Covid Studies 2022

 

Today's headline featured on the front page of the Connecticut Post, my local newspaper, read: “State lawmakers likely to extend mask rules.” An article followed indicating that the state legislature was about to approve the Governor’s mask mandates for another 60 days. 

 

Predictably the Governor, the legislators, and newspaper editors and writers are unaware of recent Covid scientific studies. Here is a list culled from recent articles I have read.

 

In a January 23 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Halperin, adjunct professor at the Gillings School of Gobal Public Health at the University of North Carolina noted the following studies.  

 

# 1: “A recent rigorous review by the University of Minnesota research group concludes: “we are well past the emergency phase of this pandemic, and it should be well-known by now that wearing cloth face coverings or surgical masks, universal or otherwise, has a very minor role to play….It is time to stop overselling their efficacy and unrealistic expectations about their ability to end the pandemic.

 

#2. The first large randomized community level study published last month in Science, found that while generic surgical masks provided a modest (about 10%) reduction in the risk of infection from Delta, cloth masks didn’t significantly reduce risk. Masks may be even less protective against an extremely contagious variant like Omicron….

 

Omicron doesn’t seriously threaten the vast majority of children; preliminary evidence  suggests much less risk for youth than from Delta. An increasing number of public-health experts…have called for ending school mask mandates soon.

 

#3. While a new CDC study finds that boosters substantially reduce the risk of infection as well as hospitalization from Omicron, countries like the U.K. and Israel that had widespread booster coverage before Omicron struck have also seen unprecedented surges in cases…. 

 

#4. The European Medicines Agency recently cautioned that repeated boosters may weaken the immune system over time.

 

#5. A recent Southern California study looked at more than 50,000 patients infected with the new variant. Not one required mechanical ventilation and only one died, compared with 14 deaths and 11 ventilations out of some 12,000 infected by the Delta variant during the same period….

 

#6. Health and Human Services Department data indicate the total number of patients in U.S. hospitals has hardly budged over the past six months….

 

#7. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics  and Evaluation estimates in the Lancet that the number of Omicron deaths “seems to be similar in most countries to the level of a bad influenza season in northern hemisphere countries.”

 

In another op-ed published In the Wall Street Journal on 1/27/2022, Marty Makary, a Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine mentioned some other studies, including one conducted by himself and colleagues at Johns Hopkins. 

 

#1. Finally, last week the CDC released data from New York and California, which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing Covid infection compared with vaccination….

 

#2. The National Institute of Health repeatedly has dismissed  natural immunity by arguing that its duration is unknown—then failing to conduct studies to answer the question. Because of the NIH’s inaction, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I conducted the study. We found that among 295 unvaccinated people, who previously had Covid, antibodies were present in 99% of them up to nearly two years after infection. We also found that natural immunity from prior infection reduced the risk of infection  with the Omicron variant. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the two-dose Moderna vaccine against infection (not severe disease) declines to 61% against Delta and 16% against Omicron at six months, according to a recent Kaiser Southern California study. In general, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines have been less effective than Moderna’s.

 

To summarize. The wearing of masks has been largely ineffective in stopping Covid in its various forms. Even Dr. Fauci admitted as much when he advised people to wear two masks. Moreover, as has been pointed out on this blog many times, most people from the President on down handle and wear them improperly. Just look at basketball coaches wearing their masks on their chin when they yell at their players. The wearing of masks has become a superstition designed to ward off evil spirits.

 

If we really want to follow the science, we might also conclude that Omicron is a blessing in disguise. Many of my family members had the Omicron virus over the holidays and they all survived with only cold or flu like symptoms. The latest science now  indicates that they will now be immune not only to Omicron but to other viruses in the future.

 

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