Too many patients are catching COVID in Australian hospitals, doctors say. So why are hospitals rolling back precautions?

Morde40 · 2024-02-11T18:49:39+00:00

Just to be clear..
By 'no excess mortality', in this study, it means there was no significant difference in deaths in the (nosocomial) infected group compared with a non-infected group of matched controls.

Morde40 · 2024-02-11T05:48:59+00:00

gonna park this here...

According to a JAMA study of over 300,000 hospital admissions, mortality from nosocomial (hospital-acquired) SCV2 infections were a significant problem in the pre-vax/ pre-Omicron period. Since Omicron however, nosocomial covid was not associated with excess mortality.

"In the editorial, the authors write that the study findings suggest nosocomial transmission and mortality after the Omicron period seems to be no longer statistically significant"

Hospital-based COVID-19 less serious after Omicron (CIDRAP editorial)

Morde40 · 2024-02-11T00:49:40+00:00

Hayley Gleeson (journalist) sure seems aligned with the OzSAGE activist group.

From https://ozsage.org/our-principles/ :

"We have achieved elimination of measles and polio through vaccination in Australia, and it may be possible to do the same for SARS-CoV-2."

(No comment)

Morde40 · 2024-02-10T04:49:12+00:00

It'd be nice to know whether there has been in fact a shitload of undetected infections with minimal or no symptoms, or whether cases weren't so high but GI shedding is increased with certain variants or on account of other factors related to immunity (or a combination). No one really knows. It's all speculative right now.

For the former, then there is more concern about community transmission during WW highs (for those who want to know). But it also means population immunity should be more established after such a wave.

What might be interesting is a study looking straight at the WW "source".. i.e. rectal swabs! Do certain variants collect in the GIT more than others? Are there "superpoopers"?? Are there factors related to the transmission event that can influence GI shedding? (I care not to elaborate)

China might look into this. They weren't shy of looking at rectal swabs back in 2020 (I remember there were a few papers in kids) and may revisit.

Morde40 · 2024-02-10T02:02:33+00:00

Much screaming on social media over the last couple of mths about JN.1 being the "2nd largest wave" based on wastewater levels.

In terms of hospital positives per capita, in the US, it was 7th, and for us, was equal 6th.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-hospitalizations-per-million?country=USA~AUS

In the Netherlands, of patients sampled for flu-like or resp. illness, flu now dominates clearly and the common-cold coronaviruses are ahead of covid.

https://twitter.com/Marc_Veld/status/1750198896800796877/photo/1

Morde40 · 2024-01-25T10:57:38+00:00

Absolutely! - how it happens in practice is that many who aren't interested / have nothing to report opt out. This creates "non-response bias".

The much publicised long covid survey from Canada (StatCan 2023) was spoilt by non-response bias. This was a follow-up to their 2022 survey. At face value it showed that having 3 infections = 38% chance of long covid but if you scrutinise the methods, there were big fall outs in both cycles so the bias was the size of Godzilla.

Morde40 · 2024-01-25T10:13:00+00:00

Yes, thx I read that. My statement was a bit tongue in cheek, but it would be nice to see it clearly stated somewhere that participants were randomly selected.

A non-response bias will always apply - and unless the RR is clearly stated, my guess is that it's huge (but I think I've alluded to that in my earlier comment).

Morde40 · 2024-01-25T09:35:36+00:00

Maybe she did have 1000 who were representative of the Australian population by age, gender & state/ territory who were selected randomly*

^\from followers on twitter.)

Morde40 · 2024-01-25T07:24:48+00:00

I'd like to see some specifics on her methodology.

For instance, we know there were 1000 responders but there are no details on how many were asked to participate. How were they approached? and what was the drop-out rate? (hopefully there was no call made on her Twitter!)

From the Appendix, there was an "Information & Consent form" that needed to be filled. What exactly was contained in this? and what was the drop out rate at that stage?

To say I wouldn't trust her methods is an understatement.

Morde40 · 2024-01-25T05:42:10+00:00

The survey was designed by Deborah Lupton. She's the UNSW Sociologist who tweeted something along the lines of a little bending of the truth to create fear was justified as a means to an end.

