Raffin

Weekly Report

From DOH announced daily cases: 1101 (1012). A 9% increase.
For their next day adjustments one day's figure was not published. The total without it was 1026

On a regional basis only an increase of 12 cases in the NCR...3% increase.
Other regions all showed further falls.
But to be noted these regional numbers do not reflect the sometimes substantial next day data adjustments.
Eg For Feb 11 they were adjusted down by 95 the next day.

Too early to see a turn yet in the 14 day regional infections numbers. All showed substantial reductions over the week.

So unclear from the data we have whether covid infections are at a turning point.

Deaths 98 (85)
Included 6 Feb, 17 Jan, 3 Dec
78 so far in January.
The rest back to Aug 2020, when there were 2.

Hospital Data

New admissions 2 (0)
Admitted 426 (388)
ICU 13.9% (14.2%)
Non ICU 19.6% (19.6%)

Not much to be concerned about, except the increase in admissions. Last week a weekly reduction of 62.

Deaths caused by vaccination

Around the world there is understandably some reluctance to acknowledge they can occur. In the UK there is a government compensation scheme. Though very few deaths have been confirmed as due to vaccination.
The Daily Mail report 75 or a few more maybe:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...00s-1000s.html

Here none have been recorded by the DOH to have been caused by vaccination. If you were reading here in 2021 you may remember a "death spike" in the deaths data from Cebu when some of those at prison facilities underwent a one week vaccination campaign. No vaccinations were done at the weekends and on those days death reports were much lower. Almost certainly a bad vaccine batch. But nothing heard from the DOH as cremation had already taken place.

So reliable data on deaths after vaccination and preferably by age is needed.

Provided we can trust SS and her source we may look at these results from Australia:

https://correlation-canada.org/repor...m_medium=email

A summary in an SS newsletter Feb 12
https://supersally.substack.com/



ACM is All Cause Mortality, vDFR % of potentially vaccine induced deaths to population doses in a period..
Estimated error in ACM in brackets.

All ages about 0.5%.
Increases with age to nearly 1% at 85+ years.

The risk of dying from any cause roughly doubles every 10 additional years of age. These authors calculate from the Australian data (and Israeli data, which gave similar results) that the risk of dying from covid 19 injections doubled about every 5 additional years of age.

The coincidence of ACM and vaccination timing was also looked at by age.
The authors plot an "integrated" ACM line in dark blue.,where ACM data is fitted into the periods of vaccination.
Red line shows expected ACM..

Trend line of deaths shows sharp increase from Dec 2020. That is when vaccination started.

For two of the older age groups:


Note steeper integrated ACM line for this older age group.

Similar charts for all other age groups except the youngest (see paper for reasons).

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...ople-1.5268852

You can read that Norway took a more sensible approach after some alarming death reports. But no signs elsewhere of that.
High age related increases in vaccine deaths have been noticed in other countries And In some US States where special vaccination programs were carried out in areas of poverty.

This study seems to strengthen the argument that vaccines have something to do with the increase in excess deaths seen in many countries. Much more so in countries with a large percentage of older persons. That would not include the Philippines. It might apply to Japan, which did not start vaccinating its 36M over 65s until April 2021. Some would still be being vaccinated in late 2021. Deaths there did peak in early 2022, as usual in the winter, but not by much above those expected. Perhaps in Japan they have been more careful when vaccinating the elderly?

A study on the long term effectiveness of covid vaccines has been published in The Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...015-2/fulltext

A meta study which took data from 68 qualifying studies.

For any covid strain protection against infection at the beginning 80-86%, falling to 53 -69% after about 4 months.
Against hospitalization 89-94%, falling to 65-87% after about 8 months. .
Against dying 85-95%, falling to 73-93% after about 6 months.

For boosters in the Omicron phase:

Infection 56-80%, falling to 14-62% after nearly 4 months.
Hospitalization 72-93%, falling to 51-83% after nearly 4 months
No information on boosters and mortality.

