Categories
Publications

Evidence of early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in France: findings from the population-based “CONSTANCES” cohort – European Journal of Epidemiology

Using serum samples routinely collected in 9144 adults from a French general population-based cohort, we identified 353 participants with a positive anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG test, among whom 13 were sampled between November 2019 and January 2020 and were confirmed by neutralizing antibodies testing. Investigations in 11 of these participants revealed experience of symptoms possibly related to a SARS-CoV-2 infection or situations at risk of potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure. This suggests early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in Europe.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00716-2

Categories
Opinion Videos

Ivor Cummins on The James Delingpole Channel

Ivor Cummins aka the Fat Emperor – gives James the lowdown on why you can’t trust anything our governments tell us about Covid-19. If you want the facts on Coronavirus – how deadly is it? do lockdowns and masks work? how does it compare with previous pandemics? – you’ve come to the right place

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Mirror archives are available below if this video is removed from YouTube.

Categories
Publications

Assessment of Maternal and Neonatal SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load, Transplacental Antibody Transfer, and Placental Pathology in Pregnancies During the COVID-19 Pandemic – JAMA

Conclusions and Relevance  In this cohort study, there was no evidence of placental infection or definitive vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Transplacental transfer of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was inefficient. Lack of viremia and reduced coexpression and colocalization of placental angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and transmembrane serine protease 2 may serve as protective mechanisms against vertical transmission.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201222162005/https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774428

Categories
Publications

How kids’ immune systems can evade COVID – Nature

Young children account for only a small percentage of COVID-19 infections — a trend that has puzzled scientists. Now, a growing body of evidence suggests why: kids’ immune systems seem better equipped to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 than are adults’.

“Children are very much adapted to respond — and very well equipped to respond — to new viruses,” says Donna Farber, an immunologist at Columbia University in New York City. Even when they are infected with SARS-CoV-2, children are most likely to experience mild or asymptomatic illness.

Another clue that children’s response to the virus differs from that of adults is that some children develop COVID-19 symptoms and antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 but never test positive for the virus on a standard RT-PCR test. In one study, three children under ten from the same family developed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies — and two of them even experienced mild symptoms — but none tested positive on RT-PCR, despite being tested 11 times over 28 days while in close contact with their parents, who had tested positive.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201211205033/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03496-7

Categories
Publications

Informed consent disclosure to vaccine trial subjects of risk of COVID-19 vaccines worsening clinical disease – National Center for Biotechnology Information

COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.

Categories
Videos

Dr Mike Yeadon on the UK government’s mismanagement of COVID-19 on – Unlocked

YouTube has removed interview so we have archived the video in the above location. It is currently available on Unlocked Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/unlockedunitedkingdom/videos/vb.112364983833705/409747283542470/

Categories
News

How accurate are the covid tests? – Sebastian Rushworth M.D.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why PCR positive cases are a very poor indicator of how prevalent covid is in the population, and why we should instead be basing decisions on the rates of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death. If we just look at the PCR tests, we will continue to believe that the disease is widespread in the population indefinitely, even as it becomes less and less common in reality. And that is assuming the rate of testing doesn’t increase. If we combine this built-in problem with accuracy, with a massive increase in testing (as has happened in most countries over the course of the pandemic), then we can create the impression of a disease that is continuing to spread wildly through a population, even when it isn’t.

https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/11/06/how-accurate-are-the-covid-tests/

Categories
Opinion

Three facts No 10’s experts got wrong – Dr Mike Yeadon, Daily Mail

  • We have experience of SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, while in the UK there are at least four known strains of coronavirus which cause the common cold.
  • Many individuals who’ve been infected by other coronaviruses have immunity to closely related ones such as the Covid-19 virus.
  • Multiple research groups in Europe and the US have shown that around 30 per cent of the population was likely already immune to Covid-19 before the virus arrived – something which Sage continues to ignore.
  • Prof. John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University in California, have concluded that the mortality rate is closer to 0.2 per cent – 1 in 500 infected die.
  • Around 45,000 Covid deaths in the UK
  • Approximately 22.5million people have been infected – 33.5 per cent of our population – not Sage’s 7 per cent calculation.
  • Not every infected individual produces antibodies.
  • The human immune system has several lines of defence:
    • Innate immunity which is comprised of the body’s physical barriers to infection and protective secretions (the skin and its oils, the cough reflex, tears etc);
    • Inflammatory response (to localise and minimise infection and injury), and the production of non-specific cells (phagocytes) that target an invading virus/bacterium.
    • Antibodies that protect against a specific virus or bacterium (and confer immunity) and T-cells (a type of white blood cell) that are also specific.
  • T-cells that are crucial in our body’s response to respiratory viruses such as Covid-19.
  • World Health Organisation says 750million people have been infected by the virus as of October and almost none have been reinfected.
  • Mortality in 2020 so far ranks eighth out of the last 27 years.
  • The death rate at present is also normal for the time of year – the number of respiratory deaths is actually low for late October.
  • Not only is the virus less dangerous than we are being led to believe, with almost three quarters of the population at no risk of infection.
  • I am convinced this so-called second wave of rising infections and, sadly, deaths will fizzle out without overwhelming the NHS.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8899053/DR-MIKE-YEADON-Three-facts-No-10s-experts-got-wrong.html