On 2021-02-28 04:57:17, user Frank Wolkenberg wrote:
It would be very useful to know the criteria for testing. This is not a randomized study, which makes it difficult to understand whether the number of infected cases in the vaccinated sample is equivalent to the number of infected cases in the unvaccinated sample, or whether those individuals represent an anomaly. If this were done, it would help answer the question of to what extent the vaccines protect against infection.
On 2021-03-03 08:20:31, user Martijn Hoogeveen wrote:
Our followup in MedrXiv shows that "Seasonal patterns COVID-19 and Flu-Like Illnesses comparable" https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.28.21252625v1#disqus_thread
On 2021-03-03 16:01:49, user Rafael Onofre wrote:
The article has been published and cab accessed in this link: https://www.sciencedirect.c...
On 2021-03-08 14:55:45, user NickArrizza wrote:
The BIRD meta-anaylsis was an independent review with no conflicts of interest, unlike this one. So is some discernment is required?
On 2021-03-08 16:10:37, user Alberto wrote:
5 out of 25 (20%) healthcare workers in the control group developed COVID-19 vs 0 out of 25 (0%) in the intervention arm.
The number of participants is small, yes. But it sounds like the researchers expected better results! Not very enthusiastic about this small feat.
On 2021-10-19 12:46:17, user student N wrote:
Line 178 & 181, "Supplementary Table 4". You meaned Supplementary Table 5?
On 2021-03-11 20:59:15, user External Reviewer wrote:
The authors recruited their survey participants through a digital campaign on social media. However, the paper does not mention the specific social media platforms or accounts which were used to promote the survey and the potential impact of these accounts on the validity of the study.
The survey was mainly advertised on the first author’s Facebook page which has close to 2.8 million followers and on his YouTube channel which has close to 875,000 subscribers. This explains the massive sample size and the clear bias in the results. In particular, the first author is a well-known science-denier who has been pushing a pseudoscientific creationist perspective onto his social media followers for years.
There is absolutely no surprise that the results came out the way they did. The majority of the survey participants were skeptic of the vaccines and had a general distrusting view of pharmaceutical companies. These people have been conditioned (socially influenced) for years by the first author to believe that the “atheist west” was conspiring against them. At this point, it is almost impossible to convince them otherwise.
Finally, a message to the reviewers, unless the authors provide an evidence to debunk my claims, please do the right thing. This paper should be rejected.
On 2021-03-13 17:03:28, user peterjohn936 wrote:
Improving the Immunity System should have been a standard of care response to COVID especially treatments that are already standard. I am type 2 diabetic, my doctor prescribed vitamin D for me years ago. GPs should be asking their diabetic patients to take extra care to watch their blood sugar levels, to exercise more, and to try to lose weight.
On 2021-03-14 19:07:28, user Vikingman wrote:
Hi<br /> Not sure if this will be of any interest but Nicaragua People's Observatory reporting 3002 deaths to Covid related illness rather than the 175 'official' death toll.
On 2021-03-15 07:47:08, user Pete Austin wrote:
These seem the kind of symptoms that would be caused by living indoors too much, due to inadequate exercise/ventilation and perhaps putting on weight. Publicity for the pandemic will cause people to be more alert to health symptoms, especially following a positive PCR test. I can't find any mention that the same analysis was done for any control group (I searched for "control" and "group"). I wonder if this is a pattern that you would find with other sub-groups of worried well.
On 2021-03-15 13:11:58, user CHPPM TISS wrote:
A cost effectiveness study on an alternative test (FELUDA) for SARS-CoV-2 in India is published and is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.h.... <br /> The FELUDA test has been approved for use in India by its medical device regulatory body and the private healthcare sector in India has started procuring it from the manufacturers.
On 2021-03-18 16:02:09, user Raul Sanchez-Lopez wrote:
A slightly improved version of this pre-print has been accepted for publication in International Journal of Audiology.<br /> DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2021.1905890
On 2021-03-19 17:23:16, user Jenana Maker wrote:
Thank you so much for doing this study - this is such an important public health topic and will hopefully raise awareness within the country and beyond. The reasons for vaccine hesitancy are certainly complex but will need to start with healthcare providers being "on board" and educating the patients and public about the importance of vaccination...hvala vam za objavu ove studije :-)
On 2021-03-22 17:45:56, user Steen Hvass Ingwersen wrote:
This is an interesting study addressing the relationship btw Ct-values for positive covid-19 tests for an individual and the risk of transmission to other individuals at the point of testing.<br /> However, a number of assumptions behind the study are not fulfilled and so, in my opinion the conclusions need major revision.<br /> The reliability of every model is dependent on the assumptions behind the model. Some of these are:<br /> • It is assumed, that the person with the “primary test” has infected the secondarily infected individuals. This is not necessarily the case based on the way data has been compiled. Only the sequence of testing has been taken into account. Other possibilities than the assumed would have been possible:<br /> o The primarily and secondarily infected individuals were infected by the same third individual outside their household.<br /> o The primary case was infected by the secondary case but was classified as primary because this individual was the first to be tested within the household<br /> o The secondary case was infected by the primary case but this happened at an earlier point than the time of testing. Thus would likely have been associated with a lower Ct-value (and thus a higher viral load) than the one obtained in the test.<br /> • It is furthermore assumed that all individuals within a household went in strict quarantaine immediately after the primary positive test result. This was not necessarily the case. <br /> All the above-mentioned sources of misclassification move the relationship between the Ct-value and the risk of transmisssion in the same direction: towards higher Ct-values being associated with transmission risk. <br /> The estimate in the study was that a Ct-value of 38 was associated with 8% probability of transfection. As shown above, this value was overestimated, and there was no attempt to evaluate the degree of bias for the estimate in the study. For this reason, this estimate should be removed from the paper.