Covid illness with Omicron infection:

A Swedish study looking at the differences from pre -Omicron.
Not peer reviewed.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20...k-factors.aspx

By being restricting to the unvaccinated the effects of the change in variant can be isolated


The amount of severe infection surprisingly high under Omicron.

Long Covid

A Brazilian study on 412 discharged patients...227 no or incomplete vaccination, 185 complete vaccination.
Those in the first group younger and fewer comorbidities.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28839-y




Note: Myralgia, muscle aches and pains. Dysponea, shortness of breath.
Clearly an advantage to have been vaccinated.

Finally Dr John's latest video:


A peak in the use of certain drugs used in UK hospitals to make dying easier in 2021.

He is concerned that some people suffering from covid should not have been given them. If that is the case more people died from Covid than need have done.
As a experienced nurse he may well have a point. But how significant is it in explaining UK excess deaths? Especially those in 2022 under Omicron with its less severe disease.

Philosophical 11

Just noticed that this thread has reached its 3rd anniversary and close to 2000 updates by Raffin.

I wish to thank him for his diligence in providing regular updates on a near daily basis throughout this pandemic which has blighted the world.

To provide such detailed information over such a long period of time requires much hard work in research and keeping up with ongoing developments which he has provided for our benefit.

Thank you Raffin.... I am sure it's very much appreciated by us all on BE Philippines.

Gazza-d

It's a shame there's no like button on here as with many other forums.

Raffin

Thank you very much P11 and GazzaD. I'd forgotten about that anniversary.
It's interesting to go back and read the early posts 3 years ago. Many of them were very prescient.

Unless the virus has a trick or two up its sleeve it looks like we got off lightly here with the exception of the amount of serious illness and death showing up the poor health care here. I think mostly by luck. Then I would say it was all made a lot worse by the severity and longevity of the lock down measures imposed.The government no doubt would say necessary because of the limited hospital provision. To some extent, yes, that was a good reason. But the harsh, militaristic approach adopted was characteristic of those in power at the very top here. Contrast that with how officials at the city and Brgy level usually operated. When they were able to act independently.

Unlike some other countries no enquiry here. Instead of leaning from the past they want to establish a US type CDC here. It will be under the DOH, as it is in the US. There is a bill being rushed through the Senate now enabling this new body. In line with many other areas of policy here the CDC and DOH will only advise the President. He or she will be given extensive written powers and will still make most of the decisions. Remember plastic shields and masks? Oh dear!

Yes, looking at the record of the DOH during the Pandemic this reorganization could improve matters. If done properly with no duplication. But what if the CDC and the DOH disagree? As they do here. It could all get very political and the science will take a back seat.

Already we see that in fighting has already changed one aspect of the bill. Previously the RITM, Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (you may seen its HQ in Alabang) has had an unfortunate name change to PRIM, Philippine Research Institute of Medicine, and maintains its independence inside the new CDC.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/tops...dc-bill/story/

Although we can't do much about government policies and our day to day lives are hardly affected at all by covid now it's still worthwhile keeping up with what researchers are finding out about what really happened. About immunity levels. Looking carefully at what dissenting voices say. In case something similar happens again.

Raffin

He goes through the main points from a paper about a German case where relatives were not happy about initial findings for the cause of death. He explains how covid vaccination could be definitely stated as the cause. Essentially because another protein would have been found in tissues along with the spike protein if due to covid infection.

The case history of the 76 year old subject with Parkinson's started with heart issues after he was given the first AZ mRNA vaccine. Brain effects were noticed after the second Pfizer jab.

Getting too late for this pandemic but you would hope more thought will be given to the balance of risks when deciding to vaccinate people with serious conditions. Problem is not many of these complex investigations have been done.

I expect more videos from Dr John of this nature to come out as he cannot get much further on his campaign to implicate covid vaccination as a main cause excess deaths..For that he and us must await definitive analyses by teams of researchers. Cases like this, even if only suspected, cannot amount to enough.

