Data clash on vaccine's potencyas FDA clears its use for children

Conflicting data over the effectiveness of a covid vaccine emerged today during the controversy over immunization of children.

Pfizer-BioNtech's study, released today, shows that a low dose of its vaccine is 90.7 percent effective in children aged 5 to almost 12. Yet a separate massive study of veterans, released Oct. 14, shows that the formerly effective covid vaccines have all fallen off dramatically in potency, with Pfizer-BioNtech's plummeting from more than 90 percent effective in March to about 50 percent by August.

Neither study has been peer reviewed.

Pfizer-BioNTech presented data from a study of 1,518 children who received the 10-microgram vaccine — one-third the adult dose — and another 750 who received a placebo. The vaccinated volunteers were 90.7 percent less likely to develop symptomatic covid, and when they did become ill, their symptoms were less severe, the researchers said.

Earlier today an FDA advisory panel urged emergency use of the vaccine on children.

Pfizer-BioNtech scientists had argued that earlier this year covid was one of the top 10 killers of children in the 5- to 12-year age range. The FDA's advisers felt that those children who are at risk should be permitted to have the vaccine. The drug company's study also pointed out that schoolchildren, who may not get sick, can carry the disease home. But StatNews reported,

Several panelists expressed concern about whether the decision could lead to vaccine mandates — something Peter Marks, the head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, assured them was unlikely. At the beginning of the day, Marks said that thoughts about vaccine mandates should not impact the panel’s decision.

The Pfizer-BioNtech study occurred sometime after July 16, when its study of teens and 12-year-olds ended. No specific start date for the child study is given, though a cutoff date of Oct. 8 is given. Hence the child immunizations occurred while the Pfizer vaccine's potency was on the decline among veterans.

It seems plausible that the aged and infirm were strongly represented among the veterans studied. Yet, during the early stage of the vaccination of veterans, effectiveness was reportedly high. Does this rule out immunological problems as a major factor in the drops in efficacy? Probably. Drops in efficacy are generally tied to virus mutations, such as the Delta variant, which, according to the  a July statement of the American Society for Microbiology, was by then responsible for more than 83 percent of U.S. cases.

StatNews said,

The panel weighed the benefits of preventing covid against the risks of the vaccine, in particular the risk of the heart conditions myocarditis and pericarditis, which, though hard to measure exactly, appear to occur once per every 10,000 or so in vaccinated older boys and young men. The cases seen after use of the vaccine appear to be milder than regular cases of the inflammatory condition, and last for a shorter time.

According to the study of veterans, which was carried out from Feb. 1 to Aug. 13, the effectiveness of full vaccination -- derailed by the rise of the Delta variant -- had plunged.

But the Pfizer study reports that its vaccine was successful in 90.7 percent of children who had not previously shown any covid-like symptoms. That caveat may be meaningful, as it strongly tends to select in favor of altogether healthy children -- even though a fair representation would include some children who are not in excellent health. (Ethical problems may have entered the picture here.)

Pfizer-BioNtech research paper
https://www.fda.gov/media/153409/download

Cohn et al on vaccine potency drop
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.13.21264966v1

Cohn and her colleagues wrote,

National data on COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections [infections after full vaccination] is inadequate but urgently needed to determine U.S. policy during the emergence of the Delta variant. We address this gap by comparing SARS CoV-2 infection by vaccination status from February 1, 2021 to August 13, 2021 in the Veterans Health Administration, covering 2.7% of the U.S. population. Vaccine protection declined by mid-August 2021, decreasing from 91.9% in March to 53.9% (p<0.01, n=619,755). Declines were greatest for the Janssen vaccine followed by Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna. Patterns of breakthrough infection over time were consistent by age, despite rolling vaccine eligibility, implicating the Delta variant as the primary determinant of infection. Findings support continued efforts to increase vaccination and an immediate, national return to additional layers of protection against infection.

Is the Fed really our friend?Central banks stoke socialism

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Neither The Invisible Man nor Mises Institute necessarily endorses any views expressed below.

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By Jörg Guido Hülsmann

It is well known that socialism is a shortage economy. It is the economy of inefficiency and corruption, of indifferent workers and of bigwigs, of lacking spare parts, of lacking funds, of failure, of permanent reform needs and of constantly unsuccessful reforms. This concerns in particular total socialism, as it was realized in the Soviet Union or under National Socialism. But it is no less evident in the numerous partial socialisms that are featured in the real existing welfare state, in its numerous state “systems.”

