Cont: The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 5

[dann]

It is not better known because right-wing 'think tanks' and disinformation bots are busy warning people against the allegedly dangerous vaccines, and algorithms increasingly make this the only stuff people see on social media. It is not as if the idea that children are immune to the virus and don't spread it hasn't been promoted in this thread, and now the whole top level of the U.S. medical establishment, i.e. RFK Jr., Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya and others (Vinay Prasad, Martin Kulldorff) recently hired contrarian 'experts', can appear to be merely accommodating the sentiment that they themselves have been busy promoting (and been paid by guys like Jeffrey Tucker to promote) for years.

Apropos:

FDA Has Replaced its Leadership With Doctors Who Have Done Their “Research” (Science-Based Medicine, July 24, 2025)
Recent events reminded me of a satirical article titled Hospital to Replace Doctors With Parents Who Have Done Their Research. It said:
"A large tertiary care center in Sydney, Australia is pulling out all the stops to try and cut their expenses. As of next month, all doctors and nurses currently on staff will be replaced by parents who have done research on the Internet."
Comments by Dr. Marty Makary, the head of the FDA, sparked my memory. He has been sounding very much like someone who has done his own “research”, using anecdotes to make decisions not just for himself, but for the entire country.
During one recent interview he said:
"We have a lot of data and it may not necessarily be the traditional 50 year randomized control trial follow up. It’s data from families that say their kids have been acting with bad behavior … and they eliminate the petroleum-based food dyes and the behavior improves. That is data."

'The traditional 50 year randomized control trial is sooo second millennium! Instead, we listen to the people of today, who tell us that their kids are being damaged by artificial food dyes, vaccines and woke.'

 

[TureT]

Do you think it's more impressive to die from Covid-19 than to die from the flu?

Remember Märta Melin.

 

[jt512]

The vaccine is still available for children aged 6 mos. to 17 yrs. The current CDC recommendation is: "Parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years should discuss the benefits of vaccination with a health care provider."

 

[Helen]

nvm

 

[Chris_Halkides]

At Beyond the Noise (29 May 2025) Dr. Paul Offit wrote, "On April 15, 2025, one month before RFK Jr.’s announcement, Fiona Havers from the CDC presented data to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent group of experts that advises the CDC on vaccines. The committee learned that during the past year:

• About 165,000 people were hospitalized with Covid and 40,000 died.

• About 4.3 percent of Covid hospitalizations occurred in children.

• About 150 children died from Covid, most were less than 4 years old.

• About 50 percent of children less than 4 years old who were hospitalized or died from Covid were otherwise healthy.

• About 1 in 5 children hospitalized with Covid were admitted to the intensive care unit.

• More than 90 percent of children who were hospitalized or died from Covid weren’t vaccinated..."

At Inside Medicine Dr. Jeremy Faust wrote on 11 July "Rather than granting approval for all children starting at 6 months of age, the FDA limited its approval of Moderna’s pediatric Covid-19 vaccine to children known to have at least one high-risk underlying medical condition. That excludes the 54% of children ages 6-23 months who were hospitalized for Covid-19 in the last year despite having no known underlying medical conditions. Worse, the decision means that vaccines will be denied to children with risks yet to be identified—that is, dangerously untreated diseases..." On 15 July Dr. Faust wrote, "The Trump administration’s newly-installed vaccine czar at the FDA, Dr. Vinay Prasad, overrode staff scientists’ recommendations for full approval of Moderna’s pediatric Covid-19 vaccine, a July 9 memo indicates. Instead, FDA leadership granted what it calls full approval to Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to individuals ages 6 months to 11 years old; In reality, the approval applies only to children with documented health conditions that increase the risk of severe Covid-19 illness, as discussed previously here in Inside Medicine..."

Dr. Fiona Havers left in protest. On 8 July Dr. Paul Offit wrote, "The CDC’s collection and reporting on the impact of various diseases is “a very transparent, rigorous process,” said Havers. “And they have just taken a sledgehammer to it in the last several weeks.” The CDC is one of the country’s largest data-gathering organizations. If we can’t trust data coming out of the CDC, we can’t trust advice based on those data. That’s why the resignation of Fiona Havers is particularly frightening."

