Vaccine and drug inquire … postponed

https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/news/update-on-the-inquirys-investigation-into-vaccines-and-therapeutics/

Public hearings for the Inquiry’s fourth investigation, into vaccines and therapeutics (Module 4), will be rescheduled.

The hearings were provisionally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2024. They will now take place at a later date,

to enable organisations to prioritise providing evidence for the Inquiry’s third investigation on the impact of the pandemic on healthcare (Module 3).

There will be no preliminary hearing for Module 4 on 8 February.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12947575/Covid-Inquirys-probe-vaccines-delayed-indefinitely-chair-admits-postponement-disappointing-some.html

Covid Inquiry's probe into vaccines is delayed indefinitely as chair admits postponement will be 'disappointing for some'

Hearings for fourth module of the official inquiry were set to begin this summer

A long-awaited probe into the development of Covid vaccines and drugs was today postponed indefinitely.

Baroness Heather Hallett

'I know the postponement of these hearings will be disappointing for some’

'I wish to reassure you that we will hold these hearings as soon as possible.'

Baroness Hallett, to ensure the inquiry doesn't run beyond summer 2026.

Thought to have cost taxpayers £145million already

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/nov/06/constitution.monarchy1

November 2022

Paul Burrell (Her Majesty Elizabeth II)

"There are powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge,"

Disease X is looming

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/diseasex-pandemic-preparedness-cepi/

The world needs to be better prepared to tackle a future pandemic,

By mapping viruses with the potential to become the next “Disease X”, the global health community and governments can be more responsive the next time a pandemic looms

Global collaboration and adequate funding are needed to improve pandemic preparedness and ensure fast action to keep a viral outbreak at bay

“You can get a long way towards being able to produce something that will target a novel virus before that virus even emerges.”

“It’s a virus that we don't know yet, but we do know is out there, and we do know has the potential to spill over from an animal population potentially into humans, perhaps mutate or adapt itself and then begin spreading and killing people faster than we can contain it.”

… carrying out research and vaccine development for known viral “families” that could impact humans – of which there are 25 – would give humanity a decided advantage over the next Disease X.

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Link to free download of my 2 textbooks http://159.69.48.3/

Louise Restaurant and Bar, night of 26th November

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/12/07/europes-biggest-omicron-outbreak-appears-mild-say-norway-covid/

Oslo, Norway, Christmas party

Scatec solar power company

One or two returned traveller

Had returned days earlier

120 people (all double vaccinated)

Mingled with outside groups later

70 of the 120 plus 50 others tested positive

Half tested positive for omicron

13 proven in sequencing

Dr. Tine Ravlo, Oslo, infectious diseases

They have symptoms like fever, cough, headache, muscle pain, fatigue,

but for now none of them have become severely ill and none of them have been treated in hospital

The next day, one of two employees,

recently returned from South Africa tested positive

Norway's state epidemiologist, Frode Forland

Sheer number of people infected at a single event, omicron considerably more infectious than delta

Prof Forland, Norwegian Institute of Public Health

One of three scenarios for omicron,

it would be both very mild and very transmissible

That is the hope

That is the best scenario we can have

That it's getting minder,

most people will get it,

and they will get a natural immunity

It might be that it has now replicated and mutated so many times,

that this is the optimal position from the virus' point of view,

to spread widely and not kill the hosts

That's what we've seen with other diseases beforehand.

And of course, then it gets into more like an endemic phase

Now this is not the end

Nor is it the end of the beginning

Rather it is the beginning of the end

Sally

I've had Delta, this time last year (pretty rough, took 6 months to fully recover) and I have Omicron now. The symptoms of Omicron are as you state. I am vaccinated.

Helgard

Living in SA (Gauteng) and have tested (+) 2 days ago, The symptoms is 100% correct as stated. Also after 1st symptoms, 3 days after i don't even know that i was sick.

Body and muscle aches and pains

Headache

Tiredness (1 to 2 days)

Slight sore throat

No severe cough

No runny nose

Graph refs

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

SA. Live data, hospital patients who have tested positive

https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/

South Africa references

https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/sars-cov-2-genomic-surveillance-update/

Weekly deaths in SA

https://www.samrc.ac.za/reports/report-weekly-deaths-south-africa

Variants in SA

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa/

Sir Patrick Vallance

from pandemic to endemic where this becomes a more regular infection like flu over time

This virus has mutated a lot, quickly and that is sort of what you would expect at this stage

the good news is that, so far, it looks as though when you get very high antibody levels with the booster vaccine it's definitely having some effect against it in the laboratory studies

Boris Johnson

Work-from-home from Monday

Facemasks will be enforced in public venues

Covid passes mandatory for nightclubs

Daily testing instead of isolation for omicron contacts

First plant-based coronavirus vaccine

CoVLP (20 years of R and D)

https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-releases/medicago-and-gsk-announce-positive-phase-3-efficacy-and-safety-results/

GlaxoSmithKline and Medicago

Primary endpoints and secondary endpoints met in trial dominated by COVID-19 variants

Efficacy demonstrated against all variants seen in the study,

including 75.3% efficacy against COVID-19 of any severity caused by Delta variant

Vaccine candidate was well-tolerated, with no related serious adverse events reported in the vaccine group

24,000 adults across six countries

Phase 3 placebo-controlled efficacy study

Canada Medicago’s p

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Early heart disease deaths rise to 14-year high

Over 100,000 excess deaths involving cardiovascular conditions in England since February 2020

Heart and circulatory diseases cause around a quarter of all deaths in England,

Over 140,000 deaths each year,

or one death every four minutes.

