Coronavirus

[OFT]

Does it 'over-report' certain issues? probably.
Is it easy to form an opinion about it's 'impartiality' based on ones owns standpoint? I think it is.

I repeat, my argument is that I, for one, think it's as close to 'independent' as we could get.

[Crouchend_Hammer]

Personally I think the BBC IS relatively neutral politically - certainty more so than anyone else - but it's reporting during Covid has been q disgrace

But then so have all the mainstream media outlets

[666 hammer]

Or you just don't like the truth sometimes?

Said the pot :lol:

[Burnley Hammer]

I've just been taking a look at the figures for under 18's on the official vaccine surveillance reports. Quite relevant for us having 5 kids between us.

I've just looked at the last months (4 weeks) and though it shows a higher hospitalisation rate with unvaccinated kids vs vaccinated, it strangely shows the opposite when it comes to deaths. That's the only age group that frequently shows a higher rate of deaths (per 100,000 people) in the vaccinated group.

It does say it's unadjusted.. but unadjusted for what exactly? I'm not sure.

I'm also slightly concerned by these 'rare' cases of Myocarditis. I suspect that it might not be as rare as they think, especially when it comes to mild cases. I think it might be extremely under-reported.

Symptoms of myocarditis include chest pain, rapid or irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, and fatigue. The severity of these symptoms depend on how mild or severe the myocarditis is. In very mild myocarditis or early onset myocarditis, it's possible that there may not be any symptoms at all. These symptoms look remarkably similar to the symptoms reported by many people I know that had COVID. Both me and the missus had rapid heartbeat and feeling of fluttering, my missus had shortness of breath and fatigue too on both occasions. As I've mentioned before, I strongly suspect we both had COVID back in September - and since then I've been getting a pain in the chest whilst out walking up hills (although strangely less so when running) and I've also noticed that my heart is running 10bpm higher when at a steady jog whilst I'm out on a run. I've gone back through my Strava record and confirmed this. I think an awful lot of people may have had this and just written them off as covid symptoms and therefore its gone unreported.

Edit: After a bit more reading, I've found this...

"Researchers analysed the records of healthcare organisations that cover a fifth of the US population. They found that, during the first 12 months of the pandemic, males aged 12 to 17 were most likely to develop myocarditis within three months of catching covid-19, at a rate of about 450 cases per million infections."

I think its more than that.

[Denbighammer]

I had no adverse symptoms with my 1st two jabs (az) but have had some mild heart flutterings since I've had my booster. I haven't noticed any change in performance or heart beat when I exercise though.

I notice the Canadian lad at Bayern has had myocarditis symptoms and Aubameyang has too. What that all proves I'm not sure?

[Burnley Hammer]

It doesn't prove anything as its purely anecdotal.

I just think that if, according to statistics, 0.045% of the age group most likely to get myocarditis are getting it then its potentially being very underreported - purely based on the amount of people I know that have had covid with those mild myocarditis symptoms. I think that, unless the symptoms were bad, then there's every chance they'd be passed of as simply 'covid symptoms' and not reported or diagnosed.

[Burnley Hammer]

Just found this article which I thought was interesting. It seems to have escaped too much media attention. We've all heard before how obesity is a risk factor with COVID but, to my knowledge, we've no explanation as to why. This article offers an explanation of why the obese are at more risk from COVID.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/heal ... esity.html

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

It doesn't prove anything as its purely anecdotal.

I just think that if, according to statistics, 0.045% of the age group most likely to get myocarditis are getting it then its potentially being very underreported - purely based on the amount of people I know that have had covid with those mild myocarditis symptoms. I think that, unless the symptoms were bad, then there's every chance they'd be passed of as simply 'covid symptoms' and not reported or diagnosed.

If the symptoms are mild would they be treated anyway? Is it possible to have mild symptoms from severe damage?

As we are assuming everyone is now going to catch this at some point this is surely a pretty good reason to get vaccinated if you are young.

[Burnley Hammer]

If the symptoms are mild would they be treated anyway? Is it possible to have mild symptoms from severe damage?

Depends... for a start myocarditis doesn't always mean severe damage. There are varying degrees of it. Severe myocarditis would not have mild symptoms but mild myocarditis would. Very mild or early onset myocarditis may have no visible symptoms at all.

With pre-vaccine covid I had the racing heart but not a lot else other than raging headaches. I was back to normal very quickly.

With post-vaccine covid I had a racing heart, plus a mild pain in my chest once I've been walking for 15 mins or so, and getting out of breath a bit quicker whilst out running with my heart-rate 10bpm faster than it was before I had the second virus. I would feel quite wheezy once my run had finished and I'd returned home. I've improved a little of late but I'm not quite 100% there yet (4 months after the virus).