Budget deficits year in, year out despite high contributions—that is the reality in the state pension system and in the state health system. The state education system is similar: declining student performance and growing illiteracy despite sky-rocketing expenditure. No private entrepreneur could afford to let the costs get out of hand in such a way. Anyone who is in competition has to keep improving. Only those who have a legal monopoly and can make use of taxpayers’ money if necessary do not need it.

Now there is one partial socialism that stands out from the usual array of failures. Here we see gains instead of losses. Here we often find all the other signs of a successfully run company, from the private legal form to the pinstripe-filled boardroom. We are talking about central banking. The term “central bank” actually refers quite clearly to a centrally planned economy. But when people talk about the Fed, the ECB or other central banks today, hardly anyone thinks that they are talking about an offspring of the socialist spirit. On the contrary, central banks are typically viewed as particularly “capitalist.” After all, what would be more capitalist than money? And what would be more closely related to money than a bank?

Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that this connotation may not be entirely correct. In the unbridled market economy, private property and competition prevail. Central banks, on the other hand, are usually state institutions. Even those central banks that are private-law organizations (as in the United States, Japan, and Switzerland) are subject to special laws and their directors are appointed by national governments. In addition, central banks always and everywhere enjoy a legal monopoly. Their banknotes and their deposit money are largely withdrawn from free competition. The market participants are compelled to use the money of the central banks.

This money is one of a kind. Indeed, it can basically be produced in unlimited quantities. The production of money by the private commercial banks is limited by their equity capital and also by the cash deposits of their customers. But central banks do not need equity or cash deposits. It is they who create cash. They can generate cash out of nothing and practically for free. Certain legal limits are set for them, but in times of crisis, as in 2008–09 and in 2020–21, these limits can be relaxed quickly and dramatically. If necessary, they can also be abolished entirely.

Central banks therefore have potentially tremendous power. If only let loose, they can control all of the economy and society. There is almost no limit to the number of new loans they can issue. The can provide these loans to some and deny them to others. And by implication they can also control the use of all available resources. After all, labour usually moves where it is best paid. Raw materials and capital goods are typically sold to those who offer the highest prices. If you control the printing press, you can also let the real resources flow exactly where you think it is right. Whether this use of funds is also profitable plays a rather subordinate role for central banks (unlike commercial banks). You do not have to work hard and invest well to cover losses. One push of a button is enough.

Central banks are therefore made for do-gooders. He who runs a central bank does not need to do painstaking educational work in order to bring about any social change. The humanitarian with the printing press can finance all changes he wishes for at the push of a button. He can just pay other people to do what he wants. He does not need any savings or capital for this. He does not need a democratic majority either. As long as he has the printing press under control, he [need not] by and large give a damn about what other people think or wish.

This momentous fact has not escaped the attention of socialist theorists. The Saint-Simonians in France had already grasped it at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They understood that the economy of a country could be controlled particularly easily and safely with the help of the printing press. A few years later, the demand for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly” soon also held center stage in the 1848 Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.

Unsurprisingly, the enormous possibilities of creating money from nothing have been used again and again to finance state industrial policy and socialist experiments. In the 1970s, British historian Antony Sutton reported that some of New York’s Wall Street banks had financed the radical transformation of traditional European societies. They supported Lenin and Stalin as well as Adolf Hitler with billions of dollars. That would not have been possible without the refinancing from the American central bank.

In our day, too, the historical connection between the central banking system and political utopias is being brought back to life. This time it appears in the form of a “green” and egalitarian transformation of the economy and society. The directors of the ECB [European Central Bank] and the Fed have already officially committed to this.

The new humanitarians with the printing press are undoubtedly a great danger to humanity. They threaten everyone’s prosperity by channeling scarce resources into unprofitable (and therefore unsustainable) uses. But they also threaten the free social order as a whole, in that they are preparing to disempower the open competition of all social forces. They want to replace this competition with the rule of a nonelected leadership caste.

However, green central bank policy is not to be condemned primarily because it supposedly pursues ecological goals, but because a central bank comes into its own here. Central banks are by their very nature destructive. Even if they are not led by self-proclaimed ecologists and socialists, they favor the cousin, favoritism and the bigwig economy. The economists of the Austrian school have shown, among other things, that central banks always and everywhere weaken economic growth by undermining the propensity to save; that they are destabilizing the economy by fueling a debt economy; that they incite greed and avarice; and that they create blatant inequalities in income and wealth. Central banks cannot be reformed, they must be abolished.

