Vilka nationella eller regionala åtgärder mot coronavirus är evidensbaserade?

[dann]

He was obviously not alone!

How one doctor wrecked the pandemic response (Washington Post, June 29, 2022)
The herd immunity idea advanced by Dr. Atlas and others called for protecting the most vulnerable, primarily the elderly, but allowing the virus to spread through the rest of the population to create natural immunity. The approach discouraged masks, lockdowns and testing. For example, in August, according to the report, Dr. Atlas provided extensive comments on draft testing guidance by the CDC, repeatedly inserting language to narrow testing recommendations. He also was against face masks, writing to other White House aides on Oct. 4, “In fact, there is vanishingly little hard evidence that masks actually work to block transmission of the virus.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/scott-atlas-covid-herd-immunity-strategy/

Sweden's Gamble (Science, Oct 6, 2020)
The Swedish approach has its fans. Protesters against coronavirus-related restrictions in Berlin in late August waved Swedish flags. In the United States, a prominent member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, neuroradiologist Scott Atlas, has cited Sweden as a model to follow. The policies also have widespread public support in Sweden, where consensus is prized and criticism of the government is rare.
https://www.science.org/content/article/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash

[dann]

Where's the herd immunity? Our research shows why Covid is still wreaking havoc. (The Guardian, July 1, 2022)
'Living with the virus is proving much harder than the early vaccine success suggested: this fight is far from over.
(...)
According to the latest numbers released today, the UK added more than half a million new Covid infections in the past week, and the estimated number of people with Covid in total was somewhere between 3% and 4% of the population. Many have been rather unwell and off work or school, with the associated disruptions of education, health care and other vital services. These infections will also inevitably add to the toll of long Covid cases. According to ONS data, the supposedly "mild" cases of Omicron during 2022 have brought more than 619,000 new long Covid cases into the clinical caseload, promising an enduring and miserable legacy from this latest phase.
Rather than a wall of immunity arising from vaccinations and previous infections, we are seeing wave after wave of new cases and a rapidly growing burden of long-term disease. What's going on? The latest scientific research has some answers.
(...)
Let us examine whether Omicron was, as some hoped, a benign natural booster of our Covid immunity. It turns out that isn't the case.
We considered many facets of immunity, including the antibodies most implicated in protection ("neutralizing antibodies"), as well as protective "immune memory" in white blood cells. The results tell us it is unsurprising that breakthrough infections were so common. Most people - even when triple vaccinated - had 20 times less neutralizing antibody response against Omicron than against the "Wuhan" strain. Importantly, Omicron infection was a poor booster of immunity to further Omicron infections. It is a kind of stealth virus that gets in under the radar without doing too much to alert immune defenses. Even having had Omicron, we're not well-protected from further infections.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/01/herd-immunity-covid-virus-vaccine

[Nemesis]

The reason I'm so fixated on mask denialism in Sweden is because if the denial of something so blindingly obvious can go mainstream in a place that identifies itself as hyper rational, scientific, and pragmatic, then there is really no limit to the human capacity for denial.

https://twitter.com/NDLoubere/status/1542242059142266881

But on the other hand is Sweden not as half as hyper rational, scientific and pragmatic as people (Swedes and foreigners) think it is. And it never was. The blind trust in this superficial nation branding is actually a big part of the denialism problem in Sweden.

https://twitter.com/ConanZeBavarian/status/1542245000624340992

I think mask denialism follows on from the denial of asymptomatic airborne transmission. Even now the authorities say to stay home when sick and wash hands. Admitting use or masks means admitting they lied about mode of transmission

https://twitter.com/CameliaDewan/status/1542402841628778499

[Nemesis]

Tysklands coronakommission har släppt en kritisk rapport, och julafton råder hos det svenska GBD-gänget på Twitter ( https://twitter.com/aminamnzr/status/1542807589569847296 , https://twitter.com/cj_akerberg/status/1542791230488281090 , https://twitter.com/OscarTengmark/status/1542777261153189889 ). Kommer den tyska coronakommissionen då fram till att att munskydd inte fungerar (utan tvärtom kan öka risken att bli smittad) och att Tegnell har haft rätt hela tiden? Inte riktigt...









Källa: https://twitter.com/killedbyproxy/status/1542944873149566976

[dann]

What kind of monster are you?! Trying to ruin Manzoor's and Åkerberg's julafton!
You won't succeed, Nemesis! Thank God, some people still prefer to celebrate their julafton in total denial of reality!

[Nemesis]

Det här kommer ni väl ihåg? Folkhälsomyndighetens GD Johan Carlson verkade under sommaren 2020 faktiskt tycka att många smittade med Covid-19 var något bra. Så tokigt.

#källtillit #långtidscovid #Coronakommissionen



https://twitter.com/r_hellqvist/status/1543493237905788929

[dann]

No herd immunity by infection without the infection, obviously.

[Nemesis]

Umeå universitet har en hedersdoktor som sprider anti-vax-propaganda. Smakfullt...

[dann]

Folksagomyndigheten (July 3, 2022)
I Storbritannien pratas det om
att en covidinfektion ger en kognitiv försämring liknande rattfylla
- och då BLIR det ju faktiskt snart farligare att gå över gatan.
https://twitter.com/JonasHell1/status/1543570351745122304

[Nemesis]

Gå inte på relativiseringar av Sveriges problem

Den givna jämförelsepunkten för Sverige är normalt sett inte länder i andra delar av Europa utan våra nordiska grannländer i den skandinaviska familjen.