About thirteen months ago Dr. Jonathan Howard wrote, "One typical headline from December 2021 said Pediatric Hospitalizations Up 395% In NYC Amid COVID-19 Surge." Dr. Offit wrote, "Like RFK Jr., who has said that Covid vaccines should be removed from the childhood immunization schedule, Vinay Prasad has said that “anyone who adds Covid vaccines to the childhood immunization schedule should be fired” and that “it is a useless vaccine for kids,” despite abundant evidence that Covid vaccines are effective and safe in children less than 5 years of age...It’s a dangerous time to be a child in America." Covid-19 was and remains a threat to all children, not just those with an underlying condition. Period.

 

[dann]

The vaccine is still available for children aged 6 mos. to 17 yrs. The current CDC recommendation is: "Parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years should discuss the benefits of vaccination with a health care provider."

Yes, it's curious, isn't it?!
Notice how it differs from the other recommendations at 6 months by not recommending the C19 vaccine!

6 months​

Protect your baby by providing immunity early in life. Stay on track with the recommended vaccine schedule.At 6 months of age, your baby receives vaccines to develop immunity from potentially harmful diseases.

COVID-19 vaccine​

Parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years should discuss the benefits of vaccination with a health care provider.

DTaP vaccine​

3rd dose of 5
A DTaP vaccine is the best protection from three serious diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis). All three of these diseases can be deadly for people of any age, and whooping cough is especially dangerous for babies.

Hib vaccine​

3rd dose of 4
Hib disease is a serious illness caused by the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib). Babies and children younger than 5 years old are most at risk for Hib disease. It can cause lifelong disability and be deadly. Doctors recommend that your child get three or four doses of the Hib vaccine (depending on the brand).

Hepatitis B vaccine​

3rd dose of 3
Hepatitis B is an infectious and potentially serious disease that can cause liver damage and liver cancer. If babies are infected at birth, hepatitis B can be a lifelong, chronic infection. There is no cure for hepatitis B, but the hepatitis B vaccine is the best way to prevent it.

IPV​

3rd dose of 4
Polio is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by poliovirus, which can infect the spinal cord and cause paralysis. It most often sickens children younger than 5 years old. Polio was eliminated in the United States with vaccination, and continued use of polio vaccine has kept this country polio-free.

PCV​

3rd dose of 4
Pneumococcal disease can cause potentially serious and even deadly infections. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine protects against the bacteria that cause pneumococcal disease.

Rotavirus vaccine​

3rd dose of 3
Rotavirus can be very dangerous, even deadly for babies and young children. Doctors recommend that your child get two or three doses of the Rotavirus vaccine (depending on the brand).

Nothing about the harm done to children by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nothing about the protection offered by the C19 vaccines. Nothing about what doctors recommend. Instead, parents are encouraged to "discuss" (!) the benefits of C19 vaccines with "a health care provider," which could be any kind of anti-vaxxer quack!

Apropos: In another thread (I think it was about terrain theory), I mentioned the group of contrarian doctors in Denmark, whose anti-vaxxer views were radicalized during the pandemic and were made more influential by RFK Jr.'s take-over of NIH.
Peter Aaby, Christine Stabell Benn, Tracy Beth Høeg (and recently also Frederik Schaltz Buchholzer).
Unfortunately, they have had an undeserved impact on not only Danish vaccination policies, but also on vaccination policies in Florida and recently on a federal level in the USA.
A new article in The Atlantic warns against these ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ posing as serious scientists - but a little late:

THE OBVIOUS REASON THE U.S. SHOULD NOT VACCINATE LIKE DENMARK (The Atlantic, July 24, 2025)

 

[TureT]

'The traditional 50 year randomized control trial is sooo second millennium! Instead, we listen to the people of today, who tell us that their kids are being damaged by artificial food dyes, vaccines and woke.'

I am Ture Tyrén. So remembering Märta Melin was a private joke. I apologize for that.

My question remains: Do you think it's more impressive to die from Covid-19 than to die from the flu?

 

[dann]

Denmark:
I was wrong. It's far from gone: Genomic overview of SARS-CoV-2 in Denmark
Week 25 (most recent week sequenced):
Nimbus (NB.1.8.1) 31.2% - down from 46.2% in week 24.
Stratus (XFG) 37.5% - down from 38.5 in week 24.

Still "very low" but rising. (In the Copenhagen area it is up from "very low" to "low".)

And still rising, now gone from "very low" to "low" not just in Copenhagen, and the percentage of positives is up, too.
National wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 (SSI.dk, July 23, 2025)


ETA:

SARS-CoV-2 detections in wastewater accurately predict illnesses within 1 week, study finds (CIDRAP, July 24, 2025)
A new study from the University of Minnesota found that SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater accurately predicted the subsequent COVID-19 case count the following week in the community, adding further evidence to the usefulness of wastewater detection.
The observational study was published today in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The authors said the study was conducted to assess the usefulness of wastewater detections for COVID-19 now that widespread community immunity has been obtained through infection and vaccination.

