I am pro vaccine, because I am old enough to have seen people, mainly children, die of tetanus, whooping cough and measles, cared for people left brain damaged by congenital rubella, and had class mates crippled by polio.
I have also seen side effects of giving vaccinations, especially in the days when we were still giving out smallpox vaccine, and I had a patient who had brain damage from the older pertussis vaccine, but as a whole, the side effects were rare (meaning I read about them, but really didn't have any patients who had problems). And the cost benefit ratio was good: Very few hurt and many many saved.
And as a doc, I know that influenza vaccine sometimes doesn't work (actually what this means is that they guessed wrong when they decided in the spring which strain of influenza would hit in the next winter). And of course, there are actually two influenzas: this article is long but gives the background.
We get epidemics periodically in medicine: RSV in kids, which we see all the time but some years is worse than other years. Same problem with influenza in adults. Hospital beds fill up when this happens: but my point is that these things happen all the time, and a lot of time lack of beds is caused by the bean counters deciding we had too many empty beds so closed them and didn't staff these areas.
So right now, the world is facing an outbreak of a new covid strain, plus the usually cyclic influenza and RSV epidemics, and although this is bad, it is nothing unusual.
Covid is the wild card: The newest omicron strain is a mild disease but spreads easier and faster than all the previous strains of covid. And alas the olders shots you got don't protect you so we are being told get a booster.
there are a lot of questions about what is going on in China. The massive shut downs are no longer working . And people are rebelling against the shutdowns. So what is expected is a massive epidemic, and headlines are getting hysterical about all those people dying. Uh, this is China, who has a billion citizens, so there are reports of huge numbers infected (37 million in one day alone)But what about deaths? Again, China is not releasing those numbers
Update: See end of article for estimates on the estimated deaths rate, which is very low.
The Inquirer quotes one source:
Earlier this week, British-based health data firm Airfinity estimated that infections in China were likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, a “stark contrast” from official data.
headlines saying 5000 a day.. out of over 30 million cases?
So it's not a high number percentage wise, but because of the huge numbers infected all at once of a very infectious disease it sounds terrible.
but as a comment on the Yahoo news site notes few at his factory are very sick.
and it is scaring China so much that they are buying the MRNA vaccine from Germany to innoculate the high risk people because the dirty little secret is that the Chinese vaccines don't give good protection against this strain, and the latest version of the mRNA vaccine does.
And if the newest, more infectious Omnicron strain is in China, can the Philippines be far behind?
Two factors in estimating the statistics here: One, everyone is traveling home for the holidays, so will spread colds/flu/covid to their families. Two: Unless they are very sick they will be too busy partying to get tested, so the numbers of cases may underestimate what is going on.
Marcos is asking folks to get a booster that prevents the Omnicron XBB and XCC strain. But whether or not I get it depends if I hear that people are getting sick and dying of it. And I suspect this will be true for a lot of people.
We are having a lot of folks coming here asking for money for their sick kids. Is this RSV, Covid, influenza, or maybe a scam to get money to party?
latest Philippine statistics for covid:
- 850 new cases and 21 new deaths in the Philippines [source]
The hysteria and insistance of the powers that be (i.e. the WHO) to push covid shots to the low risk folks is the real question: This pushing of a vaccine that gives limited immunity to a disease that is not very fatal is causing a lot of people to question why.
For example, 100 thousand people died of fentanyl in the USA last year, but no one is trying to stop that epidemic by threatening the Chinese gangsters that manufacture and sell it to the Mexican cartels.
And here, we had half a million cases of Dengue fever this year (been there, done that) but there hasn't been any major campaigns to encourage people to keep the environment clean of puddles/standing water, and we haven't had the neighborhood sprayed for mosquitoes recently.
There are other diseases out there that can kill you if you live in Africa or Asia;
and one wonders if the emphasis on covid means neglecting other diseases that kill people:
Infectious diseases need a multifactorial approach, but vaccines are the ultimate way to stop an epidemic.
So what is the future of vaccines?
I have noted that Ebola and other vaccines use newer combinations with benign viruses to enhance the immune response, but now the big thing is the mRNA vaccines, an experimental approach devised by DARPA to allow a very quick response to any new and virulent germ that gets lose.
from a 2017 article at the DARPA website
DARPA aims to develop an integrated end-to-end platform that uses nucleic acid sequences to halt the spread of viral infections in sixty days or lessA benefit of the nucleic-acid-based approach to limiting the spread of infection is that the genetic constructs introduced to the body would be processed quickly and would not integrate into an individual’s genome. Similarly, the antibodies produced in response to the treatment would only be present in the body for weeks to months. This is consistent with DARPA's intent with P3, which is to safely deliver transient immunity to a virus, halting the spread of disease by creating a firewall.
Wikipedia article:has more:
The vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which use the designed mRNA as a blueprint to build foreign protein that would normally be produced by a pathogen (such as a virus) or by a cancer cell. These protein molecules stimulate an adaptive immune response that teaches the body to identify and destroy the corresponding pathogen or cancer cells
The plan is that if a new disease pops up, or a new variant of covid, they will be able to develop an.mRNA vaccine quickly (aka "warp speed")
and the technology might also be available for all sorts of influenza, and maybe HIV?
And in the future, the mRNA technique might be used for cancer too? press release
Which brings us to Dr C doing a heads up about Moderna partnering up with the UK government to build an mRNA vaccine manufacturing center for the next epidemic.
This means oodles of money to fund those wanting to study disease ... but only the PC disease of the year alas. (when I investigated into getting a PhD in public health in the 1980s, I found there was no money for my interest, which was infectious disease, but only grants for cholesterol/obesity research).
which brings up the cynical in me: Follow the money?
The potential for mRNA technology is great, and they are hyping it all over the financial webpages.
The problem? Is the financial interest the reason behind the censorship of problems with the mRNA vaccines, the censorship of possible cheap cures?
And what about the hysteria pushing an authoritarian power grab by the same government officials who kept your kid out of school but put infected patients into nursing homes during the covid epidemic has made a lot of people not trust the medical/ public health establishment.
Dr. C, who I expect will be canceled in the near future for being honest, has some questions about all of this: the main item being: will they use people in the UK as guinea pigs to test their vaccines?
Infections, Tuesday, 37 million
205 million so far (18% of the population)
Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, 50% infected so far
Thursday, cases, + 4,000
Saturday, cases + 4,103
Deaths, + 8
prediction of deaths by experts: Deaths by April 1st = 293,127
Population 1,412,600,000
Infection fatality rate = 0.000207
No comments:
Post a Comment