History of epidemics in Nepal (Part I): 6 deadly diseases that killed hundreds
'I'm Not COVID Vaxxed:' Boebert Denies 'Rumors' That Vaccination Caused Her Blood Clot And Hospitalization
In the days after U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was rushed into emergency surgery to remove a blood clot that threatened her life, the online underworld swirled with speculation that the clot resulted from Boebert receiving a COVID vaccination.
In a radio interview last week, Boebert put the speculation to rest.
"I'm not COVID vaxxed," said Boebert. "So we can we can squash those rumors now."
Boebert made the comment when asked during an April 10 radio interview on KHNC in Johnstown, Colorado, whether a COVID vaccination might have led to her April 2 hospitalization for the clot in her leg.
"That's what everybody's asking me," radio host Jay Dee told Boebert on air. "… Did she get the shot? And is that why this happened last week?"
"And, so, for the listeners out there, if you didn't catch it, Lauren Boebert is not, is not, COVID vaxxed. So stop asking me about that," said Dee.
"That is correct," Boebert replied.
This means, of course, that Beobert disregarded the advice of health professionals to get the COVID vaccination during the pandemic. Today, health experts recommend COVID booster shots for those 65 or older.
Throughout the pandemic, Boebert repeatedly slammed efforts to control the virus, baselessly calling federal health officials "needle Nazis," saying that half of COVID relief funds would fund abortions, and lashing out at public health officials.
Blood clots continue to be a concern for people who contract COVID, not for those who get the COVID vaccination. The most common side effects of the Covid vaccine are fatigue, headache, and soreness at the injection site — all of which usually disappear after a few days.
Nonetheless, some anti-vaxxers have called the Covid vaccination the "clot shot."
Facing a tough path to re-election in her southwest Colorado congressional district, Boebert decided at the end of last year to run for an eastern Colorado seat. She's currently running in a primary against multiple GOP opponents, with the winner likely winning in November in the deep red, rural district.
RELATED: Public Health Expert Says Boebert 'Stoking Mistrust' of 'Heroes' Who Work in Public Health
Vaxxed Vs. Unvaxxed
LOS ANGELES – The Uber driver who took me to the restaurants was totally protected.
He was masked, and had placed a plastic divider between him and the back seat. Before getting into the car, the app had asked if I had a mask. A "no" would have left me on the street. With so many precautions, it would have been difficult for him or I to infect the other with Covid. But even so, neither of us knew the most important fact: I did not know whether he was vaccinated and he did not know whether I was. We both ran the risk, and that's how I went to dinner.
At the restaurant, everyone preparing the sushi and sashimi was Japanese, and the rest of the staff, with very few exceptions, were Latinos. Of course, the language there was japoñol. The unspoken rule, perfectly defined by the late chef Anthony Bourdain, is that no restaurant can survive without immigrants. Everyone wore a mask. And they ran the risk, because they could not know whether the clients were vaccinated.
That was a different experience from my visit a month ago to San Francisco, where every restaurant asked to see my vaccination card before I was allowed inside. And even more different from Miami, where I live. It seems there's no pandemic there. At a dinner with my son in an Italian restaurant, no one – not even the waiters – wore masks. Asking for salt or pepper was an unnecessary viral risk. Better tasteless and thirsty than infected. The same happened at a trendy pizzeria on Miami Beach. Spanish friends with me could not believe what they were seeing. A restaurant without a single mask was very 2019.
In the United States there are schools that no longer require students to wear masks, not even in schoolrooms. And others where it is required, even for outdoor activities and sports.
Understandably, people are tired of living locked in, afraid, masked, with multiple restrictions and without a real plan for putting an end to this tragedy. Canadian truckers, for example, have been protesting for days against the requirement they get vaccinated before they can cross the Canada-US border. Antivaxx groups around many parts of the world are supporting them digitally. And disinformation campaigns are exploding on social networks.
But the pandemic is still killing us, and there's no alternative but to keep up public health measures like vaccinations, masks and social distancing. Not doing that would be like letting go of a child's hand when crossing a busy highway. Yes, the principal obligation of any government is to keep its citizens alive. Even if they complain. Everything else comes later.
At some point, hopefully this year, we will reach a "balance," as Dr. Anthony Fauci recently told the Financial Times. "I hope we are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the Covid restriction will be a thing of the past." It's true that the number of Omicron cases is dropping in many countries, and we have to adapt to the changes. But the "balance" mentioned by the presidential adviser is not yet here. And cross your fingers against the appearance of another lethal variant.
I write this on a day when more than 2,500 people died from Covid in the United States and about 220,000 tested positive. And that's not counting the cases confirmed only because of home tests. In other words, we're very far from the end of the pandemic. At the world level, we went from 300 million cases to 400 million cases in just one month. When Covid becomes endemic, it will not mean we will be free of it. It means it will be a constant concern. Perhaps less lethal, but as permanent as colds, the flu and allergies.
