by the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in the US and Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects the host through an interaction between the Spike protein on the surface of the virus and the ACE2 receptor protein on host cells. In this study, responding to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the team tested a panel of already licensed drugs – including fenofibrate - to identify candidates that disrupt ACE2 and Spike interactions. Having identified fenofibrate as a candidate, they then tested the efficacy of the drug in reducing infection in cells in the laboratory using the original strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated in 2020. They found fenofibrate reduced infection by up to 70%.
Additional unpublished data also indicates that fenofibrate is equally effective against the newer variants of SARS-CoV-2 including the alpha and beta variants and research is ongoing into its efficacy in the delta variant.
Licensed drug could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection by up to 70 per cent, reveals study
Anyone been hearing/reading anything at all about the creeping mutated variant [from Delta] B.1.612?
Already said to be present in the States - Florida and California - and the UK. Perhaps other places, as well.
Some fear that this particular strain has the possibilities of being current vaccine resistant.
Who knows how many mutated spin-offs might be out there.
I wear masks, practice social distancing, speak regularly with the family about remaining safe and will have my shots when my turn comes up.
It still does not make me feel any safer as I really believe these vaccines do not do what the medical community and politicians want us to believe they do.
This is nobodies fault but these scientists are not magicians.
I foresee this pandemic will continue for years and the World will have to learn to live with it.
Shutting down the World is without doubt not the answer.
What's different about the Delta variant? Here's what's known
By Maggie Fox, CNN
Updated 2039 GMT (0439 HKT) July 30, 2021
"While the CDC originally told people that the vaccinated are less likely to infect others, CDC's Walensky said this week the Delta variant may be different.
The Provincetown study released Friday shows that. "Persons with COVID-19 reported attending densely packed indoor and outdoor events at venues that included bars, restaurants, guest houses, and rental homes," the researchers wrote.
Tests on the infected people showed the fully vaccinated had as much virus in their bodies as unvaccinated people did.
"High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus. This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC's updated mask recommendation," Walensky said in a statement.
Because of this and other evidence, the CDC now says even vaccinated people should wear masks in areas of sustained or high transmission. It's because vaccinated people may get exposed and then may have enough virus growing in their bodies to infect someone else, even if they don't have symptoms."
Delta variant: Your questions, answered - CNN
Obviously, Obama also has not believed that crap, even if not so far from those "breakthrough cases". That's why he - and his guests - were not afraid being bothered with some stupid masks.Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Or probably, the delta does not affect some people (on the top)?
Singers Erykah Badu and H.E.R post video and pictures of Obama letting loose at his 'scaled back' Martha's Vineyard 60th birthday bash attended by up to 400 people: Party is labeled 'hypocrisy at its finest' amid US Delta surge
Maskless Obama hits dancefloor at celeb-filled 'scaled back' Martha's Vineyard 60th birthday bash | Daily Mail Online
You must get news on the Pony Express.Quote:
Originally Posted by HuangLao
We're already up to Lambda - Delta + is old news.
Try and keep up Jeff.
Asking the vaccinated to continue to wear masks has been long time advice in view of the fact that virus can propagate in the nasal passages without the person being infected.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
This excludes the US of course, where they are constantly having to juggle their advice to keep happy the 70m stoopid trumpanzees and their cries for "freedumb".
Don't you know anything hoohoo?
.... It really doesn't matter what you believe. The science is what matters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loy Toy
It's like hoohoo and Jeff are living in some kind of timewarp:Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Quote:
July 29, 2021
Vaccinated people infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/
And let's finish off with some more complete information for the witless fucks that keep posting little snippets without context:
https://healthfeedback.org/claimrevi...h-their-risks/Quote:
After authorizing the first COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in late 2020, the U.S. entered a nationwide vaccination campaign. As of 28 July 2021, 49% of the population has been fully vaccinated.
Claims raising doubts about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have begun circulating on social media during this campaign. For instance, this meme published on Instagram in late July 2021 claiming that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people were at risk of getting infected by SARS-CoV-2, transmitting the disease or dying from it and that vaccinated people were additionally exposed to the risk of dying from the vaccine.
By only listing detrimental outcomes without explaining how likely these outcomes are for either group, the post misleads the reader into believing that both the vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals are equally at risk. Overall, the message is that remaining unvaccinated is safer than getting vaccinated.