Ivermectin

Remember that? A potentially cheap re-purposed drug to possibly prevent or treat covid. Was given out by a few health authorities around the world but largely rejected by the main authorities. For example you can read this advice from the CDC last year and their reasons for not recommending it:

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelin...gs/ivermectin/

Despite that many have used and abused the anti parasitic drug in the US and elsewhere.

In the UK the Oxford Principle trial, the great white hope of Dr John and other enthusiasts, said it was included in 2021 but as yet hasn't published any results. Nothing about Ivermectin's part in the trial has been heard for over a year.


Dr Philip McMillan summarizes a paper which explains a potentially useful mechanism of drugs like Ivermectin.

Mindful of not being taken down from You tube he stresses the advantages if other drugs could also be found which have the same mechanism against covid. Which is still very much around in the world. A good aim as to date only a very few good and cheap treatments have been found.

Philippine covid variants

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/tops...history/story/

One case, no travel history of XBF, detected recently but from late late last year. A combination of BA.2.75 (aka Centaurus) and BA.2.101 it says.
Not a variant of concern as yet.

I repeat a better image of the CDC covid 19 diagram here:



Regarding the establishment of a CDC here note that genome sequencing comes from a unit at UP. Takes a month for results and has low capacity. Apart from talking about finding small numbers of cases of new variants you can't find any full up to date listing of the Omicron variants published. Maybe because not enough testing has been done. You would think the UP genome center has to be made part of the new CD in the future to be properly funded?

Gazza-d

Regarding the establishment of a CDC here note that genome sequencing comes from a unit at UP. Takes a month for results and has low capacity. Apart from talking about finding small numbers of cases of new variants you can't find any full up to date listing of the Omicron variants published. Maybe because not enough testing has been done. You would think the UP genome center has to be made part of the new CD in the future to be properly funded?

I'm sure like most things in the Philippines it will happen if someone is properly funded.

Raffin

Not much information around only that in 2021 the DOH wanted to buy another 2 machines that could each do 750 samples in a batch per run. Not explicitly stated but it seems there was only one in use at UP. A few smaller machines elsewhere. Cost about $1M each. Maybe they didn't get them as the latest run was about 1k samples only. No push as covid is low and so many other expenditures planned. Could they get a health company to sponsor? I doubt it as they're not very visible.

Raffin

Latest Dr John video comparing Florida adverse event reports from covid vaccination to reports with the number from vaccinations in previous years.

The obvious much larger volume and publicity with covid shots and the greater attention, including mandates, given to reporting adverse events, needed to be mentioned by Dr John. Rather than only to talk about an alarming 1700% increase!
As background Florida is a state where the right leaning governor has been at one extreme on covid policies. One of the few states to never implement a mask mandate, rolled back capacity restrictions early. Covid statistics were sometimes selectively publicized and late. He appointed the State's surgeon general.
In addition the Florida health department has sent out a letter to doctors requesting they warn those about to have a covid shot on the possibility of a heart attack.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ovid-shot.html

However, as is the case often, Dr John's videos do contain useful references to research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9428332/

This study looks at Stage 3 vaccine trials but has the advantage of focusing on a selection of Adverse Events of Special Interest (Aesi's)
You may recall the concerns that were expressed last year when Pfizer put out a list of thousands of possible vaccine adverse effects.

One table here:



So there is a need, as the authors say, even at this late stage, to look at the harm benefit ratios for mRNA vaccines.

Immunity of vaccination

A meta study looks at this from 65 studies.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...465-5/fulltext

The authors are careful to recommend vaccination and not to drop taking precautions or even seek infection.
Useful if they had added a few words about harm from vaccines though,

But given we are in an Omicron phase it would be most interesting to look at this research to see its effect. But there weren't enough studies to do a meta analysis. However the authors say from the studies they do have prior covid infection was at least as effective as vaccination.

Two charts for vaccine and prior covid infection effect which show this for Omicron BA.1.

Vertical axis effectiveness.
Horizontal weeks since vaccination.

