COVID-19 vaccines: medical concerns and recommendations

[entropy]

I’m repeating myself again, but the entire vaccine circus was never about health. As the fear and paranoia subsides, more and more people are begrudgingly accepting this...

[Maple Syrup Actual]

This is the only item I've seen about this particular topic so the usual disclaimers apply: replication, study design issues, whatever.

But some people might recall that for this entire pandemic, I've been asking "why has the impact on my province, BC, been so noticeably milder than provinces like Ontario and Quebec?"

It's been confusing because we have this massive transient population of mainland chinese going back and forth. There are direct flights to Wuhan from Vancouver Int'l, which is pretty uncommon. To me it seemed like we should have been hammered by it early on...and we weren't. Our "lockdowns" looked more like Sweden's approach than lots of US jurisdictions (with the notable, and IMO frustrating, exception that we did require schoolkids over 5 to mask up at various points over the last couple of years, a fact which is basically linked to the powerful teacher's union).

Anyway we got off pretty easy. I think we had fatalities around 1/3 of the lowest US state rate, despite having mostly voluntary measures. Ontario was about equal to the lowest state, last time I looked; still pretty low but 3x worse than here.

Obviously lots of factors would be at play; BC is the least fat province, for example. Also, the first wave arrived, by fluke, at the beginning of a stretch of spectacular weather during which everyone was outside in parks and on beaches, and of course now we know that not much transmission occurs outside, which reduced the initial spread and maybe meant that by the time it was spreading in earnest, people were more aware of the risk. I don't know.

But here is another interesting factor: air pollution.

https://www.cp24.com/news/areas-of-o...tudy-1.5915700

Despite Vancouver being a big city surrounded by mountains, the prevailing ocean winds mean that it has a pretty good air quality index almost all the time. I had to google the numbers, but here's what I got: Vancouverites are exposed to an average of 6.1 μg/m3 of PM2. 5 pollution – less than the typical Canadian resident, who's exposed to 7.7 μg/m3. If people in Canada's third largest city experience less air pollution than the average Canadian, man, that's pretty good. And it suggests that other places in the province must have REALLY low air pollution.

Toronto claims to have an average of about 7.5, but current real-time numbers hover around 50; Vancouver about half that. Montreal averages about 10, I know.


Anyway no one thing would ever be "the" explanation but personally I find this link between air quality and C19 severity really fascinating. Maybe it's come up before but this is the first thing on it I have personally seen.

It also makes you wonder about some of those chinese cities and their reactions early on...were they seeing radically worse outcomes in part because of their pollution, and treating the disease as correspondingly more lethal?

[RoyGBiv]

It also makes you wonder about some of those chinese cities and their reactions early on...were they seeing radically worse outcomes in part because of their pollution, and treating the disease as correspondingly more lethal?

Possible that overall respiratory health is better in BC than CN?

[YVK]

I thought this was an interesting read. Still needs peer review....

This peer says "nearly garbage". Can't compare efficacy and outcomes on a basis of parallel trials, they have to be in one and the same randomized trial.

[45dotACP]

This is the only item I've seen about this particular topic so the usual disclaimers apply: replication, study design issues, whatever.

But some people might recall that for this entire pandemic, I've been asking "why has the impact on my province, BC, been so noticeably milder than provinces like Ontario and Quebec?"

It's been confusing because we have this massive transient population of mainland chinese going back and forth. There are direct flights to Wuhan from Vancouver Int'l, which is pretty uncommon. To me it seemed like we should have been hammered by it early on...and we weren't. Our "lockdowns" looked more like Sweden's approach than lots of US jurisdictions (with the notable, and IMO frustrating, exception that we did require schoolkids over 5 to mask up at various points over the last couple of years, a fact which is basically linked to the powerful teacher's union).

Anyway we got off pretty easy. I think we had fatalities around 1/3 of the lowest US state rate, despite having mostly voluntary measures. Ontario was about equal to the lowest state, last time I looked; still pretty low but 3x worse than here.

