Study: COVID recovery gave Israelis longer-lasting Delta defense than vaccines

 

Hadassah Ein Kerem team members wearing safety gear as they work in the hospital's coronavirus ward, on August 25, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The variant was 27 times more likely to break through Pfizer protection from January-February and cause symptoms than it was to penetrate natural immunity from the same period

Is the Delta variant really more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus?

 The Delta variant, which was first detected in India in October and has recently been spreading very quickly in many regions of the world, is widely believed to be more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus. In this post, I start by explaining what people mean when they say that a variant is more transmissible than another, which leads me to make a distinction between a transmissibility advantage and a transmission advantage. In fact, by looking at French data beyond Delta’s initial expansion, I show that, as it became the dominant strain in France, Delta’s transmission advantage collapsed rapidly. Finally, I propose a theory that can explain why Delta’s transmission advantage was initially very high before collapsing, just as Alpha’s before it.

Dr Makary: CDC guidance on Chickenpox vaccine exposes agency's contradictory COVID messaging

 Marty Makary on Tuesday accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of "cherry-picking" data and manipulating public health guidance surrounding vaccines and natural immunity to support a political narrative. Travis noted that the CDC's guidance on COVID-19 is inconsistent with their vaccine recommendations for other contagious viruses. The current guidance for the Chickenpox, for example, does not encourage those who have contracted it to vaccinate themselves against the virus. "CDC recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents, and adults who have never had chickenpox," the official website reads.

The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away

 

Brian L. Frank / The New York Times / NIH / The Atlantic

If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. Even when a much-anticipated vaccine arrives, it is likely to only suppress but never completely eradicate the virus. We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives. Back in the winter, public-health officials were more hopeful about SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning

 

Justin Paget / Getty; The Atlantic

A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases. At least 12,000 Americans have already died from COVID-19 this month, as the country inches through its latest surge in cases. Last winter, this magazine described it as «the most reliable pandemic number,» while Vox quoted the cardiologist Eric Topol as saying that it’s «the best indicator of where we are.» On the one hand, death counts offer finality, but they’re a lagging signal and don’t account for people who suffered from significant illness but survived. Presumably, hospitalization numbers provide a more stable and reliable gauge of the pandemic’s true toll, in terms of severe disease.

Barbara Kay: Academia's gender bias — how men are being pushed out of higher education

 

PHOTO BY GETTY CREATIVE IMAGES

The feminization of higher education is proceeding apace. According to a report from the National Student Clearinghouse in the United States, 1.5 million fewer students are enrolled in higher education than in 2016, with men accounting for 71 per cent of the decline. Soon, two women will graduate for every man. Gender parity on campus was achieved in 1970.

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

Abstract

With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Results SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event occurred during January and February of 2021.

‘In that moment, I knew he wanted me to lie.’ Jody Wilson-Raybould recalls a tension-filled meeting with Justin Trudeau

Jody Wilson-Raybould.

SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

 Jody Wilson-Raybould most recently served as the independent Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville. The sun was flooding through the third-floor windows of the Signature private plane terminal at Vancouver International Airport as I sat waiting for the Prime Minister to arrive. The terminal is distant and isolated, far from the bustling main terminal and the eyes of the public and the media. It had been three days since Robert Fife’s front-page story in The Globe and Mail set off a series of ongoing convulsions over the Liberal government’s attempts to «pressure» me on the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

As 'buy now, pay later' surges, a third of U.S. users fall behind on payments

 

Four thousand U.S. dollars are counted out by a banker counting currency at a bank in Westminster, Colorado November 3, 2009. REUTERS/ Rick Wilking/ File Photo. 

The study, conducted by software firm Qualtrics, surveyed 1,044 adult consumers in the United States last month to measure their interest in buy now pay later and found 44% had used these services before. The latest survey found younger consumers were more likely to miss payments. There has been a surge in usage of BNPL services, which allow consumers to easily split payments for purchases into installments. The boom in volumes by providers such as Klarna, Affirm Holdings , AfterPay Ltd and PayPal Holdings Inc, has been driven in part by online shopping growth during the coronavirus pandemic.

Inflation is a monetary curse

 

Figure 1 shows narrow money supply before it was amended to include former categories of broader M2 money last February, rendering it useless for comparative analysis. Narrow money supply is going off the scales.

Study: Covid Shot ENHANCES Delta Infectivity

 

From the get-go, I and many other medical experts have warned of the possibility of these shots causing antibody dependent enhancement , a situation in which the shot actually facilitates a cascade of disease complications rather than protects against it. Data showing those who got the shot early this year are now at increased risk of severe infection could be such a sign. At bare minimum, it’s an indication that the protection you get from these shots is very temporary, lasting only a few months. This makes sense when you consider they program your body to produce just one type of antibody against a specific spike protein.

Authoritarianism Pandemic is the Real Threat

Cook County, Illinois, Judge James Shapiro reached a new low in covid tyranny by forbidding Rebecca Firlit from seeing her 11-year-old son until she receives a covid vaccine. An increasing number of state and local governments are requiring their employees and even people working in some private jobs to take covid vaccines, as well as imposing vaccine passport requirements on people generally. President Biden has urged employers to implement vaccine mandates, and government is working with its big tech allies to develop «model» vaccine passports. Government approved model vaccine requirements combined with government officials encouraging their adoption send the message to businesses that imposing vaccine requirements on their employees, and maybe their customers as well, is a good way to stay in the politicians and bureaucrats' good graces.