Contrary to what this claim suggests, vaccines don’t need to have a 100% efficiency to be effective at fighting the pandemic. For instance, vaccines against rotavirus, a virus which causes diarrhea in children, only prevent the serious form of the disease, yet allowed a 90% reduction in the number of rotavirus-associated hospitalizations. The suggestion that vaccines would only be useful if they prevented 100% of infections is a form of the nirvana fallacy, in which reasonable solutions are rejected because they aren’t perfect, even though a perfect solution doesn’t exist in reality. Just as we wouldn’t reject a parachute before jumping from an airplane simply because parachutes don’t open 100% of the time, rejecting a vaccine because it doesn’t work at 100% effectiveness is similarly fallacious.
In order to assess whether COVID-19 vaccines present an advantage against the disease, one must ask: does vaccination lower the risk of bad outcomes from the disease, whether it is infection, transmission, severe symptoms or death?
The CDC collected the data from 37 clinical trials and real-world monitoring of vaccination campaigns. All these studies found significant effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic COVID-19, and death, ranging from 64% to 99%.
In fact, the majority of those studies reported an effectiveness of above 90%. Effectiveness is determined by comparing the number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, or deaths in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Thus, a 90% effectiveness indicates that vaccination reduces by 90% the number of people getting infected, sick, or dying from the disease.
Consistent with these results, an analysis of CDC data by Associated Press showed that vaccinated people account for only 1% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. As Health Feedback already pointed out, the situation in the U.S. is not unique, as the U.K. also recorded a majority of COVID-19 hospitalization coming from unvaccinated people.
Even in the rare event where vaccinated people get infected, results indicate that they are much less contagious than unvaccinated individuals in general. Jennifer Suno, senior research fellow at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, and Adam Wheatley, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, explained in The Conversation that large epidemiological studies carried out in England revealed that infected vaccinated individuals were half as likely to pass on the disease compared to unvaccinated persons.
Part of the reason why vaccinated people are less susceptible to severe forms of COVID-19 and less likely to infect others is that the COVID-19 vaccines significantly reduce the viral load among the few individuals who would get infected. Researchers from Israel quantified the amount of viral genetic material in infected patients and found that the amount was significantly lower among patients who had received the vaccine compared to the others.
Another research group ran diagnostic tests periodically among healthcare workers. Not only did they find that there were 90% fewer cases of COVID-19 among the vaccinated workers, they also found that the viral load among the few vaccinated but infected individuals was 40% lower than among the unvaccinated and infected persons.
Another study investigated the amount of virus between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals among nursing home residents who were infected, and found a two-fold reduction of the amount of virus in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated ones.
On the whole, the results from several studies demonstrate that, even though vaccinated individuals can get infected, the likelihood of infection is much lower compared to unvaccinated people. They also tend to carry lower amounts of virus, thus reducing the odds of transmitting it to others and of developing severe COVID-19.
Whether these results can be extrapolated to cases of infections by the Delta variant remains an open question, as the Washington Post revealed that internal documents of the CDC suggested a similar viral load between vaccinated and unvaccinated in the case of Delta variant infection. However, those data are still unpublished at the time of writing and a research article showed that a complete vaccination scheme elicited the production of neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant, albeit with a lower level of antibodies.
Finally, the meme also claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines could kill their recipients, thus making it more dangerous for people to get vaccinated than to remain unvaccinated. It is true that the CDC established a plausible causal association between the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine and the formation of blood clots, which caused the death of three patients, as of May 2021. However, this remains an extremely rare event compared to the 13,371,560 doses of the Janssen vaccine administered. Indeed, this would equate to 2.2 deaths out of 10,000,000 injections, to be compared with the ratio of 68,000 deaths per 10,000,000 COVID-19 infection as estimated by epidemiological studies.
Overall, there is no evidence indicating that vaccinated people are more likely to die compared to unvaccinated people, and a person is more likely to die from COVID-19 than from the vaccine.
Contrary to popular claims, reports of deaths in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) don’t prove that vaccines are unsafe, as Heath Feedback explained on numerous occasions. First, because anyone can submit a report to VAERS, the information in the report isn’t verified. VAERS clearly warns users relying on the database about this caveat:
“Some reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases.”
As such, VAERS data alone can’t show whether an adverse event is the consequence of vaccination. Indeed, simply because event A occurs before event B doesn’t mean that the first event caused the second. In order to establish a causal link, further investigation would be needed to determine if there is a mechanism by which event A caused event B, as explained in this Insight article by Health Feedback.