Ländernas förutsättningar är så pass lika att det är avvikande när vi inte följer precis samma trender. Går det sämre här indikerar det att något är fel.

Förr brukade Skandinavien alltid vara den givna referensen. Därför fungerar det som en rätt bra tumregel på när en relativiserande nedtoning kan vara på gång. När Sverige i första hand jämförs med tillståndet i något annat än andra nordiska grannländer bör man dra öronen åt sig.

https://www.expressen.se/ledare/peter-santesson/ga-inte-pa-relativiseringar-av-sveriges-problem/

[dann]

Brilliant!
We know what he is talking about in spite of five words being conspicuously absent from his op-ed:
corona, covid, virus, pandemi, epidemiolog.

[Nemesis]

Are nasal sprays the answer to stopping Covid transmission?

With the virus rampant despite jabs, trials are underway to create intranasal vaccines to block infections from the body

The roaring success of Covid vaccines – in countries able to obtain them – has led to deaths and severe disease from the infection plummeting even as the virus evolved to sidestep immunity and rip through populations more swiftly.

But while the rapid development of Covid shots ranks as the finest achievement of the pandemic, scientists are not done yet. In a small number of labs around the world, teams are taking on a problem that cannot be ignored: that the virus remains rampant in the face of mass immunity.

The problem has arisen because existing Covid vaccines are better at preparing the immune system to fight the virus inside the body than stopping it at the gates. So even though immunity has largely “defanged” Covid, countries still face waves of infection that hospitalise vulnerable people, keep staff off work, and leave an uncertain proportion of people with long Covid.

Hopes to halt the spread of infection are riding on the development of vaccines that are delivered by a spray up the nose rather than a shot in the arm. They aim to produce strong immune protection in the nose and throat, where most Covid infections gain a foothold. Beyond their potential to block infections, intranasal sprays may be more acceptable to people who are not keen on needles.

“If you think of your body as a castle, an intramuscular vaccination is really protecting the inner areas of your castle so once invaders come in, that immunity protects against them taking the throne,” said Dr Sean Liu, medical director of the Covid clinical trials unit at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

“But if you train your immune system to work at the gates of the castle, then the invaders not only have trouble getting in, but they may have trouble spreading inside.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/05/are-nasal-sprays-vaccine-answer-to-stopping-covid-transmission

Intressant! Det är mycket möjligt att nässpray mot Covid kan göra stor skillnad.

[dann]

I don't know why it takes so much longer to develop nasal-spray vaccines. Cuba has been working on its own, Mambisa, for as long as on its other vaccines, Abdala and the three Soberanas:

Cuba’s bet on home-grown COVID vaccines is paying off (Nature, Nov 22, 2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03470-x

Mambisa from Cuba could cut transmission of the coronavirus (BMJ, Jan 27, 2022)
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o185/rr

Avanzan ensayos clínicos de candidato vacunal Mambisa de Cuba (Radio Habana Cuba, Jan 23, 2022)
In all groups, he added, the vaccine candidate induced an anti-RBD response by more than four times the initial level.
It also increased the inhibitory capacity against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, more than 20 percent, at the systemic level and in the nasal mucosa.
(...)
Mambisa is a combination of two recombinant proteins: the RBD of the SARS-CoV-2 spike and the nucleocapsid of the hepatitis B virus.
(...)
Globally, four other nasally administered candidates have reached the stage of clinical studies, according to recent public data.
https://www.radiohc.cu/noticias/nacionales/283736-avanzan-ensayos-clinicos-de-candidato-vacunal-mambisa-de-cuba

Cuban nasal vaccine against Covid-19 stands out in El Salvador (Prensa Latina, April 18, 2022)
]San Salvador, Apr 18 (Prensa Latina) The development in Cuba of Mambisa, a nasal vaccine to strengthen immunity against Covid-19, is highlighted today by Salvadoran media.
“Cuba is about to launch an anticovid vaccine that is administered through the nose,” headlines newspaper El Mundo, which highlights the progress in clinical trials of the new vaccine candidate from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
The aforementioned newspaper reproduced the “tweet” of the CIGB on the positive results that support the use of Mambisa in the application of booster doses.
https://www.plenglish.com/news/2022/04/18/cuban-nasal-vaccine-against-covid-19-stands-out-in-el-salvador/

Finland has also been working on a nasal spray against the virus. It sounds good ... until you get to the "up to 8 hours" bit.

New nasal spray effective against all variants (National Herald, Jan 12, 2022)
The nasal spray consists of a molecule, developed by researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, that can inactivate the coronavirus spike protein
Finnish researchers have developed a novel nasal spray that is effective against all variants of Covid and can prevent infection up to 8 hours.
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/covid-19-new-nasal-spray-effective-against-all-variants

But on the other hand, consider this:

In contrast to vaccine protection, the effect of TriSb92 begins immediately after its administration.

I wouldn't mind having a whiff of it immediately before boarding a plane, for instance. I have recently read a couple of stories about people on planes coming down with Covid-19 after sitting next to passengers who were coughing and sneezing, unmasked.

[dann]

Excellent new article about 'learning to live with Covid':

Get Ready for the Forever Plague (The Tyee, June 5, 2022)
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/07/04/Get-Ready-Forever-Plague/

With a good C.S. Lewis quotation I wasn't familiar with:

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”

[Nemesis]

Nässpray mot t ex allergi brukar väl ha kortvarig effekt? Inte förvånande om detsamma skulle gälla en nässpray mot Covid. Jag skulle inte ha några som helst problem med att ta en nässpray mot Covid varje morgon.