Antivax COVIDiocy: Now there's proof that COVID vaccine reduces risk for long COVID

One of the least understood risks of COVID is "long COVID" where patients recovering from even mild bouts of COVID can suffer long debilitating symptoms such as inability to focus, fatigue, headaches, "mind fog", and more. WHY of long COVID is still poorly understood, and several theories are available, from microclots to a hidden reservoir of virus in the body. With the BA.2 variant of omicron on the rise, COVID is not going away. 

While the only sure way to NOT get long COVID is to not get COVID in the first place (which means masking and getting fully vaccinated with booster shot), there's growing evidence that getting vaccinated will substantially reduce the chance of developing long COVID, and/or reduces the symptoms of long COVID.

UK has assessed 15 studies around the globe on this topic, and the meta-analysis is consistent: COVID vaccine reduces the chance of getting long COVID. The benefits of getting vaccinated after diagnosis of long COVID, however, are less clear, as some people got better, but some people got worse. 

All the more reason to get vaccinated for COVID, despite antivaxxer rhetoric such as "crime against humanity". But I am guessing if you STILL haven't, you will never do so, still believing that COVID "is like the flu". 

If so, you're still the COVIDiot. 

Stop COVIDiocy: Seattle Students Walked Out of School, Demand Mask Mandates to Be Reinstated

From The Seattle Times:

More than 100 Seattle Public Schools students walked out of class Monday morning to protest the district’s decision to end the requirement that students and staff wear masks. 

Many of those students rallied at district headquarters, the John Stanford Center, to ask Superintendent Brent Jones to reinstate the mask mandate districtwide. Mask requirements for Seattle and most other districts in the state ended a week ago.

And the teachers are pushing back as well. Teachers did not like the unilateral decision reached by the school district superintendent. In fact, the superintendent ended the mask mandate without bargaining with the teacher's union, as required by a prior memo of understanding. 

The school district, of course, blames the governor for lifting the mask mandate. They are merely "aligning" with the changing policy from the state department of Health and Public Health. 

But it's clear that the students and the teachers are on one side, with the district on the other. 

But which side are the parents on? 

Dumb COVIDiocy: Podcaster Self-Pwns With Idiotic Tweet Comparing Self to Dog

Before today, I have never heard of Cari Kelemen. She was apparently some podcaster and media "star". Unfortunately, her tweet demonstrated that her scientific education is severely lacking, and in comparing herself to a dog, probably should have thought about it first... But here's the tweet:

You may think this does sound kinda odd, but there are a couple assumptions that you failed to question. 

1) Are medicine treated same as vaccines in dogs? She's assuming they do.

2) Do dogs get different vaccine dosage based on their weight? After all, a dog could vary from a tiny chihuahua or a small terrier to a huge 100+ pound mastiff. She's assuming yes from 1). 

3) Should you treat a human the way you treat a dog? Of course not...

I am a skeptic, and let's answer these questions:

Do dogs get different vaccine dosage based on their weight? 

No they do NOT. They all get the same vaccine dose (about 1cc). Bodyweight is irrelevant when it comes to vaccines. Skepvet answered this in 2016:

There’s a common misconception out there about vaccines that small animals should have lower “doses” of a vaccine than larger animals. This is a natural assumption stemming, most likely, from our familiarity with how medicines are dosed. However, while there are some differences in the amount of a vaccine given in different species, it is far less of a difference than would be expected if vaccines worked like drugs.

Basically, a vaccine only needs to be enough to trigger an immune response from the immune system. And immune system response threshold is NOT volume- or weight-based. Once the response is initiated, the immune system itself will generate the antibodies and the rest to populate the entire body. If you use a lower dose, you may not trigger the immune response. 

Medicine works differently. Medicine has to get into the body and travel throughout the body via the circulatory system. So the dosage is affected by how big the body is. The body is not triggered by it to help out. Got that? 

So medicine in dogs is NOT the same as vaccine in dogs. 

Guess that blows Q1 and Q2 out of the water. 

 

Do we really need to cover Q3? Why would she compare herself to her dog anyway? 

Don't be a COVIDiot like her. 

COVIDiocy Busted: Latest and Largest Ivermectin Trial Shows It Has NO Effect Over Placebo

The test was done in Malaysia where 490 COVID patients with mild or moderate symptoms were randomly given either IVM or placebo between May and October 2021 for five days. So what's the outcome? No discernible difference. IVM did NOTHING, as we've told you all along. All those IVM pimps had been lying to you about how "effective" IVM had been. It never was. 

In this study, out of 490 patients, 241 ended up in IVM group, and 249 in placebo control group. 52 in the IVM group and 43 in the control group have their conditions worsened to "severe disease", which defined as blood oxygen saturation falling below 95% without use of supplemental oxygen. Other outcomes, such as requiring ICU, mechanical ventilation, or mortality and adverse events, are also nearly identical. 

