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. Jo...

* My column in  BusinessWorld , October 11, 2021.  The Philippines’ lockdown is turning 19 months long this week. The “two weeks only” lockdown imposed on March 16, 2020 became two months, and is now approaching two years. One more proof that once government restrictions are created, they will hardly go away. RISING DEATHS, DECLINING BIRTHS The mandatory social distancing, restriction on mobility, and prohibition of big parties have greatly affected the people’s health and social events like weddings. I checked the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) deaths and births data and the numbers are somewhat surprising. One, there was no excess mortality in 2020 over 2019. There were, in fact, 6,314 less deaths in 2020 compared to 2019. Two, excess mortality showed big time in the first half of 2021. There were more deaths in January to June 2021 than the same months in 2020 and 2019 — 72,218 more than 2020 and 52,489 more than 2019. March to May 2021 saw 61,000 to 69,000 deaths pe...

Early this evening I was one of several speakers and reactors. Aside from the ppt presentations by Doc Jody and me, discussions were spontaneous, free flowing and focused, what a night. Anyway here is my ppt. The other speakers and contributors were Docs Marivic Villa, Homer Lim, Iggy Agbayani, Jade del Mundo. Sir George Barcelon asked several useful questions. Great hosting and moderation job by boss Mari Kaimo, Eli Abella and Francis Abraham.

Yesterday I was one of the resource persons at the 2nd public hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability chaired by Cong. Michael Edgar Aglipay. The meeting started 1pm and ended about 4:30pm, I was called and spoke around 4:10pm, then Doc Jody Dalmacion also of CDC Ph spoke after me. I submitted this ppt to the Chairman and Committee Secretariat before the hearing started. But since I was called late and with limited time and Chairman Aglipay said they already saw my ppt, I did not show this anymore and just articulated verbally the five false predictions of Octa. Earlier at the hearing, Congw. Stella Quimbo asked many questions at OCTA President, Prof. Ranjit Rye of UP Political Science, why they have no economist in their company, and that UP School of Economics has a world-class Health Economics lab and research institute, yet Octa did not bother to tap it. Earllier, Fr. Austriaco of OCTA butted in and wanted to speak and that he's based in the ...

Among my favorite climate and energy blogs is No Tricks Zone,  https://notrickszone.com/ , owned by Pierre Gosselin, an American living in Germany. Daily articles with lots of data about climate and energy alarmism but occasionally Pierre would post or get guest writers about the new fad in the world – vaccine mandates, implicit or explicit, thanks Pierre. I am reposting below some recent articles posted in his blog. Enjoy. ------------- (1) Bombshell Study: Vaccine Protection Against COVID Infection And Viral Load ‘Vanishes’ Within 6 Months  By Kenneth Richard on 3. September 2021  https://notrickszone.com/2021/09/03/bombshell-study-vaccine-protection-against-covid-infection-and-viral-load-vanishes-within-6-months/ Reports of plummeting vaccine effectiveness against current COVID-19 variants are proliferating. A new study assesses the viral load and risk of infection with COVID-19 is the same for a fully vaccinated person as it is for an unvaccinated person within just 1...