On 2021-03-23 01:25:16, user Nneoma Nzeduru wrote:
Great work on this article! This article does a wonderful job at analyzing data on the short term outcomes of the Lumbar Laminoplasty. I noticed that you mentioned a limitation of this study is that does not measure VAS score with activity. From personal research, I discovered that walking is an effective means of a supporting recovery, why did the study not include the relationship between VAS score and activities like walking and other low impact activities?
On 2021-03-23 17:35:47, user Nita Goldstein Goldband wrote:
With respect to seniors and cancer patients. Those in long term care received doses according to the manufacturers schedule. We need to closely monitor immunity in those who have just received first doses. My concern is how slowly we make decisions in Canada and how nimble our provinces can be about rescheduling second vaccines if further research supports a more rapid response
On 2021-03-24 14:12:27, user S Wood wrote:
There is some online discussion about whether smoothness assumptions somehow cause us to estimate the R<1 point as earlier than it really was. If the smoothness assumption did this, then if the amount of smoothing is increased enough, the R<1 point should move back in time. In fact it moves forward (later in time). So, if anything, our smoothness assumption is likely to be causing the R<1 point to be later than it should be. The issue of possible artefacts from smoothing is also discussed in more detail in this peer reviewed paper in press in Biometrics: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.....
In response to the ad4 comments: a) some overestimation is possible, and was evident in early care home death data, but seems unlikely to be a major issue here, and certainly not to be a cause of substantial problems with the Knock et al results; b) Knock et al. do not fix the overall IFR, so that is not a problem with their analysis (or ours).
On 2021-03-27 10:07:56, user Terrapon wrote:
This article has been accepted for publication in Neurosurgery published by Oxford University Press.
On 2021-04-01 04:10:21, user Michal P wrote:
This study has a number of significant flaws and in my opinion should not be used for any decision making.
First, the sample size is very small - only 282 tests with only 2 positive cases. The authors state as their conclusion the rate of 7 positive cases out of 1000 visitors, even though according to their own analysis the 95% confidence interval is 1-24. And even though the authors provide such a wide confidence interval, their estimate of the number of infected arrivals is far narrower: 17-30 in the November-December period. This range should be substantially wider to accommodate the uncertainty of the test estimate.
Second, the study is performing the tests when the visitors are departing, and as the authors admit, they cannot rule out that the visitors were infected on Maui. Even if one of the two infections occured on Maui, that would completely change the result.
Finally, the study still suffers from selection bias. It sampled visitors arriving on a single day, with most of the visitors from California and Washington, during a time of high infections in the US. Current infection rate in the US is about 4 times lower than at the time the study is performed. This alone suggests that the likelihood of a visitor being infected now is 4 times lower than at the time the study was performed.
For this study to be useful for policy making it should be substantially larger to provide higher statistical power. And the estimate of the number of infected visitors should be conditional both on the number of arriving visitors as well as the prevalence of the infection in the locations the visitors are arriving from .