In the meantime, we are all depending on the people who are most skeptical and doubtful. If the millions who refuse to be vaccinated would do it, the levels of cases, hospitalizations and deaths would drop further. That's no lie. It is a matter of public health, of benefit to the majority. The Center for Disease Control says so, and I know it from personal experience. I got Covid in late December, but my three Moderna shots kept me from a grave infection that could have put me in a hospital or worse. Covid kills.
It would be good if the lies circulating on the Internet were true. But I have lost count of the reports I have read on the news program about someone who refused the vaccine and died from Covid. And it hurts me even more when people believe a charlatan, someone who lacks any sort of academic preparation or an ignorant politician just looking for votes and power. Sadder than death is death because of a lie.
There is, I know, a fight between those who are vaccinated and those who are not. For those who are vaccinated, it is difficult to understand someone who does not want to protect himself or his family. For those who are not vaccinated, in the best of cases it is a matter of principle. But the two views do not carry equal weight. Science is on the side of the vaccinated. Life is on the side of the vaccinated. The evidence is on the side of the vaccinated.
The irony, and what is sad, is that the end of the pandemic depends on those who least believe that it exists, and those it kills the most.
China's Covid Catastrophe: (5) The Unvaxxed Elderly Are A Deadly 'Accelerant'
(Photo by Don Kelsen/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesChina has systematically suppressed information related to the impact of Covid on its population. For over two years – from mid-April 2020 until December 2022 – authorities promoted the fiction that the Mainland had experienced almost no deaths at all from Covid (despite acknowledging more than 100,000 cases of symptomatic Covid infections). Following the abandonment of the strict zero-Covid regime in December, leaked comments from Chinese officials, along with indications from other metrics (such as the number of cremations) have indicated that the pandemic has indeed struck with its full force. Hundreds of millions of people have been infected, hospitals have been overwhelmed, and death tolls are soaring. As The New York Times headlined
The reality of a severe and continuing Covid impact is a major factor depressing the Chinese economy. The post-Covid recovery that was widely expected has not materialized. GDP grew less than 1% in the 2nd quarter. Exports and imports have plunged. Manufacturing activity is contracting. The country is flirting with deflation. Chinese stock market performance has reflected all this. Last month The Wall Street Journal declared that "China's Lost Decade for Investors Has Already Happened."
Observers in the West are beginning to realize that "China can't be counted on to significantly benefit a global economy" – and the country's ongoing public health emergency is a big part of the reason.
Assessing the true impact of Covid today, and going forward, has taken on urgency. Researchers outside the country have applied various methods to estimate the real mortality figures. The resulting estimates range from 1 million to almost 4 million deaths from Covid for mainland China to date (July 2023) – far above the official toll of about 80,000. (I will detail these estimates in a forthcoming column.)
Two Fatal "Accelerants"In fact, the situation may be much worse. There are risk factors for mainland China which do not exist in most other countries that have been viewed as analogous. Two factors in particular will aggravate the impact of the disease, and act as "accelerants" that will intensify the Covid waves sweeping the country.
These factors are somewhat unique to mainland China. No other country has been so reliant on vaccines based on older inactivated virus technology, known to be less effective. (China has banned the import of superior Western vaccines based on mRNA technology.) And no other country has so neglected the vaccination of its elderly high-risk population.
"Immunologically Unprepared"China's vaccination program, while extensive, has relied on vaccine technologies that are now shown to be much less effective against Covid infection and mortality. Controlled studies make this clear.
Chinese vaccines apparently lose whatever efficacy they have more quickly than Western vaccines.
This highlights the problem of declining immunity levels over time. The virus has evolved in ways to evade the original formula.
This vulnerability is even worse with the Omicron variant, raging in China since the lifting of zero-Covid.
In other words, effective immunity against Omicron is practically nonexistent in China today.
Weakening Immunity
Chart by authorNew "immune-evasive" variants of Omicron are emerging, which will drive infection rates up.
That is equivalent to the entire population of France – in new infections, every week.
In short, as Nature magazine described the situation in a lead editorial last December:
"Immunologically unprepared for any variant" – that phrase is a death sentence for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Chinese citizens. It is also an indictment of Beijing's obtuse nationalism, in pursuing for political reasons a vaccination policy based on known inferior technology.
The Un-vaxxed ElderlyMany studies have verified that age is a key determinant of Covid illness, hospitalization and death rates. An early study from Yale examined data from 21 countries (including China), for "six consecutive weeks beginning at the 50th recorded death" for each country. The impact of age on disease outcomes was overwhelming.
In light of this obvious risk factor, the World Health Organization in 2020 recommended giving top priority to vaccinating (1) "health workers" and (2) the elderly. This policy was adopted almost everywhere. Medical resources were initially allocated to the elderly. (In the U.S., Covid tests were at first available only to those over 65.)
But not in China.
China's failure to vaccinate its older citizens is hard to explain. Authorities often blame the elderly Chinese citizens themselves. They are said to be victims of their own "vaccine hesitancy." Why are they hesitant? Mistrust of the government is not unexpected in China, especially among those who are old enough to have experienced some of the horrors of recent Chinese history.