Obviously lots of factors would be at play; BC is the least fat province, for example. Also, the first wave arrived, by fluke, at the beginning of a stretch of spectacular weather during which everyone was outside in parks and on beaches, and of course now we know that not much transmission occurs outside, which reduced the initial spread and maybe meant that by the time it was spreading in earnest, people were more aware of the risk. I don't know.

But here is another interesting factor: air pollution.

https://www.cp24.com/news/areas-of-o...tudy-1.5915700

Despite Vancouver being a big city surrounded by mountains, the prevailing ocean winds mean that it has a pretty good air quality index almost all the time. I had to google the numbers, but here's what I got: Vancouverites are exposed to an average of 6.1 μg/m3 of PM2. 5 pollution – less than the typical Canadian resident, who's exposed to 7.7 μg/m3. If people in Canada's third largest city experience less air pollution than the average Canadian, man, that's pretty good. And it suggests that other places in the province must have REALLY low air pollution.

Toronto claims to have an average of about 7.5, but current real-time numbers hover around 50; Vancouver about half that. Montreal averages about 10, I know.


Anyway no one thing would ever be "the" explanation but personally I find this link between air quality and C19 severity really fascinating. Maybe it's come up before but this is the first thing on it I have personally seen.

It also makes you wonder about some of those chinese cities and their reactions early on...were they seeing radically worse outcomes in part because of their pollution, and treating the disease as correspondingly more lethal?

It would be interesting to see a similar type of study in the US. In my experience, people who had COVID and asthma often saw a worsening of their underlying asthma after COVID, though anecdotally I've seen similar worsening of chronic illness for diabetics as well.

I wonder also if that could be due to the lack of effective management of chronic conditions due to lockdowns?

But the pandemic has had strange effects. I now become immediately ill when consuming alcohol after I had COVID. Like being hungover, but immediately and after two drinks of any type. Beer, wine, liquor or cocktail.

Really took the shine out of drinking for me. Though truthfully that is probably for the best.

The disease itself and the long term effects of COVID will likely be a topic of study for decades to come and we will be soon gifted with damn near perfect hindsight I'm sure.

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Possible that overall respiratory health is better in BC than CN?

You know, when you put it that way, it sounds like so much less of a discovery: "people in areas with more air pollution have worse overall respiratory health" seems like a bit of a "duh" observation and "people with lower overall respiratory health have worse outcomes with this respiratory infection" also seems like a bit of a NFK point...so "higher levels of air pollution correlates with worse COVID outcomes" starts to sound a bit like "higher levels of rain correlate with greater numbers of puddles on ground."

I guess the only remaining surprising thing for me at least is that in general there are pretty low levels of air pollution in this country...but apparently that still came back with a correlation.

I agree, it'd be really interesting to see an equivalent study in the US. In general there's more industry there and more large, relatively densely populated areas so I'd guess there are large populations you could look at with greater average air pollution exposure than you could find in Canada, but that's just a guess.

[ccmdfd]

In my experience, people who had COVID and asthma often saw a worsening of their underlying asthma after COVID, though anecdotally I've seen similar worsening of chronic illness for diabetics as well.

Personally have seen several cases of of this also. I've also had a few post covid patients develop asthma like symptoms, and respond to asthma therapy, and they had never had any type of asthma before.

[Dog Guy]

This is the only item I've seen about this particular topic so the usual disclaimers apply: replication, study design issues, whatever.

But some people might recall that for this entire pandemic, I've been asking "why has the impact on my province, BC, been so noticeably milder than provinces like Ontario and Quebec?"

It's been confusing because we have this massive transient population of mainland chinese going back and forth. There are direct flights to Wuhan from Vancouver Int'l, which is pretty uncommon. To me it seemed like we should have been hammered by it early on...and we weren't. Our "lockdowns" looked more like Sweden's approach than lots of US jurisdictions (with the notable, and IMO frustrating, exception that we did require schoolkids over 5 to mask up at various points over the last couple of years, a fact which is basically linked to the powerful teacher's union).

Anyway we got off pretty easy. I think we had fatalities around 1/3 of the lowest US state rate, despite having mostly voluntary measures. Ontario was about equal to the lowest state, last time I looked; still pretty low but 3x worse than here.

