Study: COVID recovery gave Israelis longer-lasting Delta defense than vaccines

The variant was 27 times more likely to break through Pfizer protection from January-February and cause symptoms than it was to penetrate natural immunity from the same period Natural immunity from contracting coronavirus provided Israelis with longer-lasting protection against the Delta variant than two shots of the Pfizer vaccine given early this year, new Israeli research […]

Is the Delta variant really more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus?

The Delta variant, which was first detected in India in October and has recently been spreading very quickly in many regions of the world, is widely believed to be more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus. In this post, I start by explaining what people mean when they say that a variant is more […]

Dr Makary: CDC guidance on Chickenpox vaccine exposes agency’s contradictory COVID messaging

Marty Makary on Tuesday accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of “cherry-picking” data and manipulating public health guidance surrounding vaccines and natural immunity to support a political narrative. Travis noted that the CDC’s guidance on COVID-19 is inconsistent with their vaccine recommendations for other contagious viruses. The current guidance for the Chickenpox, for example, does not encourage […]

The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away

If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. Even when a much-anticipated vaccine arrives, it is likely to only suppress but never completely eradicate the virus. We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives. Back in the winter, public-health officials were more hopeful about SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that […]

Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number Is Losing Meaning

A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases. At least 12,000 Americans have already died from COVID-19 this month, as the country inches through its latest surge in cases. Last winter, this magazine described it as «the most reliable pandemic number,» while Vox quoted the cardiologist Eric Topol as saying […]

Barbara Kay: Academia’s gender bias — how men are being pushed out of higher education

The feminization of higher education is proceeding apace. According to a report from the National Student Clearinghouse in the United States, 1.5 million fewer students are enrolled in higher education than in 2016, with men accounting for 71 per cent of the decline. Soon, two women will graduate for every man. Gender parity on campus was achieved in 1970. Women almost […]

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

Abstract With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Results SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event occurred during January and February of 2021. Read more… Source: Sivan Gazit, Roei Shlezinger, Galit Perez, Roni Lotan, Asaf Peretz, Amir Ben-Tov, Dani Cohen, Khitam Muhsen, Gabriel Chodick, Tal Patalon | medRxiv

‘In that moment, I knew he wanted me to lie.’ Jody Wilson-Raybould recalls a tension-filled meeting with Justin Trudeau

Jody Wilson-Raybould most recently served as the independent Member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville. The sun was flooding through the third-floor windows of the Signature private plane terminal at Vancouver International Airport as I sat waiting for the Prime Minister to arrive. The terminal is distant and isolated, far from the bustling main terminal and the eyes of […]

As ‘buy now, pay later’ surges, a third of U.S. users fall behind on payments

The study, conducted by software firm Qualtrics, surveyed 1,044 adult consumers in the United States last month to measure their interest in buy now pay later and found 44% had used these services before. The latest survey found younger consumers were more likely to miss payments. There has been a surge in usage of BNPL services, which allow consumers to […]

Inflation is a monetary curse

Remarkably, in a speech on monetary policy given at the Jackson Hole conference last Friday, Jay Powell never mentioned money, money supply, M1 or M2. The FOMC appears to no longer take the consequences of monetary expansion into account. But the fact is that rising consumer prices caused by monetary expansion have driven real rates sharply negative and are leading to […]

James Alexander Michie

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