Raffin

The newest Dr John video starts with a report in Nature. Which the WHO has since said was incorrect. They now say they have not "shelved it" and "will push for answers".

However it is clear that China is still not cooperating so how can the WHO do that? Chinese non-cooperation has fueled speculation about a lab leak at Wuhan being the origin, rather than the more accepted theory that the virus jumped to humans at the Wuhan market.


Wuhan Virus Lab is about 20kms distant from the market.

Dr John goes on to continue pushing the Lab leak theory. Saying that his biggest reason for so doing is the fact that with the SARS coronavirus 1 outbreak in 2003.the virus was seen in species apart from humans across large areas of China. Whereas this was not seen with SARS 2. For this view he relied heavily on data presented in a report to the US Senate. He reviewed that in detail in a past video. He still sees this as significant in yesterday's video:


He also mentioned the much earlier Chinese vaccine development.
That was also looked at by him in a previous video.

But he obviously does not look at Dr Susan Oliver's "Back to the Science" videos:


It's well worth looking back at this Dr Susan Oliver video from about 6 months ago.

Two peer reviewed papers which show the Wuhan market much more likely as the source. The first said there were two, not one, distinct viral lineages at origin that started to transmit locally. The first transmission was 18 November 2109. Another cluster was found in early December. The second paper looks at the place of original transmission, which is confirmed as from the live animal section of the Wuhan market (see clustering in Wuhan map, but Dr Oliver also presents other evidence). In the December cluster of people ill from the virus 27 of the 41 cases had no connection with the market.

A timing question:


A video from DrJohn late last year suggesting the virus was all around Italy in early September 2019.

The paper is not peer reviewed. But Dr John says SAGE is a respected outlet for medical papers. Though I found a report that the head of the research institute did not give her wholehearted support to the paper, saying that further information on the history of the cases was needed to conclude SARS 2 was indeed in Italy 3 months or so before the earliest case in China. But I think this caution from her was because if it were true her small Institute would be subject to great and possibly unwelcome attention?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8529295/

Apart from antibodies the idea is backed up by reports of physicians about the appearance of symptoms which they thought at first were caused by an aggressive influenza. The authors refer to a case in France and the possibility from internet search data that it was circulating during the autumn of 2019 in Wuhan.

Was it in Europe even earlier? It may have been in the Barcelona area early in 2019:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN23X2HQ

I've looked for a rebuttle of the Italy paper. I can't find one. Except that Dr Susan Oliver called out Dr John in another video saying that his lab leak theory was inconsistent on timing with the Italian data. Which it is. But also with the Wuhan market theory.
Could they be made consistent through international travel from China to Italy in late 2019 without the cases spreading the virus in Wuhan? It seems very doubtful. So could it be that the authorities there simply misdiagnosed, or maybe more plausibly covered up, all cases prior to December 1. Seems quite likely to me. Strange there's not any discussion on this. That may be because the popularity of the lab leak theory has distracted attention?


Dr Philip McMillan looks at Papua New Guinea.
Covid vaccination very low in PNG.

Interesting to begin with on vaccine hesitancy. Then spoils it to compare PNG with Australia, On the face of it PNG has done a lot better with only 670 deaths against Australia's over 19k. Its deaths per M population ten times that of PNG's. Dr McMillan stresses Its vaccination rate is high. one of the highest in the world.
But crucially PNGs population by age is vastly different to Australia's:


Even younger than the Philippines.

Younger people with stronger immune systems. Also its health and population data reporting is far inferior in PNG. Leaving it likely covid cases and deaths very under recorded.
He leaves it for the viewer to make the link with vaccination he wants to say explicitly but cannot for fear of losing a You tube platform.

At the end he mentions a parasitic mosquito borne disease in PNG called lymphatic filariasis.
A new treatment has been tried there called IDA. There are three drugs involved. Interestingly for him one is Ivermectin (IV).
Patients get 200 mu g/kg of it.
Dr McMillan again leaves it to the viewer to get the connection he is pushing with IV when he says that there might be a connection with the assumed by him low covid cases and deaths there.
But if you look at the CDC guidelines on IV

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelin...ugs/ivermectin

you will read that the problem with IV is that not enough of it can get into the lungs of those infected with covid.
Hamsters in the lab were given 400 mu g/kg with no effect on their viral load. They say humans need 100 x the approved quantity of IV than is approved!

