Covid Politicized

* My article in BusinessWorld , November 8, 2021. ----------- This is a follow-up to this column’s Sept. 20 piece ( https://www.bworldonline.com/vaccination-plateau-and-rising-cases/ ), and also complements a BusinessWorld Nation story yesterday about the government plan of compulsory vaccination, “Analysts warn against compulsory vaccination” ( https://www.bworldonline.com/analysts-warn-against-compulsory-vaccination/ ). I downloaded the excel file in Our World in Data (OWID). The numbers can be complicated because there are many columns and indicators, plus there are many rows per country representing daily data from February 2020 until Nov. 6, 2021 for many countries and regional blocs. To simplify the presentation, I took the average of daily cases from July to November this year, the vaccination rate since June 1, and COVID-19 deaths per million population at six months apart from Nov. 6, 2020. Countries in group A are Europeans with recent rises in cases, group B are Asians also

The Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC Ph) will hold its first ever "Covid Summit" this coming November 25, Thursday, full-day event, at Vivere Hotel, Alabang, Muntinlupa.  All speakers are doctors, about five from the US including one Pinay doctor in Florida, Doc Marivic Villa (she's Bicolana) flying in and speak in person. The other US doctors -- Peter McCullough, Pierre Kory, Sabine Hazan, Ryan Cole -- will speak online. But there might still be changes in the speakers. It's called a "Covid Summit" because speakers are known (sort of summit) doctors, national and international, in Covid management and make hospital patients survive. Also prevent hospitalization via early treatment at home. Local doctors speaking include Docs Allan Landrito, Raffy Castillo, and CDC Ph President Doc Homer Lim. The group will invite DOH Sec. Francisco Duque to give a welcome message, we hope he will accept. PCCI-Muntinlupa has provided some modest support

Some old stories I read, reposting them now, enjoy. (1) Vaccinating people who have had covid-19: why doesn’t natural immunity count in the US? BMJ 2021; 374 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2101 (Published 13 September 2021) https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101/rr-0 The goal of vaccination is to generate memory cells that can recognize SARS-CoV-2 and rapidly generate neutralizing antibodies that either prevent or mitigate both infection and transmission. Those who have survived COVID-19 must almost by definition have mounted an effective immune response; it is not surprising that the evolving literature shows that prior infection decreases vulnerability. In our view, the data suggest that people confirmed to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 may not need vaccination. We should not be debating the implications of prior infection; we should be debating how to confirm prior infection. -- Manish Joshi, MD;  Thaddeus Bartter, MD;  Anita Joshi, BDS, MPH (2) Sen. Johnson: Health Agenc