 

[steenkh]

I am Ture Tyrén. So remembering Märta Melin was a private joke. I apologize for that.

Welcome to the forum. I looked up the song. You must have been teased with this most of your life

 

[marting]

At Beyond the Noise (29 May 2025) Dr. Paul Offit wrote, "On April 15, 2025, one month before RFK Jr.’s announcement, Fiona Havers from the CDC presented data to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent group of experts that advises the CDC on vaccines. The committee learned that during the past year:
...
• More than 90 percent of children who were hospitalized or died from Covid weren’t vaccinated..."

I'm very pro-vax so when I saw that in the CDC presentation I was not surprised. However, I was surprised to see nothing in the presentation showing the children's vax rates since I've been following San Diego's DOH reports for years. Rates for children <= 17 Y/O runs about 10%. For those <= 4 Y/O, the highest severity, it's about 5%. It's highly probably vax rates across the country as similar to San Diego.

So the 90% number without context is meaningless and it appears to have been introduced to create an unsupported impression. I was surprised to see Offit including that in his substack without comment.

A useful stat would be the number of hospitalized vaxxed kids divided by the number of kids vaxxed v the number of un-vaxxed, hospitalized kids divided by the number of un-vaxxed kids.

 

[jt512]

So the 90% number without context is meaningless and it appears to have been introduced to create an unsupported impression. I was surprised to see Offit including that in his substack without comment.

The proportion of hospitalized that are unvaccinated is always meaningless because it is totally dependent on the prevalence of vaccination in the population, and it is always reported to bamboozle an innumerate public. Obviously, if everybody in the population were vaccinated than the proportion of those hospitalized who were vaccinated would be 100%.

A useful stat would be the number of hospitalized vaxxed kids divided by the number of kids vaxxed v the number of un-vaxxed, hospitalized kids divided by the number of un-vaxxed kids.

Yes, the relative risk.

 

[dann]

From Argentina, but ....

The impact of COVID-19 childhood and adolescent vaccination on mortality in Argentina (ScienceDirect/Vaccine, Vol 42, #22, Sep 17, 2024)

Highlights​

• COVID-19 mortality declined in 2022 for age groups with high vaccine uptake (3–11 and 12–17 year olds).
• COVID-19 mortality did not decline in 2022 for the 0–2 year old age group, which had low vaccine uptake.
• The 2022 COVID-19 death rates were 16–18 times lower for those with at least two vaccine doses compared to the unvaccinated.
• Pre-vaccination mortality from other diseases for which vaccination is compulsory was lower than yearly COVID-19 deaths during 2020–2022.

(...)

Results​

A decrease in COVID-19-related deaths was observed in 2022 for pediatric age groups (3–11 and 12–17) with relatively higher vaccination coverage. However, no decrease was observed for the 0–2 year old age group, which had the longest delay in access to immunization and lowest vaccination coverage. When compared to unvaccinated populations in 2022, we observe an 8–15-fold reduction in cumulative death rates for pediatric populations vaccinated with 1 or more doses, and a 16–18-fold reduction for those vaccinated with 2 or more doses. Historical analysis shows that for diseases for which vaccination is now compulsory in many countries, pre-vaccine-rollout mortality was lower than COVID-19 deaths during 2020–2022.

 

[marting]

dann,

Nice study. The whole paper is well worth reading. The results from the Argentina study are pretty impressive. And made possible because Argentina, unlike the USA, vaccinated most all of their kids. Instead of the USA's 10% vaccinated, they got 90% of their kids vaxxed and even significant numbers of babies. The USA has 6x more people so even with the low vax rate in children they should have similar studies, but I haven't seen any. But then our medical system is highly fragmented.

 

[dann]

U.S mortality 10.6% higher than in 2019, i.e. pre-Covid:

Jammer on X, July 27, 2025
A life and health actuary reviewed CDC numbers finding US mortality is 10.6% higher than in 2019.
Some may have a shorter life expectancy than they originally believed because of COVID, post-COVID health effects. It's not clear if US mortality might return to pre 2020 levels.

Jammer on X, July 27, 2025
This second part highlighted doesn’t really make a lot of sense. You are not being made stronger by whatever is causing the mortality. COVID and post-COVID, ie., LongCOVID, do not build you up. Cumulative infections do the very opposite.
One day we’ll get there.