Healthcare costs relating to heart and circulatory diseases, £8.3 billion each year.

The cost of cardiovascular disease to the wider economy in England,

(including premature death, disability and informal costs),

is estimated to be £22 billion each year.

Latest NHS England figures show that the number of people waiting for cardiac care at the end of November in England was 402,208.

The heart care waiting list is 72% larger than in February 2020.

This is an increase of 169,000 people – enough to fill Wembley stadium nearly twice over.

In 2022

Over 39,000 people in England died prematurely of cardiovascular conditions,

heart attacks, coronary heart disease and stroke,

an average of 750 people each week.

It is the highest annual total since 2008.

Since 2020, the premature death rate for cardiovascular disease has risen year-on-year

This is the first time there has been a clear reversal in the trend for almost 60 years.

The BHF says more analysis is needed to understand what is driving the trend.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the BHF and Consultant Cardiologist, said:

We are still seeing more people than expected die from cardiovascular conditions overall – more than any other disease group.

It’s clear to me that urgent intervention is long overdue.

In January 2023, the Government announced a Major Conditions Strategy to tackle the biggest drivers of ill health and early death in England

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiYmUwNmFhMjYtNGZhYS00NDk2LWFlMTAtOTg0OGNhNmFiNGM0IiwidCI6ImVlNGUxNDk5LTRhMzUtNGIyZS1hZDQ3LTVmM2NmOWRlODY2NiIsImMiOjh9

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Official UK government report on the debate

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2022-10-24/debates/FF880636-BC3B-4BDB-A5E0-D6D4B82B2888/Covid-19VaccinesSafety

Official UK Government YouTube channel, the debate in full for those interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgGCgxGYkk

A few of John’s notes on immunity, from my books, free download site,

http://159.69.48.3/

(You will need to cut and past this address into search engine)

Acquired or adaptive immunity only develops after there has been contact with a particular antigen. An individual is said to be immune to a particular pathogen when it may be introduced into the body, without causing illness. In contrast to innate immunity, the immune system is changed as a result of exposure to a particular antigen.

Acquired immunity is specific to a particular antigen. For example, previous exposure to the measles virus will have allowed the immune system to adapt, generating immunity to any future measles infection. However, because the response is specific, the individual may still suffer from mumps, influenza, or indeed any other antigenic organism it has not previously been exposed to.

Antigens (antibody generators)

An antigen is anything the immune system recognises as being foreign. When detected, antigens generate an immune response in the body. It is antigens which stimulate the production of antibodies, which are the immune proteins. Usually an antigen is a foreign protein that the body recognises as non-self. The outer coatings of bacteria and viruses contain such foreign proteins. Non-protein large molecules (with a molecular mass of over 1000) will also be antigenic if introduced into the body. So a wide variety of living and non living things can act as antigens; such things are said to possess antigenicity. The specific component of an antigen the immune system recognises as foreign is termed an epitope.

Cells involved in adaptive immunity

The important classification of white cells involved in adaptive immunity is the small lymphocytes. Small lymphocytes have a large nucleus with only a small area of cytoplasm. In addition to being found in the blood, there are many small lymphocytes in the structures of the lymphatic system, such as the spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes.

Small lymphocytes are able to recognise antigenic material, this is essential if they are to mount an immune response. It is estimated that small lymphocytes are capable of producing 100 million different shapes of surface receptors in order to recognise 100 million different forms of antigen. This diversity seems to allow the immune system to recognise all of the possible antigens on the surface of the planet.

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Vitamin D supplementation has a protective effect, against the incidence of COVID-19 in RCT studies,

OR 0.403, (95% IC 0.218, 0.747)

In the RCTs performed on HCWs, the overall reduction in risk in the population supplemented with vitamin D was approximately 80%

Against the incidence of COVID-19 in analytical studies

OR = 0.592, (95% IC 0.476–0.736)

Against the incidence of COVID-19 ICU admission

OR 0.317, (95% IC 0.147–0.680).

Our meta-analysis suggests a definitive and significant association between the protective role of vitamin D and COVID-19 incidence and ICU admission.

Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/5/679

(28th Feb 2024)

Vitamin D, crucial roles

Bone homeostasis, muscle function, oncogenesis, immune response and metabolism.

In the context of the COVID-19

Numerous researchers have tried to determine the role vitamin D in the immune response to the virus.

Systematic review and meta-analysis, 15th May 2023

Preventive vitamin D supplementation, 16 publications

N = 1,262,235 participants,

A protective role in

Incidence of COVID-19

Mortality

Admission to intensive care units (ICUs).