In summary, claims casting doubt over the usefulness of COVID-19 vaccines are misleading when they fail to inform the audience that vaccinated people are much less likely to get sick than unvaccinated individuals. Epidemiological studies indicate that vaccination significantly reduces the odds of getting infected, developing a severe form of the disease, and dying from COVID-19.
There is no vaccine that is 100% effective, therefore it is normal to observe some breakthrough infections among vaccinated people. But these are rare compared to cases in unvaccinated people. Furthermore, even in breakthrough infections, the viral load tends to be lower than in unvaccinated patients, thus limiting the risks of transmission and hospitalization.
Engineers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a small tabletop device that can detect SARS-CoV-2 from a saliva sample in about an hour. In a new study, they showed that the diagnostic is just as accurate as the PCR tests now used.
The device can also be used to detect specific viral mutations linked to some of the SARS-CoV-2 variants that are now circulating. This result can also be obtained within an hour, potentially making it much easier to track different variants of the virus, especially in regions that don’t have access to genetic sequencing facilities.
“We demonstrated that our platform can be programmed to detect new variants that emerge, and that we could repurpose it quite quickly,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering. “In this study, we targeted the U.K., South African, and Brazilian variants, but you could readily adapt the diagnostic platform to address the Delta variant and other ones that are emerging.”
The new diagnostic, which relies on CRISPR technology, can be assembled for about $15, but those costs could come down significantly if the devices were produced at large scale, the researchers say.
Collins is the senior author of the new study, which appears today in Science Advances. The paper’s lead authors are Helena de Puig, a postdoc at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering; Rose Lee, an instructor in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a visiting fellow at the Wyss Institute; Devora Najjar, a graduate student in MIT’s Media Lab; and Xiao Tan, a clinical fellow at the Wyss Institute and an instructor in gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
A self-contained diagnostic
The new diagnostic is based on SHERLOCK, a CRISPR-based tool that Collins and others first reported in 2017. Components of the system include an RNA guide strand that allows detection of specific target RNA sequences, and Cas enzymes that cleave those sequences and produce a fluorescent signal. All of these molecular components can be freeze-dried for long-term storage and reactivated upon exposure to water.
Last year, Collins’ lab began working on adapting this technology to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus, hoping that they could design a diagnostic device that could yield rapid results and be operated with little or no expertise.
They also wanted it to work with saliva samples, making it even easier for users.
To achieve that, the researchers had to incorporate a critical pre-processing step that disables enzymes called salivary nucleases, which destroy nucleic acids such as RNA. Once the sample goes into the device, the nucleases are inactivated by heat and two chemical reagents. Then, viral RNA is extracted and concentrated by passing the saliva through a membrane.
“That membrane was key to collecting the nucleic acids and concentrating them so that we can get the sensitivity that we are showing with this diagnostic,” Lee says.
This RNA sample is then exposed to freeze-dried CRISPR/Cas components, which are activated by automated puncturing of sealed water packets within the device. The one-pot reaction amplifies the RNA sample and then detects the target RNA sequence, if present.
“Our goal was to create an entirely self-contained diagnostic that requires no other equipment,” Tan says. “Essentially the patient spits into this device, and then you push down a plunger and you get an answer an hour later.”
The researchers designed the device, which they call minimally instrumented SHERLOCK (miSHERLOCK), so that it can have up to four modules that each look for a different target RNA sequence. The original module contains RNA guide strands that detect any strain of SARS-CoV-2. Other modules are specific to mutations associated with some of the variants that have arisen in the past year, including B.1.1.7, P.1, and B.1.351.
The Delta variant was not yet widespread when the researchers performed this study, but because the system is already built, they say it should be straightforward to design a new module to detect that variant. The system could also be easily programmed to monitor for new mutations that could make the virus more infectious.
“If you want to do more of a broad epidemiological survey, you can design assays before a mutation of concern appears in a population, to monitor for potentially dangerous mutations in the spike protein,” Najjar says.
Tracking variants
The researchers first tested their device with human saliva spiked with synthetic SARS-CoV-2 RNA sequences, and then with about 50 samples from patients who had tested positive for the virus. They found that the device was just as accurate as the gold standard PCR tests now used, which require nasal swabs and take more time and significantly more hardware and sample handling to yield results.
The device produces a fluorescent readout that can be seen with the naked eye, and the researchers also designed a smartphone app that can read the results and send them to public health departments for easier tracking.
The researchers believe their device could be produced at a cost as low as $2 to $3 per device. If approved by the FDA and manufactured at large scale, they envision that this kind of diagnostic could be useful either for people who want to be able to test at home, or in health care centers in areas without widespread access to PCR testing or genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 variants.