On 2021-04-08 18:48:35, user Francesco Pilolli wrote:
In spite of the difficulties encountered by other studies evaluating the efficacy of therapies in outpatients, this work describes an impressive statistically significant reduction in the hospitalization rate.<br /> This study reports a share of hospitalised patients in the “recommended” cohort (2,2%) similar to the one described in the placebo groups of the Pfitzer-Biontech (2,5% https://www.fda.gov/media/1... ) and Moderna (3,3% https://www.nejm.org/doi/fu... ) vaccine studies between symptomatic cases (these studies did not exclude hospitalised cases at the onset), but it describes an impressive 14,4% share of hospitalised cases in the “control” group.<br /> This rate is much higher than the one described in the placebo group in the Bamlanivimab and Etesevimab study in high-risk outpatients (7% https://www.fda.gov/media/1... ) and in the COLCORONA trial again in the placebo group of high-risk outpatients (5,8% https://www.medrxiv.org/con... ).<br /> It’s peculiar that this study (carried out on general population and excluding severe cases at onset) describes a hospitalization rate in the control group much higher than that observed in other studies in high-risk patients, considering also hospitalisation at onset.<br /> I think that the majority of the difference of the hospitalisation ratio between “recommended” and control group could be explained by the choice of selecting 88 out of 90 cases of the control group from people infected in the first wave in the province of Bergamo, one of the most severely hit zones in Italy.<br /> The control group required swab or serological positivity but the swab test capacity was limited in Italy during the first wave and it is very unlikely that all the symptomatic people underwent a serological test. During the first wave many symptomatic people were at home without having undergone any swab. The limited test capacity causes a high underestimation of paucisymptomatic and mild cases resulting in a high rate between hospitalisation and tested cases.<br /> In fact the Italian ratio between hospitalisation and tested cases from March to May 2020 (the same infection period of 88 out of 90 patients of the control cohort) was 36,4% compared to the 7,8% observed from October 2020 to January 2021 https://www.epicentro.iss.i...<br /> This difference was much higher for the province of Bergamo. Data about daily hospitalisation by province are not public but we know the cases ( https://lab24.ilsole24ore.c... "https://lab24.ilsole24ore.com/coronavirus/)") and deaths ( https://www.istat.it/it/fil... ) by province until December 2020. While the ratio between Italian cases and deaths was 14,8% from March to May 2020, it falls to 2,2% from October to December, in the same periods the rate deaths/cases in the province of Bergamo was 23,4% (almost one patient with positive swab every four died in the first wave) and 1,5% (less than the Italian average).<br /> Therefore, it is very likely that the majority of the difference in the hospitalisation rate between the “recommended” (from the second wave) and the “control” cohort (from the first wave in the most hit zone in Italy) is explained by the different historical moments which were characterised by a large difference in test capacity and many symptomatic people at home without getting tested during the first wave.
On 2021-04-09 21:24:21, user disqus_LHZMcrKY6P wrote:
Are the PCR results confirmed by a second test before reporting as per guidance for low prevalence
On 2021-04-12 22:04:26, user whychooseaside wrote:
Did you do a two week test after the second vaccination?
On 2021-04-17 05:36:02, user Dr. Ghosh wrote:
Does this work indirectly support that current vaccines based on whole-microbe approach may work better (specially against the SARS-Cov-2 VoCs) than vaccines which target the S protein alone?
On 2021-04-17 14:48:15, user Mansour Tobaiqy wrote:
This manuscript has been published in:
On 2021-04-28 17:27:54, user Orison Woolcott wrote:
This study has been peer-reviewed and published in Scientific Reports: https://www.nature.com/arti...
On 2021-04-28 21:35:17, user Evangeline Burkholder wrote:
I'd like to know to what actual level was the viral load reduced to?
On 2021-05-13 15:56:02, user Tatiana Araujo Pereira wrote:
It has been more than one year since the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak started. We already have effective vaccines around the world, but the imbalance between supply and demand allows Sars-CoV-2 to spread and mutate faster than mass immunization, especially in less developed countries. The arise of more transmissible variants is very worrying and motivates the search for biomarkers that enable early assessment of possible critical cases as well as therapeutic targets for the disease. In this sense Flora et al [1] performed laboratory and proteomic analysis of the plasma sample from a cohort of 163 COVID-19 patients admitted to Bauru State Hospital (São Paulo, Brasil) divided in three groups: “a) patients with mild symptoms that were discharged without admission to an ICU; b) patients with severe symptoms that were discharged after admission to an ICU; c) critical patients, who were admitted to an ICU and died”. The results point to a high concentration of ferritin (FTN) and absence of the IREB2 protein in volunteers exhibiting severe and critical symptoms, indicating that iron homeostasis would be a possible therapeutic target. These results are in line with previous researches, which also identified FTN levels directly related to the severity of the disease [2-5]. Ferritin is an iron reservoir protein, keeping it in its core shell to protect cells against oxidative stress. There are other proteins inhibiting iron redox reactivity in the body, helping with metal ions transport (Transferrin), import to (Divalent Metal Transport) and export from (Ferroportin) the cell [6, 7]. Due to its role in iron homeostasis, FTN is used to indirectly assess iron status in the body. Ordinarily, high levels of FTN mean iron overload [8]. However, circulating ferritin can be elevated independently of iron overload in inflammatory processes, in which it acts as immunosuppressant and proinflamatory modulator [4, 9, 10]. IREB2 is an Iron Regulatory Protein (IRP). When iron levels are low these proteins are able to attach to an untranslated region of mRNA known as Iron Responsive Elements (IRE). Through this mechanism it regulates expression of transferrin receptor and ferritin. In iron overload conditions the affinity of IRP for IRE is not enough to keep the attachment and the protein degrades or takes another role. IREB2 represses ferritin translation when bounded to IRE in FTN-mRNA and degrades in iron overload conditions [6, 11-13].<br /> Because of observed data, Flora et al [1] concluded that “increasing the expression of IREB2 might be a therapeutic possibility to reduce ferritin levels and, in turn, the severity of COVID-19”. Nonetheless, there is no data about iron status in the plasma of the subjects. So it is impossible to be sure whether the high levels of FTN and absence of IREB2 are associated with iron overload. In this case, suppressing ferritin production could culminate in greater oxidative damage, and even increase the risk of opportunistic infections, since intracellular segregation of iron is one of the main strategies to defend host against parasites [14]. In macrophages, this mechanism induces production of nitrogen and oxygen reactive species helping immune defenses [15, 16], but in chronic inflammation it affects iron recycling [17]. Another way to limit iron availability involves its main regulatory hormone hepcidin, which inhibits iron exit from the cell [18]. Hepcidin expression is induced by interleukine-6 (IL-6), which is produced in Sars-CoV-2 infection [19]. Also, Sepehr Ehsani identified a hepcidin mimetic in protein S region that plays a fundamental role in membrane fusion [20]. In this context it is important to verify the possibility that high levels of FTN are not associated with iron overload and only then consider increasing in IREB2 expression as a therapeutic strategy against COVID-19.