Jammer on X, July 27, 2025
“The U.S. death count was 13.8% higher for the first 13 weeks of this year than in the comparable period in 2019, and it was 6.9% higher for the second 13-week period of this year than in the comparable period in 2019.”
First-Half U.S. Death Count Still 10.6% Higher Than Before COVID (ThinkAdvisor, July 23, 2025)

Jammer on X, July 27, 2025
Someone should write a book about this. I’ve posted Social Security Administration data, IRS data, Treasury Dept., actuarial, Swiss Re, Northwest Mutual and they all conclude the same thing; people are dying for the pleasure and profits of the Government.

 

[dann]

dann,
Nice study. The whole paper is well worth reading. The results from the Argentina study are pretty impressive. And made possible because Argentina, unlike the USA, vaccinated most all of their kids. Instead of the USA's 10% vaccinated, they got 90% of their kids vaxxed and even significant numbers of babies. The USA has 6x more people so even with the low vax rate in children they should have similar studies, but I haven't seen any. But then our medical system is highly fragmented.

I don't have any hard data, but one of my friends is a Dane living in Cuba where virtually everybody, 2-year-olds and older, is vaccinated against C19 (and most other infectious diseases). When old pediatric infections, e.g. pertussis, suddenly began to skyrocket all over the world in recent years, I asked him if the same thing was happening in Cuba. He has two kids, but he hadn't heard about it. When he asked around, it didn't seem to be the case, i.e. no flare ups of other infectious diseases in Cuba.

Unfortunately, Danish children aren't nearly as protected against Covid as children in Cuba.
In fact, many of the ideas of MAHA are inspired not only by contrarian Swedish 'vaccine skeptics' like Anders Tegnell and Martin Kulldorff, but also by Danes like Peter Aaby, Christine Stabell Benn (professors at University of Southern Denmark (SDU)), Tracy Beth Høeg and Frederik Schaltz Buchholzer (also affiliated with SDU).
For decades, people in the SDU group have been busy warning the world against 'dead' vaccines (and recently against the mRNA vaccines), but at this point they seem to have their backs against the wall, which is probably the reason why they are so busy trying to get a foothold among American antivaxxers, the new medical establishment in the Trump era.

 

[dann]

'Disabling' Chronic Illness in Children Not Taken Seriously: Experts (Newsweek, July 25, 2025)
A new study by Rutgers University has highlighted that a significant number of young children are experiencing ongoing symptoms after COVID-19 infection, signifying that greater research needs to be poured into evaluating the risk and treatment of long COVID in children.
(...)
"This is a public health crisis for children. And it demands action," Long Covid Families said in its promotion of the condition's awareness week.
"Because people operate under the false assumption that if you are young and healthy, like kids, COVID is an inconsequential nothingburger and we should not worry about it," Dr Ziyad Al-Aly, a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, told Newsweek.
"Of course, this is not accurate at all," he added. Long COVID in children "always demanded more attention and seriousness."
(...)
Previous studies estimated the prevalence of long COVID in children to be between 10 and 20 percent—suggesting it has become one of the most common chronic illnesses in children. Asthma, often described as the most common chronic illness in children, affects 16 percent.

The study:

Study Shows a Need for Vigilance When Observing Long COVID Symptoms in Younger Children (Rutgers Today, July 23, 2025)
“The COVID pandemic began with a myth – that children are spared its ill effects. In contrast, many children were sick with COVID, and we now have a new chronic illness emerging,” Kleinman said. “We are working hard to characterize long COVID in children and it will be critical for policymakers to assure that we have adequate resources to support and manage these children now and in the future.”
Of the total 1,011 children included in the study, 472 were infants and toddlers (children 2 years old or younger) and 539 were preschoolers (children 3 to 5 years old). Overall, 101 (15%) of the 677 children with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection were identified as likely having long COVID. The symptoms of long COVID in these age groups differ from those reported among school age children and teens. Infants and toddlers with long COVID were more likely to experience difficulty sleeping, fussiness, poor appetite, stuffy nose and coughing while preschoolers were more likely to experience coughing and daytime tiredness and low energy.

ETA:
Thread:

CyFi on X, July 28, 2025
BREAKING: The CDC reports US COVID ED visits for ages 0-11 at the highest level since Sep 22
California highest since Sep 12
Florida highest since Aug 27
Hawaii is *off the chart!* as of July 24.