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This article is a translation of an article that has appeared in the German edition of the Epoch Times this month. It was reproduced by Mises Wire without a copyright notice.
Contact the author, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, at the Mises Institute, where, as a senior fellow he holds the 2018 Peterson-Luddy Chair. He was director of research for Mises Fellows in residence 1999-2004. He is author of Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism and The Ethics of Money Production. He teaches in France, at Université d'Angers.

Fake news alert: covid said worse than Spanish flu

News media have been breathlessly reporting that the U.S. covid death toll  now exceeds the U.S. Spanish flu toll of a century ago.

Technically, I suppose they are not guilty of perjury. Some 701,000 Americans are said to have died of covid versus 675,000 felled by Spanish flu.

But they fail to mention that the U.S. population in 1918 and 1919 was less than one-third of the current U.S. population (104.5 million then versus 329.5 million now).

The Spanish flu death rate was 0.64%. The covid rate is 0.212%. The covid rate is noticeably lower.

The trench warfare of World War I encouraged the more virulent flu strains, which especially targeted young adults. Covid, on the other hand, can be expected to succeed best in mild strains, though any respiratory infection, whether covid 19, coronavirus or flu, will prove a menace to the aged and immuno-compromised.

Senate, press muzzled on CIA torture;key photo nixed from published report

I found a Foreign Policy report on CIA torture, linked via RealClear Investigations, in my spam box. (That spam box is in my encrypted Protonmail account, but Google has the password.)

Foreign Policy story on CIA torture
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/14/guantanamo-torture-afghanistan-pakistan-ahmed-rabbani-no-charge-trial-biden-obama-trump-reprieve/

As I worked on this post, my non-subscriber status was invoked, thus preventing further access to the incriminating deletion.

Basic data on Fatima Bhutto's report

Nothing but Pitch Black Darkness
Ahmed Rabbani’s journey through the U.S. dark
prison system to Guantánamo
By Fatima Bhutto
AUGUST 14, 2021, 3:20 AM

All photos in the article were reproduced while I was reading the article today -- except for one containing excerpts from a U.S. Senate report on CIA torture. As the dateline shows, this censorship -- that appears to benefit the CIA -- occurred during Joe Biden's term.

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Censor's hand shown:

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Closeup of axed section:

The green graphic indicates that the photo has been removed -- possibly by the server or possibly by the magazine itself.

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Senate CIA torture report
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf

I suppose we are left to infer that the excerpts came from classified sections of the Senate intelligence committee report. But, no statement to that effect is found with the Foreign Policy story. More importantly, the press is not bound by classification rules -- though the System is currently trying to criminalize the publishing of secrets, as we see from the CIA vendetta against Julian Assange.

In the CIA drone atrocities scandal, the whistleblower was given a stiff prison term. It remains to be seen which editors and reporters will be indicted for defying the CIA's self-styled supremacy over freedom of information in a democracy.

Cloth masks don't filter viruses by much

If someone is sneezing or coughing, even a cloth mask will sharply curtail the ejection of virus-laden droplets into the air. But, otherwise, cloth masks are virtually worthless in deterring contagion, with mask pores typically being more than 100 times the size of a virus particle.

Cloth masks are unlikely to give much protection from airborne virus particles that are not clinging to sneezed or coughed moisture droplets, especially because masks used by the public do not meet basic filtration standards set for medical masks. They tend to be much too permeable, permitting virus particles relatively easy access to the wearer's face.

Even in some medical masks, pore sizes are much too big to act as a real deterrent to virus particles, though they suffice to greatly inhibit the much larger bacterium organisms.

If a tight, appropriate mask is being worn when a nearby person coughs or sneezes, the chance of inhaling the droplet -- which is much larger than an individual virus particle -- is sharply reduced. But, normally these ejecta fall to the ground fairly soon.

Technical discussion of permeability
https://textiles.ncsu.edu/tatm/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/11/Ogulata_Full_199-06.pdf

According to one study of six types of medical mask, the average of the six mean mask pores was 29.67 microns. But virus particle sizes are substantially smaller, with the longest known rod-like one put at 1,000 nanometers. Globular virus particles generally have diameters that do not exceed 500 microns. A CDC report finds that coronavirus particles typically have diameters of 80 to 100 nanometers.

