Coronavirus, The Late October Edition

Coronavirus, The Late October Edition 

By the Numbers 

The Numbers:

The number of daily new cases continue to decline nationwide on an average of 1.74% per day.  The estimated number of total cases has dropped from 2.24 million to 1.85 million two weeks ago.  As reported last time, the areas most affected by this surge have had the steepest decline.

For example: Texas peaked the week of September 6 with an average of 15,991 new cases per day, is now averaging 5,161 new cases per day.  Pennsylvania peaked the week of October 4 with an average of  4,903 new cases per day, is now averaging 4,703.  So while Texas has a clear and unambiguous drop, Pennsylvania could at best be described as hovering near peak.

Texas is not the worst/best case to look at, but I was picking on Texas a while ago because they were so vocal about freedom verses protecting their population from the virus and set up separate spread sheets that were auto populated by the macro codes I run every day.  So the week by week cases are being parsed automatically and I saw no reason to stop them. 

Mix and Match Vaccines:

So far, there are no large scale studies on having your first vaccine be one brand, and a booster another.  But there had been several small scale studies, in the UK, Spain and Ecuador that suggest an increase in vaccine efficacy with the booster being a different brand from the original.  The National Institute of Health has weighed in on "Heterologous", AKA, Mix and Match, with a study involving 458 people that demonstrated that no matter the combination of vaccines, the relevant antibodies increase. 

This just in:  The CDC has just approved both Moderna and the J&J vaccines for booster shots and updated the requirements to allow mix-and-match boosters.

Long Term Problems with Asymptomatics:

We are still getting a better idea on what are some of the long term effects of Covid.  Among those that had minimal or no immediate symptoms of Covid, described as "Asymptomatic", there has been a demonstrated increase in heart attack, stroke, or other major cardiovascular event in the first 12 months after Covid recovery. 

Non-hospitalized Covid patients had a 39% increased risk of developing heart failure and a 220% increased risk of a potentially deadly blood clot, known as a pulmonary embolism, in the following year, compared with someone who didn’t develop the disease. That works out to an extra 5.8 cases of heart-failure and 2.8 cases of pulmonary embolism for every 1,000 Covid patients who were never hospitalized. 

Being hospitalized for Covid is associated with a 5.8-fold increased risk of cardiac arrest and almost a 14-fold greater chance of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, the study found.  Compare this to 4.8 extra cases of myocarditis per million for those that took the vaccine.  The normal rate of myocarditis is 1.5, per million but this is thought to be under diagnosed. But take it on face value, with the vaccine, a 3-1 increase in this treatable problem.  Without the vaccine and add Covid, 14 to 1.

Other studies are showing various symptoms in among 50% or more 3-6 months after Covid has left the system.  Mainly due to vascular damage that has taken place where Covid decided to settle in.  This one in Italy, which was ground zero in Europe.  This one in the UK is noting that "Long Hauler" symptoms among the vaccinated are milder and less reported than the unvaccinated.

Vaccine degradation:

From a not yet peer reviewed study:

Pfizer:   After 6 weeks, 95% effective.  After 6 months 84% overall, 97% preventing severe disease.

Moderna:  After 6 weeks, 95% effective.  After 6 months 90% overall, 95% preventing severe disease.

Johnson and Johnson:  Against the Delta Variant, 71% effective against hospitalization and up to 95% effective against death. So far, I have seen no evidence of a efficacy degradation over time for the J&J vaccine.  J&J is demonstrated that a booster shot raised the efficacy of their vaccine to 94%.

Keep in mind that a vaccine is considered effective at 65% efficacy.

Natural Immunity vs Vaccine:

A comparison of 2nd and 3rd cases after an original case of Covid, vice a vaccination "Breakthrough" cases was done in Kentucky, showed that previously infected Covid patients are 2.3 times as likely to be reinfected as those who have been vaccinated.  See here.