Covid-19 News Collection

Here is a roundup of recent news, along with some explanations, suggestions, and speculations.

Protective Measures You Don’t Need To Do

—> Six-foot “social distancing.” The CDC has FINALLY dropped the six-foot distance recommendation. But they never admitted they had it wrong from the start—see our post of Nov. 24.

Reference: https://www.jems.com/coronavirus/cdc-drops-quarantine-screening-recommendations-for-covid-19/

—> Use face shields, or any type of fixed shield. This has been obvious to anyone paying attention to the colossal early error that blamed the virus spread on large droplets instead of aerosols (see blog post Mar. 21 for the fascinating story), but here is a study specifically on face shields: "Face shields fail to provide high level of protection against COVID-19."

Reference: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220728/Face-shields-fail-to-provide-high-level-of-protection-against-COVID-19-finds-study.aspx

Both Vaccine- and Natural-Immunity Are Waning

—> Pretty obvious that vaccines and natural immunity are not doing much to prevent infections (or to prevent spreading) when the fully-vaccinated Pfizer CEO gets the disease TWICE within three months!

Reference: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/24/health/pfizer-ceo-positive-covid-19/index.html

—> "Forty-four percent of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 this spring were fully vaccinated and boosted”, per a CDC report. Note that this is for HOSPITALIZATIONS, which is what vaccinations are supposed to be good at preventing.

Reference: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/patient-safety-outcomes/44-of-covid-19-admissions-involved-boosted-patients-this-spring-3-notes.html

—> "Waning immunity, not BA.5, [is] fueling most COVID-19 reinfections.”

"Around 98 percent of COVID-19 reinfections are occurring in patients previously infected with the virus more than 90 days ago, suggesting that waning immunity — rather than highly transmissible variants — is [responsible]."

Reference: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/waning-immunity-likely-fueling-shorter-covid-19-reinfection-windows-data-suggests.html

Some Hope for Future Testing Technologies?

—> Imagine you are on the way in to a restaurant or an airport, and you speak a few words into a microphone, and then find out whether you have covid-19 or not! One of my friends called this “ridiculous” but who knows? Trained dogs can reliably detect the smell of covid-19 (why have we not used this more!) so I’ll keep an open mind to new, instant detection methods. In the meantime, daily antigen tests for all persons involved in an indoor activity are the best available (and sadly, seldom-used) technology—see Aug. 5 blog post for how to have a zero-spread day.

Reference: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220905/AI-model-detects-COVID-19-infection-in-peoplee28099s-voices.aspx

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