Dr McMillan does a much better job with another video on a possible increased risk of auto-immune disease from covid vaccines seen from a Japanese study:


The word "explosion" not a good one to use...but Grave's disease, where the body produces too much thyroid hormone and fights itself, is serious.

Raffin

Weekly Report

The DOH total from its daily reports 895 (1101). A 19% decrease.
Last week its adjusted daily reports came to just a few less.

All regions except WV showed substantial falls in the daily regional reports.
The WV total was the same.
Although these are unadjusted numbers so a better idea can be got from the change in the number of 14 day cases:

NCR -10% (-15%)
4A -2 (-12)
Dav +28 (-11)
WV -4 (-29)
CL -10 (-38)

So this data shows all regions except Davao with a much lower rate of case decrease.
A large change in the WV.region and Davao reversing to a substantial case increase.

So there could be an upturn led by the VIsMin regions starting.

Testing last week went up slightly to average 10.4k (9.1k) individuals a day.

Deaths 74 (98)
5 Feb, 3 Jan
The rest back to July 2020.

DOH Hospital data

New admissions 3 (2)
Admitted 406 (426)
ICU 14.8% (13.9%)
Non ICU 18.8% (19.6%)

General improvement except ICU admission up 1%.



Remember this?

Dr Susan Oliver posted a video which shows the research paper is completely wrong:


Dr Campbell has been informed by two doctors that the paper's reliance on the absence of a certain protein was not indicative of there not being covid 19 infection.

And according to Dr Oliver the journal the paper was published in is not reputable.

Despite two doctors informing him Dr Campbell's video has not been taken down and today had been seen 650k times.
Dr Campbell again straying into areas where he has no expertise.
Unfortunately Dr Oliver's viewers are much lower.


Interestingly, following the Brain video mistake, Dr Campbell stresses that the journal here is reputable!
Which it does seem to be.

Does this matter?
The CDC have just put this out. Read down and it says mRNA material cannot get into our cells and alter our DNA.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...nes/facts.html

On the other hand mRNA vaccines are to a great extent experimental and so more may come out from research.


Dr Moran looks at masking and for me nicely sums up the issue.

Many people here are still wearing them. Though I think quite a lot less than a few months.ago. But my bank branch still asking you to have one on. If you don't have it with you the guard gives you one.

Dr Moran's conclusion from randomised trials is that they are of little or no benefit. Mask mandates were put into place as a result of a "we must do something" mentality he says. Yes, I largely agree.
He mentions that laboratory experiments do show some benefit.The type of mask, the way they are worn in the real world and people's behaviour then reduces that benefit. He also mentions the possibility of harm from mask wearing.

For me it's a matter for each individual's choice to weigh up the pros and cons for their situation. But I'm Ok for mandates in crowded indoor public spaces during times of high levels of infection.

Raffin

A short but informative video from Dr McMillan. He has a view that for some people vaccination can be harmful.
I just wonder about the practicalities of making it more selective when health authorities are seeking to reduce virus transmission and hospital admissions in a public health emergency?

In the UK the ONS has updated mortality data according to vaccination status up to the end of 2022. Rather than analyse the data Dr McMillan just gives us a "heads up".Wise as if you download it you get tables with many categories in an Excel spreadsheet form. I expect this data will be analysed in detail by others in the near future. The results will be interesting.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...nstatusengland


Dramatic official NZ data (assuming we can trust her source) which SS has received from someone there who requested it. It wasn't published. SS published it in a newsletter on Feb 20.
She says 72% of the NZ population got a booster and so you would expect there to be higher deaths. But the chart shows them per 100k for each vaccination status. Boosters much greater than other categories from April 2022. However, this could also be due to lagged mortality effects from 2019-21.