AUTHORS<br /> Pereira, T A and Espósito, B P.<br /> Institute of Chemistry – Univesity of São Paulo.
REFERENCES<br /> 1. Flora DC, Valle AD, Pereira HABS. et al. Quantitative plasma proteomics of survivor and non-survivor COVID19 patients admitted to hospital unravels potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets. MedRxiv; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/202....<br /> 2. Cavezzi A, Troiani E, Corrao S. COVID-19: hemoglobin, iron, and hypoxia beyond inflammation. A narrative review. Clin Pract. 2020 May 28;10(2):1271.<br /> 3. Bellmann-Weiler R, Lanser L, Barket R, et al. Prevalence and Predictive Value of Anemia and Dysregulated Iron Homeostasis in Patients with COVID-19 Infection. J Clin Med. 2020;9(8):2429.<br /> 4. Colafrancesco S, Alessandri C, Conti F, Priori R. COVID-19 gone bad: A new character in the spectrum of the hyperferritinemic syndrome?. Autoimmun Rev. 2020;19(7):102573.<br /> 5. Perricone C, Bartoloni E, Bursi R et al. COVID-19 as Part of the Hyperferritinemic Syndromes: the Role of Iron Depletion Therapy. Immunologic Research, vol. 68, no. 4, 2020, pp. 213-224.<br /> 6. Halliwell B and Gutteridge JMC. Free Radicals in Biology and Medicine. 4th ed., Oxford: University Press, 2007.<br /> 7. Grotto HZW. Metabolismo do ferro: uma revisão sobre os principais mecanismos envolvidos em sua homeostase. Rev. Bras. Hematol. Hemoter., vol. 30, no 5, 2008, pp. 390-397.<br /> 8. World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Assessing the iron status of populations. 2nd ed., World Health Organization, 2007. ISBN: 978 92 4 1596107 (electronic version).<br /> 9. Ruddell RG, Hoang-Le D, Barwood JM et al. Ferritin functions as a proinflammatory cytokine via iron-independent protein kinase C zeta/nuclear factor kappaB-regulated signaling in rat hepatic stellate cells. Hepatology. 2009 Mar;49(3):887-900.<br /> 10. Chen TT, Li L, Chung DH et al. TIM-2 is expressed on B cells and in liver and kidney and is a receptor for H-ferritin endocytosis. J Exp Med. 2005;202(7):955-965.<br /> 11. Kuhn LC and Hentze MW. Coordination of Cellular Iron Metabolism by Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation. J Inorg Biochem, vol. 47, no 3-4, 1992, pp. 183-195.<br /> 12. Schalinske KL, Chen OS, Eisenstein RS. Iron differentially stimulates translation of mitochondrial aconitase and ferritin mRNAs in mammalian cells. Implications for iron regulatory proteins as regulators of mitochondrial citrate utilization. J Biol Chem, vol. 273, no 6, 1998, pp. 3740-3746.<br /> 13. Tong W.-H and Rouault TA. Metabolic Regulation Of Citrate And Iron By Aconitases: Role Of Iron-sulfur Clusters Biogenesis. Biometals, vol. 20, no 3-4, 2007, pp. 549-564.<br /> 14. Gan Z, Tang X, Wan Z et al. Regulation of macrophage iron homeostasis is associated with the localization of bacteria. Metallomics, vol. 11, no 3, 2019, pp. 454-461.<br /> 15. Ratledge C and Dover LG. Iron metabolism in pathogenic bacteria. Annu Rev Microbiol, vol. 54, 2000, pp. 881-941.<br /> 16. Schaible UE and Kaufmann SHE. Iron and microbial infection. Nature Reviews Microbiology, vol. 2, 2004, pp. 946–953.<br /> 17. Castro L, Tórtora V, Mansilla S, Radi R. Aconitases: Non-redox Iron-Sulfur Proteins Sensitive to Reactive Species. Acc Chem Res. 2019 Sep 17;52(9):2609-2619.<br /> 18. Martínez-Pastor M and Puig S. Adaptation to iron deficiency in human pathogenic fungi. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Cell Research, vol. 1867, no 10, 2020.<br /> 19. Liu W, Zhang S, Nekhai S, Liu S. Depriving Iron Supply to the Virus Represents a Promising Adjuvant Therapeutic Against Viral Survival [published online ahead of print, 2020 Apr 20]. Curr Clin Microbiol Rep. 2020;1-7.<br /> 20. Ehsani S. Distant sequence similarity between hepcidin and the novel coronavirus spike glycoprotein: a potential hint at the possibility of local iron dysregulation in COVID-19. Biol Direct, vol. 15, 2020, p. 19.