Source - CDC COVID Data Tracker
See graphs for Florida, Hawaii, California, Texas and Louisiana in the thread.

ETA 2:

Jonathan Howard on X, July 28, 2025
Ooooohhh yes.
@drjohnm has said that literal death from Covid is nothing to fear while rare, temporary vaccine side effects demand respect.

Once a Doctor Has Minimized Literal Death for Young People, Should We Value Their Opinion on Any Topic Less Consequential Than Literal Death? (Science-Based Medicine, April 28, 2024)

 

[dann]

Long Covid in general - animal study:

OHSU study suggests long COVID may be more common than previously thought (OregonLive, July 28, 2025)
New research from Oregon Health & Science University suggests that long-term effects of COVID-19 may be far more common and slower to appear than previously believed.
In a study published last week in PLOS Pathogens, scientists tracked a group of rhesus macaques infected with the delta variant of the coronavirus. The animals, all unvaccinated and previously unexposed to the virus, appeared to recover quickly.
But over six months, researchers found signs of chronic health issues in most of them — despite their initial symptoms being little more than sniffles.
“You don’t have to have a very severe case of COVID in the first place to have potentially long-term changes,” ... Although the animals showed only mild symptoms during the acute phase of infection, up to 90% developed signs of chronic health issues months later — including inflammation, disrupted sleep and changes in metabolic hormone levels tied to conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

The conditions seem to be similar to the ones in people suffering from long COVID.
Another interesting aspect of this study is that it was carried out on two groups of rhesus macaques, "some lean and healthy, others overweight."

While the overweight animals experienced more dramatic changes, even the lean, healthy group didn’t fare much better. In some cases, the leaner animals saw persistent internal disruptions that made them resemble unhealthier, obese animals.

So much for the idea that C19 is only bad for people with co-morbidities like obesity.

 

[dann]

LONG COVID: SARS-COV-2 PERSISTS IN THE BRAINSTEM IN THE LONG TERM AND DEREGULATES NEURONAL ACTIVITY (Pasteur.fr, July 29, 2025)
Symptoms can persist in some SARS-CoV-2 patients several months after infection. Scientists at the Institut Pasteur have demonstrated in an animal model that SARS-CoV-2 infects the brain and persists in the brainstem for up to 80 days after the acute infection phase. The presence of the virus is linked to symptoms of depression, impaired memory, and anxiety. Genes associated with neuronal metabolism and activity are deregulated in the brains of these animals, echoing similar processes observed in neurodegenerative diseases. This study was published in Nature Communications on July 22, 2025.

 

[dann]

SARS-CoV-2 and influenza increase risk of cancer reactivation:

Eric Topol on X, July 30, 2025
We've known that Covid increases the risk in survivors of cancer,
but today @Nature a mechanism of reactivation of cancer cells elucidated in the experimental model
Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs (Nature, July 30, 2025)
Inflammation during viral infection can rouse dormant cancer cells (Nature, July 30, 2025)

The two articles in Nature:

Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs (Nature, July 30, 2025)
Analyses of cancer survivors from the UK Biobank (all cancers) and Flatiron Health (breast cancer) databases reveal that SARS-CoV-2 infection substantially increases the risk of cancer-related mortality and lung metastasis compared with uninfected cancer survivors. These discoveries underscore the huge impact of respiratory viral infections on metastatic cancer resurgence, offering new insights into the connection between infectious diseases and cancer metastasis.

Inflammation during viral infection can rouse dormant cancer cells (Nature, July 30, 2025)
People who have breast cancer can go into remission if disease progression stops, but a subsequent relapse often leads to death. During remission, it is common to still have cancer cells that have spread (by a process called metastasis) to another part of the body, where they can exist in a non-dividing (dormant) state for years until they are triggered to ‘awaken’ and resume proliferation. Understanding what disrupts this dormancy is crucial for finding ways to prevent relapse. Writing in Nature, Chia et al. provide some clues, demonstrating that influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infections of the lungs can trigger the awakening of dormant breast cancer cells that had migrated there.

 

[dann]

About the cancer study mentioned in the previous post:

Evelio González Prieto on X, July 31, 2025
The news appeared on the official newscast of Spanish TV

Telediarios de TVE on X, July 30, 2025
Virus respiratorios, como el de la gripe o el covid, pueden favorecer la aparición de metástasis en pacientes que han sufrido cáncer de mama.
With a short video, 30 sec.

Will the mainstream media in other countries report on this?
So far, I haven't seen anything in Denmark.