Of course with regards to discomfort the first infection was a lot worse due to the terrible headaches. The second one felt much milder due to the absence of anything too discomforting... but those symptoms of mild myocarditis are more noticeable the second time around. My girlfriend also had feelings of a racing heart-beat and feelings of fluttering at the time, and she's been getting them also the last few weeks since the booster jab.

So although severe myocarditis may be rare, mild myocarditis may be more common than we think regardless of vaccination status. It's also possible that mild myocarditis from the vaccines themselves may be more common than we think. I need to confirm this but I'm sure I've read that important biomarkers were not monitored during the vaccine trials. I maybe wrong.

Of course this isn't entirely covid specific. Mild myocarditis (and more rarely severe myocarditis) can be caused by many bacterial infections and virus's including flu and even flu vaccines.

I'm hoping that staying active but not overdoing it with the exercise, taking heart supporting supplements, and eating an anti-inflammatory diet with anti-oxidants in abundance will help me get back to normal. I'm not quite there yet though.

Obviously this is all anecdotal and only based on my own symptoms and what I've observed in people I know. I have no proof of anything - it's just a suspicion.

I honestly think though that if the symptoms are very mild then they'll probably just be written off as mild covid symptoms and not reported. And if I didn't run and didn't wear a fancy watch with a heart monitor then the faster heart-rate thing would have gone completely unnoticed. I posted a link over in the 'running' thread that relates to this.

Here's a real-life example with a footballer:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... virus.html

Now this player had already got over covid and had returned to training. It was only a follow-up examination that detected the mild myocarditis. For the everyday person that isn't monitored and screened like a professional athlete, such a thing would probably have remained undetected and unreported.

I don't think the suspicions of the vaccine potentially causing mild myocarditis is a valid reason on its own not to have it though as you're probably even more likely to have it from having the virus itself (even if you're vaccinated).

[szola]

Just found this article which I thought was interesting.

It is.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... eyre-young
Obesity has been known to be a contributing factor. It is a factor regarding many illnesses.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus ... fat-tissue

[Hampshire Hammer]

The heart fluttering is an interesting one. A member of our family in his early forties who is pretty fit suffered heart attack symptoms a week or so after his booster. Tests have shown that he has an undiagnosed hole in his heart, which the doctors reckon is ok to monitor and not operate on. The specialist's view is that there is a chance that the vaccine contributed to or triggered his symptoms but equally if he had caught covid there is a similar chance it would have triggered them.

[Greatest Hits Vol1]

I had no adverse symptoms with my 1st two jabs (az) but have had some mild heart flutterings since I've had my booster. I haven't noticed any change in performance or heart beat when I exercise though.

I notice the Canadian lad at Bayern has had myocarditis symptoms and Aubameyang has too. What that all proves I'm not sure?

The Canadian lad (Alphonso Davies) just had covid, that is why he has myocarditis.

[Burnley Hammer]

The Canadian lad (Alphonso Davies) just had covid, that is why he has myocarditis.

Of course... my argument isn't that the vaccine causes it more than covid though... my argument is that it's far more common than official figures suggest with both infections and vaccines.

(although I know that weren't replying to me directly)

[Greatest Hits Vol1]

Of course... my argument isn't that the vaccine causes it more than covid though... my argument is that it's far more common than official figures suggest with both infections and vaccines.

(although I know that weren't replying to me directly)

I wasn't disputing anything you said. The other poster made it seem like the vaccine was the reason he had myocarditis, I was just clarifying.

[Burnley Hammer]

Further to the 'covid infects fat tissue' link posted earlier on this page, and the Israeli study I've previously posted that shows mitochondrial dysfunction in the blood rather than the lungs, here's another good article on Bloomberg that shows that COVID is far more than simply a respiratory virus and offers a bit more insight into long covid:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ntire-body

Related - another good article here in the Nature journal. Whilst the vaccines protection against COVID infection is undisputed, it's protection against long covid is a little more uncertain:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03495-2

I think it's worth bearing some of this in mind with regards to our own players that have come back from COVID. Just because their 10 days or whatever is up and they're back to playing, it doesn't necessarily mean they're completely unaffected and back to 100% fitness.

[Burnley Hammer]

And in other non-political covid news:

Vaping causes higher chance of COVID symptoms

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 9211062672

"E-cigarette users infected with the coronavirus may be more likely than infected non-vapers to experience COVID-19 symptoms, according to research published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health."