On 2021-12-01 13:15:14, user MWK wrote:
This study is both limited and flawed on many levels. First, it is a retrospective, observational study. That is, no actual serial testing was done. It was a study of past medical records, and that is all.
No regular covid testing was done to see if asymptomatic people in any of the groups were positive. No regular blood testing was done to see if antibodies were present at a higher number than a previous count. A spike in antibody counts from a previous count would indicate a recent covid infection.
These people were not instructed to get tested if they started showing only minor signs and symptoms as they did not even know they were part of a study until after the fact as it was done retrospectively.
So, it is quite possible that people in all three groups did not get tested if they were showing only minor symptoms.
However, it has been argued, and I completely agree, that the least likely group to go and get tested if showing only minor signs/symptoms would be the previously infected group, especially if they had a moderate to serious sickness the first time around.
It was then and still is now a very widely held belief that previous infection protected an individual. Additionally, previously infected people were and are being asked to donate antibodies to help those who were sick, clearly implying protection from repeat infection.
It also has been argued that the vaccinated group would be more likely to get tested if showing only minor signs and symptoms because no one was sure if the vaccine would work against the Delta variant, and vaccinated people were very concerned.
So, simply put, these numbers are not at all accurate, reliable, or valid.
I do not believe this study will ever be published in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal as the scientific community is already finding serious problems with this study,
On 2021-10-15 23:10:46, user Steve wrote:
I agree this study should be final at this point but I'm not sure the peer review process is even a real thing anymore. Maybe I am too cynical but I find it striking that we can spend almost two months debating about why this study wasn't perfect (either way) yet nobody seems able or interested in putting together a better study to address a simple question: How long does natural immunity last? We have tons of stats on who got covid, and what percentage of people are vaxxed but we can't seem to find any of those recovered patients and test them today for antibodies? <br /> The CDC just released their "study" of a few hundred people in Kentucky that they say proves vaccination is better. Hard to take them seriously when a real study involving almost 50,000 patients is dismissed because it isn't perfect.
On 2021-12-01 18:35:49, user Dr. Kate wrote:
Though I trust your calculations are correct, the way of summarizing the results is extremely misleading. If the vaccine was not showing any effect at all, you would find that 75% of all infections had a contribution from unvaccinated people. In your realistic scenario (Fig. 1b), you find the same number for the current vaccines to be 84%, not much higher than this "base line". What you are not saying is, that, with the same way of summarizing 3 out of 4 categories (u-u, u-v, v-u, v-v), you could also arrive at the conclusion that 62% of infections had a contribution from vaccinated people. Yes, this is lower, as it should be, if you assume the vaccines to not be without any effect. But the effect is much smaller than you make it look, and it raises the question whether you cannot much more easily reach R<1 by eliminating transmission through vaccinated people by testing/quarantine, than to sufficiently raise the number of vaccinations (considering that around 50% of the unvaccinated are children). Or, ideally, advocate doing both instead of publishing this paper with the distorted conclusion that it's almost exclusively the unvaccinated people driving the infections, and leaving everyone with a wrong sense of security and moral superiority over the unvaccinated.
On 2021-12-04 16:54:30, user Karl Krösus wrote:
Dear Sirs, dear Madams,
do you want to tell me that your findings are, that if you feed your simulation model with input parameters: contagiousness for unvaccinated = X and contagiousness for vaccinated = 0,25*X, infections by vaccinated are reduced by 75 %?!?! Bravo, I applaud you.<br /> And this effectiveness you derive from the RKI data despite those numbers being totally skewed because vaccinated persons need not to be regularly tested or at all.