Also from SS data on how the Philippines used its vaccines in a Feb 22 newsletter:


Note: According to ABS-CBN only 13M vaccines were donated.

SS suggests that much of the unaccounted vaccines leaked out from the system for "double dosing". Especially for those who weren't satisfied with getting their primary Sinovac jabs.

For the 44M that have expired 11M were donated and 33M were bought, according to SS.
Which means that the great majority of donated vaccines ended up as expired.

https://supersally.substack.com/



Lawmakers in a few countries are asking questions about Excess Deaths. Dr John presents video of two speeches in Australia As in the UK to sparsely populated chambers. The second speaker sounds like he is highly medically qualified. But Google him and you find out his areas of expertise are taxation and finance!

Finally:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/22/...oll-hits-66000

This was the headline a few days ago.
But the toll has been many more. Probably about twice that figure.
Because the DOH only include deaths which the LGU docs say are confirmed from covid. When the PSA llater look at death certificates they also include cases where there is no PCR test or there is a strong possibility covid was the underlying cause of death.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/tops...e-cases/story/

Raffin

Two days ago I said that soon we will get some detailed expert analysis of the latest ONS mortality by vaccination status data just published.
Dr John again got Dr Norman Fenton, a statistics professor at Queen Mary, London University, to talk about what he and others he works with have done with the new data.
He was previously on his channel last month. You can see a report from me about that in a post here on January 24.

Prof Fenton et al had complained to the UK Statistics Regulatory authority about previous ONS reports on this subject. Most of their criticisms were accepted. However, they say that the latest and late ONS update did not take these into account. Other new criticisms too. Listed here:


Also: what these researchers would much prefer from the ONS is the raw data.

To support their conclusion at the end of the summary some analysis has been done, despite the claimed biases.:


All cause deaths.



Non covid deaths
Wide blue area showing changing confidence intervals.

Up to recently the UK ONS has had a very high reputation. As you can see from this article in the Daily Mail on the latest update its reports are accepted by the mainstream media as authoritative:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...ted-Brits.html

Two other Dr John videos lately:

1. On Natural Immunity ie immunity from past infection


Dr John reviews a study published in the Lancet.


Interesting if you have been previously infected but
what can the majority of people who haven't get from this?

2. On aspiration...a hobby horse of Dr John's.
Many previous videos from him on this topic.


Repeat...repeat...not worth watching.
The reason he is showing this again is because of the recent issue of mRNA vaccines getting into the bloodstream.

It was taught years ago but the latest advice is it's not worth it. Veins in the upper arm are either very obvious or very small.
Time and discomfort issues.
Yes, it is being done by all vaccinators in Denmark...but not elsewhere as far as I can see:

https://en.ssi.dk/news/epi-news/2021/no-19-21---2021

This is what the US CDC says on the subject:


But a study on aspiration concludes that it should be reconsidered when injecting mRNA vaccines:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8941363/

More statistics on Excess Deaths have been reported by SS in her newsletters lately:

https://supersally.substack.com/

From Australia:


Australian data for nearly all of 2022. Although it seems to be improving towards the end of 2022 SS reminds us this is the summer in Australia, when deaths normally decline. Excess Deaths 15.1% greater than the historical average.

For Singapore, one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world, deaths in 2022 a high 25.1% greater than in 2019.
She also reports that the government there has paid compensation to the family of a Bangladeshi over his death from a Moderna vaccination.

Of course, Australia and Singapore, apart from high vaccination rates, also imposed strict lock downs.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58866464

https://covid-19.humspace.ucla.edu/c...ies/singapore/

An update from the PSA here

A country with a not so high vaccination rate but one which also endured a strict lock down.
Philippine Excess Deaths a very high 43.2% higher in 2021 compared to 2020. And given the proximity of the 2022 election probably slowed death recording by LGUs in early 2022 SS suspects that there are more deaths to come from 2021. We know this is very likely from what I have reported here from weekly DOH death reports.