"Compared to infected non-vapers and after accounting for participants' other risk factors, infected vapers experienced higher rates of chest pain or tightness (16% versus 10%), chills (25% versus 19%), body aches (39% versus 32%), headaches (49% versus 41%), problems with smell and taste (37% versus 30%), nausea/vomiting/abdominal pain (16% versus 10%), diarrhea (16% versus 10%) and light-headedness (16% versus 9%)."

Indirect effects of the covid-19 pandemic on childhood infection

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj-2021-067519

"During the covid-19 pandemic, a range of behavioural changes (adoption of non-pharmacological interventions) and societal strategies (school closures, lockdowns, and restricted travel) were used to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which also reduced admissions for common and severe childhood infections. Continued monitoring of these infections is required as social restrictions evolve."

US researchers share COVID-19 vaccine with the world

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/1 ... -the-world

"Researchers in the United States have created a cheap, easy-to-produce COVID-19 vaccine that may offer a solution to unequal vaccine access in developing countries. Bypassing the patent restrictions of major pharmaceutical firms, doctors Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez at the Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development used traditional vaccine technology that can be deployed rapidly to help inoculate the global population."

Study Finds Gene that Could Make Some People with COVID-19 Sicker

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/s ... 97041.html

"Polish scientists say they have found a gene that greatly increases the risk of becoming severely sick with COVID-19. The researchers found that the gene was one of the most important factors affecting how seriously a person suffers from COVID-19. Old age and overweight were others. They said it increased the risk of severe COVID-19 sickness by more than two times."

Friendly gut bacteria speeds long Covid recovery

https://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/health/c ... ry-3502745

"A research paper just published in the open access journal Infectious Diseases Diagnosis & Treatment, concludes that treating the gut to a blend of five different friendly bacteria called lactobacillus probiotics, combined with a chicory-rich ingredient known as an inulin, could help with acute and long-term Covid symptoms."

Dogs Can Sniff Out Long Covid-19, French Study Suggests

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/20 ... -suggests/

"A study by French researchers suggests that trained dogs can detect Covid-19 in patients who have had the virus for as long as a year and half, echoing studies conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany that have found dogs to be effective in sniffing out the virus."

No, Smoking Marijuana Does Not Protect You From Covid-19

If you've heard recently that cannabis may help prevent COVID infection, you may want to read this before starting a pot smoking habit.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisrober ... -covid-19/

[szola]

The one about dogs sniffing covid, cancer, etc is really fascinating.

I saw an article about rodents sniffing out mines in Cambodia. Amazing!

[Burnley Hammer]

Ok, back to my myocarditis post...

Firstly it seems that the more benign pericarditis can also be caused by COVID and other virus's. Symptoms of this include a sharp stabbing pain in the chest, especially when taking a deep breath, and feeling hot and shivery.

My original figure of 450 cases of myocarditis per million (0.045%) in the age group that's most likely to have it comes from this article (August 2021):
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... ccination/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34341797/

In a study of 789 professional athletes that were monitored (March 2021):
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaca ... 71e29697b5

Abnormal screening results were identified in 30 athletes
Further testing on these found that 3 had myocarditis (0.38%), and 2 had pericarditis (0.25%)

Now another study. This was a retrospective study looking at prevalence and clinical outcomes of myocarditis and pericarditis in 718,365 COVID‐19 patients (Sept 2021):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8646627/

Of the 718,365 COVID-19 patients, 35,820 (4.99%) developed new‐onset myocarditis and 10,706 (1.49%) developed new‐onset pericarditis.

So in summary, and extrapolating for comparison:

myocarditis
Study 1: 450 cases per million (0.045%)
Study 2: 3,802 cases per million (0.38%)
Study 3: 49,863 cases per million (4.99%)

pericarditis
Study 2: 2,535 cases per million (0.25%)
Study3: 14,903 cases per million (1.49%)

These are massively conflicting results.

Things to bear in mind:

Study 1: Rates of myocarditis not identified in the system were estimated. Focussed only on young men.

Study 2: Was a study on a selection of athletes that are likely to be far fitter than the average person. Subjects were monitored regardless of COVID severity. Results based on actual detailed data with no estimations.

Study 1 and 3 both used a limited dataset created from the TriNetX Research Network.

[S-H]

I haven't read your posts Burn..

But, woo!! gooo Burnley!

[DrVenk]

Keep it up Burn. I'll be honest, I'm done with research on coronavirus/jabs ever since we knew well before Christmas this was going to be endemic very quickly. It's basically moved away from my purview of public health, so your summaries are effing brilliant for me