Remembering the main reason behind the lockdown measures was to reduce <br /> contact between people because it was suspected that the majority of <br /> people were asymptomatic when infected and would not know that they were<br /> contagious. Now we have vaccines that effectively reduce symptoms and severity of the illness (60-80% depending on the vaccine, estimated), wouldn't that mean that the percentage of asymptomatic infected will rise? And since vaccinated people don't need mandatory tests to participate in social interaction/life it never will be detected?
Especially, since the hope that the vaccine could lower viral load and therefore contagiousness has died since the emergence of the delta variant?<br /> https://www.medrxiv.org/con...
Best regards,<br /> Karl
On 2021-12-07 15:11:47, user MS wrote:
This paper describes a model, not reality. No actual factual figures are used. Weasel words include: "Elusive", "we assume", "we estimate", "under the assumption". Authors are from Humboldt U, known for political bias, many also work at RKI. This seems to be a contract work to justify German politics, as per RKI.
On 2021-11-28 03:32:41, user Alberto wrote:
With this modelling, what would be the situation in Germany if instead of 65% of the population being vaccinated it was 0%, as it was a year ago? Would the results of such model be compatible with reality?
On 2021-12-02 23:24:43, user rvga wrote:
Can you let us know how soon you can get this going - esp. with lineage of omicron variant is going to be very complicated. Thanks.
On 2021-12-06 23:20:21, user rick wrote:
When one person chooses to get a shot and the other doesn't, it's not an "inequity." It's a different decision.
On 2021-12-07 15:37:50, user Wolfgang Messner wrote:
After peer review, the paper is published in the following journal:<br /> Messner, W (2021). The Institutional and Cultural Context of Cross-National Variation in Early COVID-19 Outbreaks. International Public Health Journal, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp 227-235
Links:<br /> https://www.proquest.com/do...<br /> http://www.novapublishers.o...
On 2021-12-08 21:25:15, user Marek Widera wrote:
An updated version of our manuscript with corrections to the references to figure 1 and to the figure legend was submitted and will be online soon.
On 2021-12-09 11:47:30, user King Lam Hui wrote:
Is this under review or something?
On 2021-12-14 04:16:54, user Gregory C. Belmont wrote:
Urgently, the title of this report should be modified to reflect reduction of neutralisation vs previous variants, not reduction vs unvaccinated serum. The lay public is misinterpreting the title and reported results to mean vaccination reduces individual immune response in the vaccinated population vs unvaccinated population. See the following Drudge Report headline and tweet as two of many examples of such misinterpretations in addition to articles published by mainstream media journalists who do not know how to read scientific papers. In addition to a more comprehensively crafted title, the report test should explicitly mention the absence of unvaccinated control serum.
https://ibb.co/yRr4Xxq<br /> https://ibb.co/s3Dgk4B<br /> https://twitter.com/ChuckLo...
On 2021-12-15 14:21:44, user Ole K. Fostad wrote:
Defining unvaccinated up to 21 days after the first vaccine dose is problematic. This definition will mask the possibility of an increase in infections due to the vaccine in the 21 first days after vaccination. The paper does neither discuss nor justify this definition and the corresponding possibility of survivorship bias in the result due to this.
On 2021-12-16 11:48:59, user Timm wrote:
Congratulations to this important study! Why do you think the data hints towards affinity maturation and not just higher titers?
On 2021-12-25 15:01:12, user Aaron Snyder wrote:
I love that it cites the results of a completely different study in the middle of analysis simply because it showed higher efficacy. I wonder if that study cited this one and said the opposite? The last line is also truly remarkable. Would it be so hard for science to admit the obvious that mass vaccination is not the conclusion here?
On 2019-11-30 17:27:53, user Guyguy wrote:
EVOLUTION OF THE EPIDEMIC IN THE PROVINCES OF NORTH KIVU AND ITURI AT NOVEMBER 28, 2019
Friday, November 29, 2019<br /> • Since the beginning of the epidemic, the cumulative number of cases is 3,309, of which 3,191 are confirmed and 118 are probable. In total, there were 2,201 deaths (2,083 confirmed and 118 probable) and 1077 people healed.<br /> • 335 suspected cases under investigation;<br /> • No new confirmed cases;<br /> • No new deaths among confirmed cases;<br /> • No cured person has emerged from CTEs;<br /> • No health worker is among the new confirmed cases. The cumulative number of confirmed / probable cases among health workers is 163 (5% of all confirmed / probable cases), including 41 deaths.
NEWS
Organization of a press conference on the situation and evolution of the Ebola Virus Disease in Beni
• The Beni Ebola Sub-Coordination in North Kivu organized a press conference on Ebola Virus Disease on Friday, November 28, 2019;<br /> • This press conference was moderated by the acting coordinator of this sub-coordination, Dr. Tosalisana Michel, who confirmed that the activities of the response continue to be carried out in Beni, despite the prevailing security situation;<br /> • He reported that the response to the last indigenous case recorded in Beni is still weak as the maximum contact is still out of sight;<br /> • On this occasion, Dr. Tosalisana called on the people of Beni and the surrounding areas affected by this 10th epidemic to accompany the teams of the response in their field work in order to spare this city from any new contamination.