And these are the most vulnerable, 50+ years old, with some co-morbidity conditions. I.e. the ones that most need the drug to work. 

And IVM did nothing. 

Younger people who are more likely to survive COVID definitely don't need IVM. 

At least two other trials in 2021 (in Colombia and Argentina) ALSO confirmed that IVM did nothing. 

What else did the trial show? Vaccinated patients have a significantly lower rate of severe disease. And IVM reported 60% of all adverse events, including severe diarrhea. 

The conclusion is undeniable. 

IVM did not reduce risk of COVID progressing to severe status. 

IVM did not reduce risk of hospitalization from COVID. 

IVM did not improve survival rate of COVID. 

This trial is using 0.4 mg/kg of body weight for 5 days. This is actually VERY high, but they can do so because all the patients are staying in the hospital for close monitoring. AND they already suffer from high rate of adverse events. 

Imagine COVIDiots self-dosing at home, under- or over-dosing, and getting the runs (loose bowels). 

All for nothing. 

It does not pay to be a COVIDiot. 

Levels of COVIDiocy: the trio of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM)

Recently there is a bit of question on what are the differences among misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, and where COVID deniers and antivaxxers fall. 

But first, let's be clear on the differences. I've personally classified them as:

Misinformation: false information, but the speaker believed it to be true, no ill intent

Example: "COVID is for children is mild like the flu. OMG, a thousand kids have DIED from COVID? I... I didn't know."

Disinformation: false information, but speaker knew to be false, yet without ill intent

Example: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Malinformation: false information, speaker knew to be false, with ill intent 

Example: Catfishing (romance scams), put up a Craigslist posting of your enemy's address stating "moving out, please take EVERYTHING" causing a mob to ransack the place, SWATing, etc. 

Now that we have gotten definitions out of the way... where do COVID deniers and antivaxxers fall on the scale? 

My personal opinion is they are between misinformation and disinformation. IMHO, most of them have no ill intent (unless they're really Russian or other foreign cyber-op trying to foment trouble) and believe stuff that's not true, or fail to understand proportionality, and tries to maximize the potential harm and minimize the actual benefits of the vaccine, while doing the reverse to the disease: minimize the harm of the disease. 

In terms of COVID, they take the following forms:

* OMG myocarditis risk from vaccines!  (maximize potential harm, refuse to recognize myocarditis risk from the disease itself is worse)

* You can still catch COVID after being 2-jabbed AND boosted (minimize actual benefits, such as minimal chance of hospitalization, and lesser risk of long COVID)

* COVID is mild in children like the flu (minimize disease harm, even though COVID has killed over 1000 kids in 2 years, while flu rarely kills over 200 a year)

However, someone pointed me to a government website that has a somewhat different, and IMHO, more confusing definition: 

Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation make up what CISA defines as “information activities”. When this type of content is released by foreign actors, it can be referred to as foreign influence. Definitions for each are below.

Misinformation is false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm.

Disinformation is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.

Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.

Foreign and domestic threat actors use MDM campaigns to cause chaos, confusion, and division. These malign actors are seeking to interfere with and undermine our democratic institutions and national cohesiveness.

From https://www.cisa.gov/mdm#

There is a bit of a problem as there's little if any difference between disinformation and malinformation. The definition seems to imply that disinformation is completely "made up" while malinformation is not, but a good disinformation should be based on SOME facts to be believable.  

I am not sure which definitions I will use at this time, but the finer details does not matter. One needs to point out falsehoods where one sees it. The intention is difficult to infer and mostly irrelevant. 

Twitter COVIDiocy: Spamming is not Winning

A while back, someone made a remark "I don't know of anyone with vaccine injury" on Twitter.

I replied that "ever notice it's usually antivaxxer's friends or family that have those alleged vaccine injuries?"

Then an antivaxxer dropped a Snopes-verified bogus entry "Pfizer victim" and claim "people don't start antivax, we start because we saw our loved ones suffer"

You saw a BOGUS suffering that NO ONE can verify, eh? 

So I pointed out his bogosity and linked to Snopes debunking the one he linked. 

Guess what he did next? 

He spammed 20+ more other alleged vaccine injuries, while claiming "only fully vaxxed have problems". 

Edit: Make that 37. 

The only treatment you'll get is "mute". I'm not going to debate you and waste my time when you don't give a **** about evidence and science, by leading off with a bogus vaccine death. 

Leading off with a snopes-verified bogus entry. Really smart you are (not), antivaxxer. 

Oh, AND you're getting reported. 

Normalcy COVIDiocy: Who is "Urgency of Normal" and Why Are They In So Much Hurry to Repeal Pandemic Protective Measures?

In the past two or three months, you may have seen a new hashtag online #urgencyofnormal. They are a vocal minority group of doctors and scientists calling for repeal of as many pandemic protective measures as soon as possible, preferably immediately. Their reasoning is the measures are doing more harm than the pandemic itself. They are going as far as claiming that existing measures are just "panic porn". One such spokesperson for this group is Dr. Lucy McBride. 