“The ability to detect and track these variants is essential to effective public health, but unfortunately, variants are currently diagnosed only by nucleic acid sequencing at specialized epidemiological centers that are scarce even in resource-rich nations,” de Puig says.
The research was funded by the Wyss Institute; the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group; the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health; a Burroughs-Wellcome American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene postdoctoral fellowship; an American Gastroenterological Association Takeda Pharmaceutical Research Scholar Award; and an MIT-TATA Center fellowship.
New device can diagnose Covid-19 from saliva samples | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Perhaps it's not me that needs to keep up or even pretend to know what they're talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
The variant referred to in my post was only identified three weeks ago.
:)
U.S. CDC Urges Avoiding Travel to Israel, France, Thailand Over COVID-19
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Monday against travel to Israel, France, Thailand, Iceland and several other countries because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in those nations.
The CDC has been adding to its highest "Level 4: Very High" COVID-19 level as cases spread around the globe. The United States added Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, along with other places, including Aruba and French Polynesia.
The U.S. State Department also issued its parallel Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisories for Iceland and France on Monday.
In July, the CDC had raised concerns about Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, lifting its travel health notice by two levels to "Level 3: High."
The CDC also hiked alert levels to "Level 3: High" for Austria, Croatia, El Salvador, Azerbaijan, Guam, Kenya and Jamaica. The CDC says unvaccinated travelers should avoid nonessential travel to those countries.:
Travel.State.Gov CSI
Damn, there go the summer holidays....Quote:
The CDC has been adding to its highest "Level 4: Very High" COVID-19 level as cases spread around the globe. The United States added ... the West Bank and Gaza
Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Unless by
You mean this:Quote:
Anyone been hearing/reading anything at all about the creeping mutated variant [from Delta] B.1.612?
I can find nothing about a B.1.612.3 ... so a link would definitely be useful, eh Jeff?Quote:
The WHO stated in the epidemiological survey: "Prevalence of several VOCs including B.1.1.7 and B.1.612 sublineages increased concurrent to the surge in COVID-19 cases reported in India. While B.1.1.7 and B.1.612.1 variants have begun to wane in recent weeks, a marked increase in the proportion of viruses sequenced as B.1.612.2 has been observed over the same period. Since the identification of these variants through late April 2021, B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 accounted for 21 per cent and 7 per cent of sequenced samples from India, respectively."
SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as of 5 August 2021
More than 99.99% of fully vaccinated people have not had a severe breakthrough case, CDC data suggests
More than 99.99% of people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Aug. 2, more than 164 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC. Fewer than 0.001% of those individuals — 1,507 people — died and fewer than 0.005% — 7,101 people — were hospitalized with Covid-19.
CDC last published data on breakthrough cases through July 26. These latest figures include 938 additional severe breakthrough cases — 862 additional hospitalizations and 244 additional deaths — reported over that seven-day period. The CDC does not provide more detail about the timing of the breakthrough cases.
About three-quarters (74%) of all reported breakthrough cases were among seniors age 65 or older. Of the roughly 1,500 people who died, one in five passed away from something other than Covid-19 even though they had a breakthrough case of the virus, according to the CDC.
Since May, the CDC has focused on investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases among those who have been fully vaccinated.
According to the CDC, this data relies on “passive and voluntary reporting” and are a “snapshot” to “help identify patterns and look for signals among vaccine breakthrough cases.”
“To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in the case demographics or vaccine characteristics among people with reported vaccine breakthrough infections,” according to the CDC.
More than 99.99% of fully vaccinated people have not had a severe breakthrough case, CDC data suggests
Thank you, I was just celebrating the end of covid-19 - but now . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
You could always move to America....Quote:
Originally Posted by panama hat
Covid: Dr. Gottlieb says delta variant surge may be the ‘final wave’ in U.S.Quote:
Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday the current surge in Covid infections caused by the more contagious delta variant may be the “final wave” of the virus in the United States.
“I don’t think Covid is going to be epidemic all through the fall and the winter. I think that this is the final wave, the final act, assuming we don’t have a variant emerge that pierces the immunity offered by prior infection or vaccination,” the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on “Squawk Box.” “This is probably going to be the wave of infection that ends up affecting the people who refuse to get vaccinated.”
Gottlieb said Americans have a couple months remaining where they need to take pandemic-related precautions, particularly in northern U.S. states as cases begin to peak in the South, until the wave of infections begins to decrease again.