But so what? This regime was prepared to lockdown whole cities, close businesses by force, deport those testing positive to "isolation camps," and even weld people shut in their homes to prevent them from traveling – in short, to pursue a prison-intensity totalitarian approach to public health. It has never seemed plausible that the government would allow anyone to "just say no" to vaccination.
In any case, the scope of the problem in China is massive. Of the nearly 260 million Chinese over the age of 60, 45% were not fully vaccinated (defined as less than three doses) in March 2022 – and 14% were completely unvaccinated.
Rates of Vaccination Among Elderly Chinese
Chart by authorThe numbers of elderly Chinese at high-risk are huge: 113 million older citizens less than fully vaccinated in March 2022, and 36 million completely unvaccinated – including more than 13 million Chinese over the age of 80 with no immunological protection at all.
Numbers on Un-Vaxxed and Not-Full-Vaxxed Elderly Chinese
Chart bu authorThat was March 2022. Strangely, the vaccination program actually slowed down after that. From June 2021 to December 2021, China administered 650 million doses of vaccine (90 million per month). Then, from January 2022 until the end of zero-Covid on December 8, 2022, Chinese authorities administered just 45 million more doses (4 million per month). The last three months before the abrupt end of the zero-Covid program — when presumably there would have been some foreknowledge of at least the possibility of halting the program – the vaccination effort came to a standstill – less than 1 million doses per month, down 99% from the rate in 2021.
China Halts Vaccination program
Chart bu authorChina is now often said to have abandoned zero-Covid "without preparation." The message of this chart seems more ominous. The virtual elimination of the vaccination program months before the shift away from zero-Covid is very hard to justify as merely a planning failure. It could almost seem intentional – raising another question for future historians, perhaps.
What Is The Impact? The Hong Kong AnalogyHow many of these unvaxxed will be infected? How many will die?
As to the infection rate, Chinese officials indicated that in the first two months after the end of zero-Covid restrictions on Dec 8, 2022, over 80% of the entire population had been infected with Covid. It is reasonable to assume that by now, almost 8 months later, the infection rate in China must be nearly 100%.
How many people will become ill? In particular, how many of the exposed elderly segment will die?
The best answer comes from Hong Kong. As of February 2022, vaccination rates and public health policies there were similar to those on the Mainland. Strict zero-Covid was in place. The elderly were largely unvaccinated – 57% of the residents over the age of 80 had not received even one vaccine dose.
When the Omicron variant hit the city in February, zero-Covid was overwhelmed and the healthcare system nearly collapsed. Infections and deaths soared to the highest levels seen anywhere in the world, ever.
Although the elderly population in Hong Kong is relatively small, the Covid mortality rates ("case fatality rates") for that age group are extremely high. A detailed study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control's International Task Force (which involved co-authors from both Hong Kong and Beijing) examined the patterns in Covid mortality in Hong Kong for the period from January 6 to March 21 2022.
The findings are grim.
Age was the most important risk factor.
Mortality Rates as a Function of Age (Hong Kong)
Chart by authorVaccination status was almost as important.
Mortality Rates as a Function of Vaccination Status (Hong Kong)
Chart by authorIn short, old age was the number one driver of Covid deaths in Hong Kong. That fact alone is an indictment of China's failure to protect this ultra-vulnerable population. Lack of vaccination in and of itself was also very deadly, however. The combination of old age and unvaccinated status was devastating.
Mortality Rates as a Function of Advanced Age and Vaccination Status (Hong Kong)
Chart by authorThe impact of Omicron on the much larger elderly and unvaccinated population of mainland China will be much greater than in Hong Kong. This highly vulnerable segment is much larger than in any other benchmark country.
High-Risk Segments in China and Severeal Benchmark Countries
Chart by author SummaryThere are other ways to get at this question – the effect of age on the death rate – using ratios derived from countries with higher quality and more complete epidemiological data. It may be still too early to decide which extrapolation is the most accurate – and of course Chinese obfuscations and falsifications are a severe handicap to analysts trying to assess and quantify the damage. We will consider the relative merits of some of the prominent estimates in a future column. But the existence of a large pool of elderly and/or unvaccinated people in China – larger as a percentage and in absolute terms than for any other country today – means that model estimates may be on the low side of reality.
When the full toll is known, millions will have died who did not need to have died. Xi Jinping's two great blunders – stubborn reliance on inferior vaccines for political rather than medical reasons, and a bizarre decision to halt the vaccination program a year before lifting zero-Covid, with millions of ultra-vulnerable seniors left fully exposed to the storm of Omicron – will rank alongside Mao's Great Leap Forward as a self-inflicted humanitarian disaster.
For further reading, see:
ForbesThe Impact Of China's Zero-Covid Exit: (1) Is China Really Vaccinated?By George CalhounForbesChina's Covid 'Exit Wave': (2) Is It Over?By George CalhounForbesChina's Covid 'Exit Wave': (3) What Other Countries' Zero-Covid Exits ShowBy George CalhounForbesChina's Covid 'Exit Wave': (4) Flattening The Curve?By George Calhoun
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