Repatriation in Goma of the remains of two agents of the riposte who died during the Biakato attacks
• The mortal remains of two agents registered by the coordination of the response to the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak during the attacks on the night of Wednesday 27 to Thursday, November 28, 2019 in Biakato Mines in the province of Ituri have repatriated this Friday 29 November 2019 from Beni to Goma;<br /> • A strong delegation from the General Coordination of the Response, led by its coordinator, Prof. Steve Ahuka Mundeke, rushed to Goma Airport to receive these bodies which were then taken to the General Goma reference Hospital morgue. <br /> • Long before, teams from the Mangina and Biakato sub-coordination evacuees arrived in Goma. Since Thursday, November 28, 2019, a few dozen people from these two sub-coordination who were attacked were brought back to Goma for their relocation, said the general coordinator of the response the Prof. Steve Ahuka.
VACCINATION
• The vaccination commission is in mourning. A service provider and a driver of his team were killed on the night of Wednesday 27 November 2019 following attacks at the Biakato living base in Ituri;<br /> • 2nd day without vaccination activity with the 2nd J & J vaccine following the disorders initiated by young people related to the security situation in Beni;<br /> • 821 people were vaccinated with the 2nd Ad26.ZEBOV / MVA-BN-Filo vaccine (Johnson & Johnson) in the two Health Zones of Karisimbi in Goma;<br /> • From the start of vaccination on August 8, 2018 with the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, until November 27, 2019, 255,373 people were vaccinated;<br /> • Approved October 22, 2019 by the Ethics Committee of the School of Public Health of the University of Kinshasa and October 23, 2019 by the National Ethics Committee, the second vaccine, called Ad26.ZEBOV / MVA-BN -Filo, is produced by Janssen Pharmaceuticals for Johnson & Johnson;<br /> • This new vaccine is in addition to the first, the rVSV-ZEBOV, vaccine used until then (since August 08, 2018) in this epidemic manufactured by the pharmaceutical group Merck, after approval of the Ethics Committee on May 20, 2018. has recently been pre-qualified for registration.
MONITORING AT ENTRY POINTS
• Sanitary control activities are disrupted in the Beni and Mangina sub-coordinations in North Kivu, as well as Mambasa and Biakato in Ituri following the demonstrations of the population who decry the killings of civilians and the attacks of armed innocents who took target response teams;<br /> • Since the beginning of the epidemic, the total number of checked travelers (temperature rise) at the sanitary control points is 121,813,958 ;<br /> • To date, a total of 109 entry points (PoE) and sanitary control points (PoCs) have been set up in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri to protect the country's major cities and prevent the spread of the epidemic in neighboring countries.
As a reminder, the recommendations of the MULTISECTORAL COMMITTEE OF THE RESPONSE TO EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE are as follows:
On 2022-01-18 19:31:15, user Charles R. Twardy wrote:
This appears to have been published in v1:9 of a new journal called "Cell Reports Medicine", one of the _Cell_ line. ScienceDirect link, DOI 10.1016/j.xcrm.2020.100146.
On 2022-02-03 03:25:01, user Chris wrote:
Table 1 is illegible in the HTML version of the article.
On 2021-10-19 21:37:15, user Sam Smith wrote:
Official website of the trial: https://twitter.com/togethe...
On 2021-10-21 14:59:55, user Aditya Bhavar wrote:
Hello,<br /> Where to find exact data of adverse reaction occurred during phase-3 trial as on provided preprint publication data is available in very short and I am specifically interested in studies of adverse reaction occurred during trial phase?
On 2021-10-24 14:21:45, user Paul McKeigue wrote:
The abstract shown on this page for version 2 is the abstract for version 1. This will be corrected as soon as possible. The PDF has the correct updated abstract.
On 2021-10-25 10:06:26, user Camille Charbonnier wrote:
Thank you for this work, it is really interesting to see what the 200,000 exomes from the UK Biobank have to say on rare variants in Alzheimer disease.<br /> Just one question and one remark:<br /> - you cite Holstege et al (doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/202... "https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.22.20159251)"). On top of ABCA7, SORL1 and TREM2, this study also identified ATP8B4 and ABCA1 as genes associated with AD, while ADAM10 and SRC failed to reach exome-wide significance at stage 2. Have you tried to replicate these two or four signals?<br /> - there seems to be a few mismatches between rsIDs and p. annotations among TREM2 rare variants, you might want to check these. At the bottom of page 3, rs75932628 cannot be both arginine to histidine and p.R239W. Besides rs75932628 is the p.R47H variant. Therefore at the top of the following page, rs143332484 cannot be p.R47H, it is p.R62H instead.