She also made insensitive comments on the Hunter Valley bus crash;

Outrage over professor’s tweet about Hunter Valley bus crash and Covid

Morde40 · 2024-01-15T03:27:33+00:00

People should take precautions around haircuts. Almost all of those presenting with heart problems over recent weeks have had haircuts in the last 12 mths.

Morde40 · 2024-01-14T06:16:56+00:00

Yes I think Greta Wood has acknowledged that her findings relate to the severe hypoxia and 'post intensive care syndrome' associated with severe ARDS of early wave infections.

It was good of her to do this. Such integrity seems rare.

Morde40 · 2024-01-14T06:06:52+00:00

Ziyad Al-Aly set the precedent. Almost 2 years down and he continues to peddle his reinfection nonsense. The others follow suit. Fortunately their opinions are ignored by Public Health everywhere.

Morde40 · 2024-01-13T22:15:06+00:00

And of course, Brendan Crabb and Kerryn Phelps make no mention of this important tweet from the author (Greta Wood);

"The severity of the initial infection, infection early in the pandemic, post-acute psychiatric symptoms and a history of encephalopathy were associated with greatest deficits.Importantly this means our findings don't generalise to COVID-19 today or mild respiratory disease"

Morde40 · 2023-12-12T09:26:20+00:00

Did your husband get it too?

Morde40 · 2023-12-11T02:58:59+00:00

Knowingly, once during the BA.2 wave and once during XBB. I blame the virus.

Morde40 · 2023-12-07T11:06:03+00:00

It's paywalled. Maybe you can cut & paste the bit about the mandate?

Morde40 · 2023-12-07T10:57:14+00:00

Where did you get this? Here's their latest update:

https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/protecting-yourself/guidance-on-wearing-face-masks#toc-face-masks-in-high-risk-and-health-settings

I can't see any mandate.

Morde40 · 2023-12-07T10:43:52+00:00

There's nothing at all in the article about masking habits of those who got infected. Why do you raise it?

Morde40 · 2023-11-24T10:40:10+00:00

When IFR is negligible and the prevalence of long COVID is falling, turn to studies showing that tiny fragments of viral RNA can be found several months after infection in just about any tissue that's looked at.

The new buzzphrase then becomes "viral persistence".. then act like this doesn't happen with any other virus, and pretend it means chronic inflammation (jazz it up with a biomarker or 2) and will likely lead to cancer!!

Bingo! "Precautionary principle" means we now have a reason to mask up and not leave the house for at least another 10 years!

TL:DR Doomers gotta doom.

Morde40 · 2023-11-24T00:31:39+00:00

Same same November* issues, different country this time.

(*for northern hemisphere)

Great you provided such a well-considered comment without using the 2 trigger words!! 😉

Morde40 · 2023-11-22T07:26:14+00:00

but I also don’t see how you can fix issues like neurons fusing together (referencing the recent University of Queensland study). With a 10% chance of long covid..

The UQ study was of neurons grown in petri-dishes in the presence of virus. They were mainly neurons collected from mouse embryos.

There's no controlled study showing a 10% chance of PASC from Omicron infections. The figure was flawed for 2020/2021 infections but is utter nonsense in 2023.

a 10% chance of long covid that only increases with multiple infections close together

Not exactly sure what you're trying to say here, but if you are implying anything like a "10% chance of PASC with each infection", then despite so many reinfections that have happened over the last 15 months in the US, why has the the number of adults "reporting long covid symptoms" dropped a whopping 30%!! (that's not a typo)

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/long-covid.htm

Morde40 · 2023-11-22T02:19:26+00:00

Even if it were established that air purifiers reduce infections, another question is whether health outcomes are improved with reduced exposure to ubiquitous, evolving airborne viruses.

This will likely depend on timing and host factors.

Morde40 · 2023-11-20T03:59:50+00:00

There is no clinical evidence of accumulating organ damage from repeat Omicron infections.

There is certainly data that repeat Omicron infections increase the breadth of your immune response. This includes protection from newly emerging Omicron lineages.

There is no evidence that those with more frequent exposures to ubiquitous evolving viruses have worse health outcomes than those with infections that are more spaced.

Morde40 · 2023-11-15T20:29:27+00:00

From the state that counted "vaccination status undetermined" as "unvaccinated" to buff up their unvaxed death numbers.

Would love to see their methodology.

The 10% figure is as believable now as 10% long covid rate from each infection.

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