Dr. Lucy McBride, on CNN, "Doctor says 'panic porn' is hurting her patients"

Are they making any sense? Is the attempt to contain COVID, i.e. masks and vaccines and boosters (there's no lockdown now) doing more harm than good? 

What exactly is the "harm" of these protective measures? 

According to urgencyofnormal.com/our-statement, pandemic and/or its protective measures have caused "youth depression, suspected suicide attempts, drug overdose deaths, and obesity". In their "toolkit", they have also cited polls as evidence of these increases, and dropping grades in 2020 vs 2019. 

What I find interesting is they can only cite an increase in suicide attempts in girls... so boys are not affected?

UrgencyOfNormal Toolkit claims pandemic and/or protective measures have caused harm... to girls? 

Also, just how do you separate harm from the pandemic itself vs. the protective measures designed to combat the pandemic? 

You can't. 

Yet their solution is to stop all the protective measures for children! No masking! Vax or not just go back to school! Pretend there is no pandemic! 

Maintain in-person learning regardless of case counts and vaccination rates. 

So why are they against masking in schools? First they told us that masking is NOT proven to work (i.e. any benefits are not statistically significant). But does it really?

Does the Georgia study really say mask use was not statistically significant? Yes, but... 

They helpfully included a link to the study in the footnotes, and this is where the cracks started to show in their "logic". I will quote from the study's page 5

The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. This finding might be attributed to higher effectiveness of masks among adults, who are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection but might also result from differences in mask-wearing behavior among students in schools with optional requirements. Mask use requirements were limited in this sample; 65.1% of schools required teacher and staff member mask use and approximately one half (51.5%) required student mask use. Because universal and correct use of masks can reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission (6) and is a relatively low-cost and easily implemented strategy, findings in this report suggest universal and correct mask use is an important COVID-19 prevention strategy in schools as part of a multicomponent approach

(bold and italics added by me)

The UrgencyOfNormal folks took one sentence they liked, and ignored the REAL finding of the study. What the study said was they have no data from the mask "optional" schools. They have no idea what percentage of people are actually wearing or NOT wearing the masks. So it cannot act as a proper control group against "mask required". 

But the UrgencyofNormal folks read it as if it said "masks did not do anything". 

I have not checked the rest of the other studies they cited, but it would not surprise me if they used similar leaps in logic and cherry-picking. 

And based on this, UrgencyOfNormal is calling for an end to ALL school masking. 

But there are a couple other problems with their suppositions... They are basing their numbers on Delta, and omicron, while supposedly milder, is FAR more contagious. 

UrgencyOfNormal claims are based on Delta numbers. Omicron turned out to be FAR FAR WORSE

Let's look at some REAL numbers... CDC mortality of 0-17 year olds as of now, which is over 2 years. Remember to divide by 25.7 (1.7 months into 2022) then times 12 for rough yearly numbers. 

One also wonders where did they get their flu numbers, which seems to be a bit... exaggerated. 

According to CDC, 2019-20 flu season had 188 pediatric flu death (0-17 yrs of age), which tied the record set during 2017-18. So why does their graph show death in the 500's? Can they be... massaging the numbers? Oh, but also look at the 2012-2013 bar... over 1200 deaths? Why does the CDC say only 170 pediatric deaths? Where did they even find these numbers? 

Flu does NOT kill at the rate of two dozen PER WEEK non-stop. 

Another 23 children died from Covid last week according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Parents need to understand that Covid can be quite serious and children can be safely protected through vaccination. #VaccinesSaveLives pic.twitter.com/cwBXiSC8vL

— EMK (@eveamk) February 22, 2022

Oh, and they also claimed that children don't get long COVID. You did read that on the slide, right? The latest results say something very different... AT LEAST 10% of all kids infected with COVID get long COVID. The number can be as high as 20%. And these numbers are based on PRE-OMICRON numbers. The current numbers could be worse, FAR WORSE, and we won't see the results for at least a MONTH after the infection. 

By now, it's clear that UrgencyOfNormal is not based on data as they claimed, but potentially deliberate misinterpretation and/or outright fabrication of data. 

The harm they claimed is based on polls, not science. The comparisons they made are unscientific and based on inflated and possibly fabricated numbers, and out-of-date numbers. And their anti-mask justification is based on deliberate cherry-picking of study results. They also claim the danger is minimal, by minimizing numbers, using outdated numbers, or outright FABRICATING pediatric flu deaths in prior years. 

But let us be absolutely clear:

What UrgencyOfNormal proposed is to get our children back into school without ANY protection, and roll the odds, ASSUMING the vast majority of them will survive, instead of doing EVERYTHING we can to make sure they do.

That is not epidemiology. 

That's playing roulette with someone else's children. 

That's COVIDiot thinking.