On 2021-10-27 02:28:10, user Chad Bousman wrote:
Article published in Psychiatry Research, Volume 305, November 2021, 114247 (https://authors.elsevier.co... "https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1d%7E27bZg7EYbm)").
On 2021-10-27 18:43:08, user Gregory Armstrong wrote:
Excellent presentation at SPHERES today. Question: I may have missed something, but to compare relative transmissibility via logistic regression, why not simply limit the data to the two variants and run the regression using the calendar date as the independent variable (using a binary variable for the variant, and multiplying the beta by 5.2)?
On 2021-10-28 16:04:42, user Erin wrote:
My main concern is there were only 5 subjects. I LOVE new methods of treatment, especially when it isn't a drug, and this looks to be really promising. However, when you look at the limited number of subjects to the possible treatment group it is a bit of a let-down. I hope they are able to perform this treatment on more people; men, women, and different backgrounds!
On 2021-10-30 12:26:02, user Siguna Mueller, PhD, PhD wrote:
I am curious about the one unvaccinated individual with the mutations. Did they never have any Covid inoculation at all, or were they just not "fully vaccinated?" In other words, what criteria are you using to determine if someone was fully vaccinated as opposed to unvaccinated? Is it possible that this "unvaccinated" person was actually partially vaccinated? Thanks.
On 2021-10-31 15:46:14, user Jan Brauner wrote:
This manuscript has been published now: https://www.nature.com/arti...
On 2021-11-02 20:37:00, user Amanda wrote:
VAERS data should not be used to determine causation - we are told again and again. It should be used to find safety signals so further RCTs can be done. That is what we are told. yet here the CDC have used VAERS data to determine there is no causation. Second, the all cause mortality of (assuming approx) 150,000,000 people from 300,000,000 doses would be 1,290,000 if every single death was reported. Only 4,472 deaths were reported. Yet we know there would have been at least 1,290,000 deaths anyway. Your paper basically says that because 4,472 is less than 1,290,000 that that proves the vaccine is safe. This is the worst science I have ever seen. Clearly the required parameters of full reporting aren't even met. You'd be better off comparing death rates per dose or person with previous years, which you rejected on the grounds that deaths are required to be reported, so the reported numbers are going to be elevated compared with previous years. What you are saying is that previous years reporting is under-reported. Surely then that should also be investigated and raise a red flag? Second, death reporting is similar in other European countries, showing your doctors have no more time to spend half an hour filling out a death report when they don't think it is related to the vaccine than anyone else. At best, this proves further investigation is necessary through randomised controlled trials. At worst, it says there is no evidence for safety of the vaccines. If the vaccine death rate truley were 4.472/150,000 people, (= 0.003% or one in 33,000) then the original clinical trials would not have detected it with a sample size of 18,000. The idea of VAERS is to detect rare safety signals. This paper outright dismisses the signal, that death reporting per dose has increased by orders of magnitude higher than other vaccines in other years. I actually can't believe comparing all cause mortality to reported deaths is used to infer vaccine safety, by all places the CDC. Who is peer reviewing this? I'd like to contact them.
On 2021-11-03 13:22:41, user Rene Warren wrote:
This study has now been peer-reviewed and published: https://peerj.com/articles/...
On 2021-11-04 07:51:30, user kdrl nakle wrote:
Pretty much a nail in the coffin for international use of Sinovac vaccine unless it is for free.
On 2021-11-05 05:54:24, user Zakir Husain wrote:
A revised version of the paper (National Lockdown and COVID-19 <br /> Containment in India) was published in Economic & <br /> Political Weekly, Vol 56, Issue 39 on 25 September 2021. the paper may <br /> be accessed from: <br /> https://www.epw.in/journal/...
On 2021-11-16 18:32:22, user Erik Petersen wrote:
Why hasn't this paper been published yet?
On 2021-11-18 18:14:57, user Stephen wrote:
Although I tend to agree with the conclusion that achievement of herd immunity is unlikely globally, I do not think the model runs listed in the preprint are convincing. If it is assumed that the basic reproduction number R0 is about 6, as suggested, that would imply a DHIT (Disease herd immunity threshold) of about 83%, which is above the maximum assumed vaccine effectiveness used in the study (80%). While 80% represents a reasonable unweighted average of effectiveness over vaccines and recipient ages, it would be of interest to policy makers to see the results for the best vaccines, for which epsilon is in the 90% range. (Incidentally, the RKI is now saying that for the Delta variant, R0 is in the range 6.0 - 6.7,)
On 2021-11-21 15:58:57, user Eric William Smith wrote:
“1st May 2020 - 1st Sep 2020” and what happened Oct 2020 - Jan 2021? The winter surge destroys this analysis. So do the current western pacific surges
On 2021-11-28 00:33:27, user tommythegrouch wrote:
How can I track when this will be peer reviewed?