126 Comments

"Support for this “catch-up” explanation for the higher infection rate " - this makes a lot of sense, I didn't think of that. Thank you!

Glad I left berenson's stack long ago, I don't miss it.

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Dec 26, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

I was recently presented that Indiana study by someone, and they used it to try to claim some benefit from being vaxxed. I noticed quickly that it was not comparing vaxxed vs unvaxxed, but vaxxed vs unvaxxed with "documented SARS-CoV-2 infection between November 29, 2020, and February 9, 2022"

I wondered why they didn't compare unvaxxed vs vaxxed. If you look at figure 1, you'll see the "neither vaccinated nor infected" group is n=4.2 million

the "infected individuals" is n=736 thousand; vaxxed is 2.8 million.

Right off the bat, I saw a massive issue with the study. By this date (Feb 2022) according to the CDC, over half (57.7%) of Americans had already been exposed to the virus:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-majority-americans-children-adults-infected/

Many did not even know; if they did, it's unlikely this was ever documented. Because the person I was talking to and myself are both in our late 20s, I was focusing mainly on this age group. At most, probably about 1% of those in our age group that get exposed to SARS-CoV-2 ever seek medical assistance over it. Generally, it's not a big deal and lasts a few days if that. personally, I have never gotten sick from it, but allegedly 94% of Americans have been exposed by now, so maybe I was just asymptomatic.

Either way, the people that have a record of infection that medical professionals can access will, on average, be much different than the rest of the population. They are outright selecting for susceptibility to disease with this analysis. So it doesn't seem like a very good analysis to argue in favor of "real-world benefits of vaccination."

It's also extremely suspicious that they did not compare the vaxxed & unvaxxied without documented previous infection. They had the data, so why not do it? Maybe the results would not have been what they wanted to publish.

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Brian, I have recommended your stack, I find very interesting and informative. We may not agree all of the time but you are very smart, detailed, high quality. Thanks for your work.

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Brian, I have recommended your stack, I find very interesting and informative. We may not agree all of the time but you are very smart, detailed, high quality. Thanks for your work.

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It's unfortunate that some people mistake our situation as a high school debate, won or lost by pedantic statistical or rhetorical nuances. It's not. We're in an information war, with millions of lives already lost and many millions more still at risk. If Berenson tells his readers the vax causes excess mortality, a widely proven conclusion, it's not really important whether his basis includes extraneous points that might be incorrect. We really need to focus on the objective of making it stop. We can work out the details later.

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

Quid custodiet ipsos custodes

I get it

Not ok nevertheless

Perfectly clear this should not have been given to many, classically to any, certainly not as any precondition of getting rid of ineffective and illegal restrictions on people’s liberty

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

People say "Accelerating the evolution of SARS-COV-2." a lot without actually discussing the mechanisms and the probabilities.

There are a relatively small number of proteins involved and changes to the N protein genes or the RdRp genes are not likely to lead to a viable virus. Changes to the S protein genes such that it could bind to a wider range of receptors might make it more virulent but no one is demonstrating that such a possible change exists.

Since the current S protein seems pretty specific to ACE2 and maybe TMPRSS2 and these things depend heavily on folding of proteins it seems unlikely they could bind to another receptor.

What else could change? Maybe they will develop a whole new machinery for RNA copy fidelity and packaging of only perfect proteins. I am not holding my breath.

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

Heh, lots of people are jumping on the bandwagon:

https://www.rintrah.nl/unprecedented-global-respiratory-disease/

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When it comes to evaluating the efficacy of the mRNA inoculations, the one thing I have not seen done in any of these relatively small scale studies is to reconcile the results to the broader epidemiological data.

Kyle Beattie's big data analysis showing that the mRNA inoculation campaigns actually increased the incidence of COVID cases pretty much demolishes the notion that the inoculations are an effective defense.

https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/how-many-red-flags-are-enough

Similarly, when the rates of community spread increases after the inoculation ratio in a population passes 50% also cuts against the possibility of the inoculations being effective.

https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/no-return-to-normal-in-sight

Which means any study that only just now shows the inoculations to be ineffective is way behind the curve. That has already been proven in abundance.

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So you are saying that earlier on, the shots/boosters were actually preventing people from catching covid. And so their covid rate was genuinely lower than the unvaccinated. But now the shots are wearing off, and the unvaccinated have ever more natural immunity, so the unvaccinated are doing better?

And the reason the chart from the paper doesn't show this, is because it doesn't go far enough back, to where the shots were actually helping prevent infection? And if went much further back, the infection rate would be lower (early on) for the vaccinated, and higher (early on) for the unvaccinated?

I'm confused, because I thought the shots never were tested to prevent infection, and never did (except for the original Wuhan strain).

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

Merry Christmas.

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

I think I understand the argument you are making but I suspect I need to read the paper to determine how they are measuring infections. Is it more PCR tests where anyone challenged with the virus, regardless of immunity, might yield a positive result, or was it based on actual symptoms?

Also, I would like to know how they measure that 30%. In the original Pfizer trials they used Relative Risk Reduction of getting one symptom and the control group had about a 0.84% risk of experiencing one symptom with the trial group having something like a 0.04% risk of experiencing one symptom.

I am not interested in a vaccine that reduces my risk of developing one symptom from below one percent to even further below one percent.

In this paper are they at least using ARR?

Also, what would allow them to draw more robust conclusions? Another 51,000 people who were never vaccinated and who could be matched on when they last had the virus?

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Merry Christmas

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Dec 24, 2022·edited Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

Interesting thought Brian. When seeing "negative efficacy" data I immediately become hesitant because one would have to reason why such a phenomenon would occur, and that may end up resulting from OAS in some regard (although we've criticized it).

I think your argument is an interesting one. It at least makes sense that the more distant we get from Wuhan/D614G SARS-COV2 that we should expect a lag to occur, now catching up. It would be interesting to see what effect the bivalent boosters would have in the discussion, but apparently the uptake for these boosters have been far lower than people thought, and fortunately I think that even a bad respiratory season may not lead to more boosting due to fatigue.

As to Berenson, Berenson is indicative of someone that doesn't really read into studies and just takes the information at face value. Maybe it's a consequence of his old life as s journalist. When reading news reports on studies it's clear that the reporter just repeats verbatim what the study states, and then relies on other doctors/scientists to quote in their reports. It's like reporters spend so much time doing everything BUT reading the actual study.

Also, Merry Christmas to you and your family Brian! Thanks for the information and analysis you've provided the past year!

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Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

My own pretty worthless unscientific observation is that my vaxxed/boosted friends, family, and acquaintances didn't seem to catch the virus until after they got the 3rd shot. Now they're going for number 4 and all around me I see vaxxed out sick with whatever it's called now.

But my unvaxxed self, friends and family are not untouchable either. Eldest son (a shot virgin) had Delta last December and just now is getting over another milder case of the crud. So much depends on physique, age and behavior.

Merry Christmas, Brian! Thanks for your articles, they're always worth pondering.

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Dec 24, 2022·edited Dec 24, 2022Liked by Brian Mowrey

Brian, Merry Christmas. 🎄

Thank you for work, I think you’ve really seal(ed) the deal on the Walrus.

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