We calculated the Odds Ratios

The assessment of potential bias and the evaluation of study quality will be conducted independently by two researchers.

Extra information

The majority of the effects of vitamin D are mediated by the VDR, which promotes the expression of genes containing specific DNA sequences and is expressed in almost all nucleated cells

Approximately 3 percent of the human genome is under the control of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D

Vitamin D has been observed to contribute to the synthesis of defensins,

to be pivotal for enhancing the phagocytic activity,

and to modulate the immune system response by regulating the inflammatory cascade

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Dr. Clare Craig’s excellent text on the pandemic, hard copy, Kindle and audio,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Expired-untold-Dr-Clare-Craig/dp/1739344707/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3E93FOWVOC0XX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JFeEViLIDz8rNi6E0HczPLFg-Rhhp0fkaEuFRtYftjRIDahju5qw8l9fofi8C2bD.CDOKUrBi_LzAdqysyTNwiaxvbEegCknK7-KFf6ouAdQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=expired+craig&qid=1758968302&sprefix=expired+craig%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1

Premiere: Inside mRNA Vaccines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZrJraN2nOQ

Inside mRNA vaccines

https://www.insidemrnavaccines.com/

Filmmaker: Erik Tangsoo

Inside the Vaccine Trials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBhjCBa7oDE

Inside the vaccine trials

https://www.vaccinetrialstories.com/

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List of covid (mostly BA.5) symptoms, (as of 6th October)

Sore throat, 66%

Headache, 54%

Runny nose, 53%

Blocked nose, 53%

Cough, no phlegm 51%

Sneezing, 47%

Cough with phlegm, 47%

Hoarse, 43%

Muscle pains / aches 31%

Fatigue, 24%

Dizzy, 22%

Altered smell, 19%

Swollen neck glands, 19%

Chest pain,16%

Sore eyes, 16%

Earache, 15%

Shortness of breath, 15%

Chills or shivers,15%

Loss of smell, 13%

Fever, 12%

Full Zoe, transparent report

https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/covid-public-data.

Professor Spector comments

https://twitter.com/search?q=tim%20spector&src=typed_query

While Covid increasing still at over 221,000 daily cases

- colds are rising even faster as the Zoe Health Study data shows.

The pattern show the strong links with kids returning to school each year.

Maybe we lost some of our cold immunity?

US, 14-day trends

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Cases, down 23%

Test positivity, 9.1%

Hospitalized, (in hospital) 27,139, down 12%

In ICUs, 3,309, down 12%

Deaths, 391 (per day) down 11%

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With paediatrician Dr. Ros Jones. For the full discussion go to,

https://lighthousedeclaration.org/roundtables/fertility/

Fertility in Crisis: Expert Voices from the Front Lines

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Fascinating discussion with Dr. Sohail Bhatti, until recently Head of Public Health in Gibraltar. Sohail is now Public Health Consultant for Slough in UK.

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Long covid seems to be the same as any other post viral syndrome

https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-long-covid-may-be-no-different-to-other-long-term-virus-effects

From: European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 27-30 April).

Queensland data

Long COVID ‘indistinguishable’ from other post-viral syndromes and other respiratory virus a year after infection

Comparison with influenza and other respiratory illnesses

Australia, Queensland,

During Omicron wave

No evidence of worse post-viral symptoms or functional impairment a year after infection.

Long COVID may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of high numbers of COVID-19 cases.

N= 5,112 adult symptomatic individuals

(Fatigue, brain fog, cough, shortness of breath, change to smell and taste, dizziness, rapid or irregular heartbeat)

PCRs conducted between 29 May and 25 June 2022

PCR-confirmed infection for COVID-19 = 2,399

PCR negative for COVID-19 = 2,713

Influenza positive = 995

Results collected, May and June 2023

Overall

Still reporting symptoms, 16% (834/5,112)

Still reported moderate-to-severe functional impairment, 3.6% (184)

Those still reporting any symptoms after a year

Post Covid

No difference

Post Influenza

Those with moderate-to-severe functional limitations a year after diagnosis

None covid adults, 3%

Covid positive adults, 4.1%

Influenza positive adults, 3.4%

https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/bmjph/1/1/e000060.full.pdf

Comparison at 12 weeks post infection

Ongoing symptoms after covid, 21.4%

Ongoing symptoms after influenza, 23%

Moderate to severe functional impairment after covid, 4.1%

Moderate to severe functional impairment after influenza, 4.4%

Obvious question not addressed!!

Presence of spike protein antibodies

Dr John Gerrard, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer

These findings underscore the importance of comparing post-COVID-19 outcomes with those following other respiratory infections, and of further research into post-viral syndromes.

Furthermore, we believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long COVID’.

They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with this virus.

This terminology can cause unnecessary fear

Other commentators

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-symptoms-flu-cold

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-16/queensland-chief-health-officer-long-covid/103594020

https://www.9news.com.au/health/coronavirus-australia-queensland-health-study-long-covid/dede1234-d86f-4842-b6f9-975097dc7e62

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