Obviously lots of factors would be at play; BC is the least fat province, for example. Also, the first wave arrived, by fluke, at the beginning of a stretch of spectacular weather during which everyone was outside in parks and on beaches, and of course now we know that not much transmission occurs outside, which reduced the initial spread and maybe meant that by the time it was spreading in earnest, people were more aware of the risk. I don't know.

But here is another interesting factor: air pollution.

https://www.cp24.com/news/areas-of-o...tudy-1.5915700

Despite Vancouver being a big city surrounded by mountains, the prevailing ocean winds mean that it has a pretty good air quality index almost all the time. I had to google the numbers, but here's what I got: Vancouverites are exposed to an average of 6.1 μg/m3 of PM2. 5 pollution – less than the typical Canadian resident, who's exposed to 7.7 μg/m3. If people in Canada's third largest city experience less air pollution than the average Canadian, man, that's pretty good. And it suggests that other places in the province must have REALLY low air pollution.

Toronto claims to have an average of about 7.5, but current real-time numbers hover around 50; Vancouver about half that. Montreal averages about 10, I know.


Anyway no one thing would ever be "the" explanation but personally I find this link between air quality and C19 severity really fascinating. Maybe it's come up before but this is the first thing on it I have personally seen.

It also makes you wonder about some of those chinese cities and their reactions early on...were they seeing radically worse outcomes in part because of their pollution, and treating the disease as correspondingly more lethal?

I remember seeing reports of an increase in covid cases in areas that were impacted by wildland fire smoke last Summer. The thinking was that the irritation and inflammation made people more receptive to the virus, as well as impacting the immune system.. Maybe the effects of air polution cause the same trends?

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pr...n-u-s-in-2020/ Includes some pontification about climate change but the stats are valuable.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/exposu...a-covid-deaths

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi8789

[scjbash]

The Lancet has published a new study looking at the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccination. I haven't had time to read it so thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to and shares the results.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...791-7/fulltext

[Nephrology]

I thought this was an interesting read. Still needs peer review....

Foreign research finds Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines don't reduce all-cause mortality


Correlation </=> Causation .... ??

More clickbait nonsense. It is important to understand as context that researchers churn out "meta analyses" all the time because they are low hanging fruit and someone will publish them. Publications are the career currency in the research science world. Thus people are incentivized to publish.

However, a meta-analysis is just the re-analysis of pooled data from multiple trials. Almost always these trials are designed differently, in ways that have significant consequences for the interpretation of their results. Meta-analysis basically takes the appetizers, main course, and dessert and puts them into a blender. Is it a bigger meal? Yes. Does it make sense to consume it in that way? No, not at all.

They were more popular and generally more useful before it was feasible to do large prospective studies. In some fields where large RCTs are logistically difficult or impossible (eg surgery), they are still helpful but must be interpreted with a grain of salt.

Jay Bhattacharya and that whole gang are still banging their COVID drum because they invested themselves irreversibly in this opinion and now it's just what they have left to talk about.

In contrast here is Figure 3 from a paper written by researchers from the VA, leaning on one of the system's greatest strengths, massive amounts of clinical data that is centrally accessible for research purposes.

(A) Age <65 years. (B) Age ≥65 years. (C) Charlson Comorbidity Index score <3. (D) Charlson Comorbidity Index score ≥3.

This peer says "nearly garbage". Can't compare efficacy and outcomes on a basis of parallel trials, they have to be in one and the same randomized trial.

Yep

The Lancet has published a new study looking at the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA vaccination. I haven't had time to read it so thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to and shares the results.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...791-7/fulltext

I rarely have time to read things in depth, the abstract is usually readable in <3 minutes and gives you the elevator pitch.

"In a large study in several US administrative health plan claims databases of people aged 18–64 years, the occurrence of myocarditis or pericarditis, or both, after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination was rare (with only 411 events occurring in 15 million recipients of 16 912 716 doses of BNT162b2 and 10 631 554 doses of mRNA-1273) but higher compared with pre-COVID-19 background rates. "