Raffin

DOH Weekly Report

New cases 832 (895)...a fall of 7%.
After updating last week's total is lower at 710, with large revisions the next day on most days last week.

Average daily tests down to 8.1k (10.4k).

Regional cases in the last 14 days

NCR -2% (-10%)
4A -13 (-2)
Dav +25 (+28)
WV -7 (-4)

A little strange that the NCR and 4A moving different ways.
The Davao region case increase continues...most of the increase from Davao del Sur:


Davao del Sur cases


For comparison Davao City cases.

Deaths 78 (74)
Only 2 from Feb.
The rest back to August 2020.

Hospital data

New admissions 0 (3)
Admissions 370 (406)

ICU 13.5% (14.8%)
Non ICU 17.9% (18.8%)



Dr Susan Oliver reviews some studies. Results of 2 shown here.
.

More risk after covid 19.


A meta study on Myocarditis. The averages shown by the red dash.

Philippine births

SS has presented the latest PSA birth numbers:

2021 compared to 2020 a 10.7% fall
Note: 2022 birth numbers a long way from publication!

But a falling trend from 2019:



You can read more about what SS thinks about this in her latest newsletter:
https://supersally.substack.com/

As an anti vaxxer she can't resist repeating her suspicion that covid vaccines are greatly implicated.
Despite the downward trend over the last 10 years.

For two other countries with higher vaccination rates:

UK: 2021 births up 1.5% on 2020, 2022 down 0.5% on 2021.
Australia 2021 births up 5.3% on 2020, 2022 down 1.3% on 2021.

Not supporting her contention.

Raffin

Two recent videos from Dr John which look at different aspects of the covid 19 virus outbreak:


One says "more likely with low confidence". The other "most likely".. with a not widely reported "medium confidence".


About an updated Cochrane review of mask wearing.

Their conclusion is that they probably make "little or no difference" to lab confirmed covid outcomes.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr...6207.pub6/full

Read the discussion below and you could be less sure about their conclusion than even the authors are:



There are many issues with this research. Only 6 of the 78 trials included in the study were made during the pandemic. One reason for that was you don't want to expose participants in a control group to infection. And what about infections not confirmed by a laboratory test? As are most asymptotic infections. They have been shown to be good at transmitting the virus.

For more on the study's limitations you can read this article:

https://www.health.com/cochrane-revi...s-work-7112631

My view is that people should use their common sense where science cannot give you answers with high confidence.
I prefer the approach of Dr Moran where he concludes that properly worn masks can afford some protection in certain circumstances. (Feb 22nd post here).

So is Dr John Campbell too quick to jump on bandwagons?

I think so. With both these issues, where there is low confidence in the research.. With masks he wants to join the people who are mostly against protective measures per se. A restriction of liberty. With covid origins the people who want to blame the Chinese. Making a quite unnecessary mea culpa yesterday on masks.
With masks it is too difficult to find out definitively whether they work or not. With covid origins it is impossible to find out the origin definitively unless the Chinese authorities and US intelligence agencies open up their data to the world.
Reasonable that the US agencies are not doing so but not so with the Chinese. So I think that could actually be a better reason to see them as accountable rather than to rely on the low to medium confidence conclusions announced by the various US agencies.

Raffin

BBC Newsnight hiding away a good summing up of the Wuhan Lab Leak question at the end of its March 2 edition. If you are ale to watch on the iPlayer.

If not you can watch a shortened video of the item on You tube:



It doesn't include the interview at the end with an American virologist, who like many experts still prefers the animal spread theory. She makes the point that China's lack of transparency could also be because it has failed to control live animal sales in markets, despite this being the probable way SARS Cor 1 spread to humans in 2003 from a reservoir in bats. In addition as well as being at least one of the ways SARS 2 spread in 2019. Chinese scientists confirmed this in 2004 by finding a genetic link between the virus in palm civets and in humans. Palm civets are mainly sold for eating in China.
See Wikipedia for more information.