12 Comments

My favorite substack yet! I want to forward this to every physician in my multi-specialty group!! My lowest point in the pandemic came discussing the risk benefit analysis for a young healthy patient who was in tears because her college mandated a booster dose for her to return to campus. I spoke to the physician at the college on her behalf. He insisted I didn’t understand how high her risk was despite already being vaccinated at 20 years old without any medical problems.

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Everyone should read this!!! Thank you, Dr. Prasad and Dr. Hoeg! We appreciate all your hard work!

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This highlights the "madison avenue" hucksterism that lurks behind the numbers, does it not? Vaccines were originally widely touted as having a 95% reduction rate, relative to an unvaxxed person. Relative improvement, not absolute.

Background rate of myocarditis is 2 for the unvaxxed, rises to 162 for the vaxxed. Same 'relative improvement' methodology applied? Going unvaxxed shows a 98+% risk reduction advantage for the young who remain unvaxxed.

Why the public health authorities continue to push the experimental vaccines on the young is beyond me.

So much of this approach is salesmanship, and nothing more. If it was my kid, I would leave well enough alone.

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Outstanding and forwarded on to many people I know!

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Love this, as well as her linked article about how we need to fix our covid math.

Is there somewhere we can easily see some of this covid math in one place eg. Our relative risk of harms from covid vs other risks we tolerate daily? I feel like a lot of people haven’t actually seen the numbers (myself included), and I wonder if it would give some perspective.

Would love if you and ZD could present some of these data.

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This is excellent! You and Tracey have been so brave and inspirations to those of us on the frontlines who have no voice. We can see the idiocy and theatrics of most Covid guidelines. I subscribed to this Substack because of your reason and for standing up for common sense.

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Two thoughts:

1) This is a clear example of how data can easily be manipulated. Dr. John Campbell recently reported that the average age of Covid-deaths in the U.K. was above 80. Yet, depending on how you divide age groups, one could easily group the elderly into, say, 65+, thus skewing the perception of how deadly Covid is regarding age group. One thing that continues to infuriate me is how often people lump deaths of people without co-morbidities with those who have other risk factors. It makes people feel they have an equal risk of severe illness or death. For example, if someone is 65 but very healthy, why should they feel as worried about covid as someone who is also 65 but is suffering from a multitude of health problems? If we were reporting on deaths from heart disease, we wouldn't lump healthy people together with people who smoke heavily, are obese, or have other health issues.

2) Masks seem to be a safety blanket at this point in general, though I agree that masks can be very beneficial in the right contexts and when used properly. The classroom I teach in is a bungalow, with large windows on either side for natural airflow and ventilation. (This is Southern California, so the weather is just fine even in winter.) The door is left open as well. There is plenty of space for students to sit far apart from each other. Yet the masks seem to make people feel like they have armor. They get very close together despite the official guidelines of sitting 6 feet apart. They gather together outside, close together, masks on. Although many are now wearing the much better fitting KF94 or KN95 masks, many still wear surgical masks that have significant gaps, especially on the sides. Getting back to the safety blanket metaphor, it reminds me of people who think holding a cell phone will keep them safe when walking home in a dangerous area. The police won't be there in time, but feeling like you could call them, or that the threat of calling the police would deter an attacker, is fairly illogical.

Anyway, that's my rant. Thanks for reading!

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Such a conversation with an obviously talented person. Dr Hoag is a solid researcher and sees the data clearly. We might wish for such talent in our health agencies. Thanks for both of your efforts.

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