CDC report
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/4/20-4337_article

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First, we check the longest virus length against the smallest pore width and find that

 
       103x10-9
       ---------
       17x10-6             
       
       = 1/17.

That is, the longest virus particle is about 6% of the width of the smallest average hole size for that mask type.

If we take the mean of each representative hole width for each of the six masks, we get about 30x10^-6 meters. That width versus the longest virus particle yields:

  
       3x10-5
       ---------
       10-6
       
       = 3.34%
       

That is, the longest particle is no more than 3.34% of the width of a typical pore on one of the tested masks.

If we reduce the virus length to 100 nanometers -- which is a typical coronavirus length -- we find that the particle is 0.33% the width of a typical fabric hole. Since that figure is substantially lower than 1%, we conclude that cloth masks provide very low levels of protection against virus particles suspended in air.

We should focus on the fact that the above figures are for medical masks. The porosity of unregulated cloth masks can be expected to be much higher.

And considering these virus-size to pore-size ratios, there is little benefit to be seen in the erstwhile federal suggestion that citizens wear two masks at a time.

A problem with N95 medical masks -- those that "filter out 95% of airborne particles" -- is that they don't work well unless fitted tightly against the face and head. That problem is far more apparent on cloth masks sold to the public.

A check of the CDC shows that N95 masks are often used for industrial purposes. Thus, the claim that a mask filters out 95% of airborne particulates may not actually mean virus particles. What does the phrase "95% of particulates" mean? Does it mean 95% of common types of particulates or most particulates of any size?

A CDC fact sheet for the public does not disclose the precise meaning of that phrase.

Types of mask
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/types-of-masks.html

The fact sheet however does specify approved types of cloth masks. It recommends

A proper fit over your nose and mouth to prevent leaks; multiple layers of tightly woven, breathable fabric; a nose wire; and fabric that blocks light when held up to bright light source.

Interestingly, the CDC advisories do not say what percentage of airborne virus particles are likely to be screened for either approved cloth masks or N95 medical masks (sometimes called respirators). But pre-2020 information indicates that such masks block 95% of moisture droplets, including virus-laden ones ejected via a cough or sneeze. Sneezing is not typically a symptom of covid.

It is noteworthy that the very people most likely to be imperiled by covid are most likely to have pre-existing breathing impediments, making the use of purportedly effective masks either impossible or at least inadvisable.

Afraid of Covid? For most, death toll is low

But vaccination might still be wise for seniors

Your chance of dying of Covid is low. You are far more likely to die of anything but Covid, even if you are of advanced age, according to data collected by the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage schematic
https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/

The foundation reports:

CDC data also show that Americans, regardless of age group, are far more likely to die of something other than COVID-19. Even among those in the most heavily impacted age group (85 and older), only 13.3 percent of all deaths since February 2020 were due to COVID-19.

In the United States, the death rate from pneumonia and flu was slightly lower than 1 in 1,000 for people aged 65 and above, according to official data for 2018. Precise and reliable U.S. Covid figures are strangely difficult to pinpoint on the internet. Nevertheless a 2020 statistical study published by Nature puts the Covid death rates at near zero for people under 50, about 5 per 1,000 people who are in their 50's and early 60's (a majority being men), and 116 per 1,000 for people who are in their mid-70's or older.

It must be noted that those Covid figures were not gathered in the United States, where hospital medical care is high tech and quite efficient. There have been few instances where U.S. hospitals were so overwhelmed that they had to cease care for the most gravely ill patients.

Thus, it as at least plausible that for people 65 and older the risk of Covid death is somewhat higher than it is for flu or pneumonia. Those in their mid-70's or older may face a substantially higher risk: 11.6%.

Since immune system weakening generally progresses with age, investigators are sure that younger immuno-compromised persons run risks comparable to those run by seniors.

So it makes sense for those in the affected age range to voluntarily seek vaccination. On the other hand the only reason for younger people to be vaccinated would be to reduce the chance of spreading the virus to seniors and others with immune problems. But there is no law or legal principle that requires a citizen to put himself or herself at risk for the benefit of others, excepting in military situations.

True, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the allergic reaction rate to the two-dose vaccine is miniscule: 0.00011%. Yet, should it still not be a citizen's right to decide whether to take this risk? After all, he or she may have some reason to suspect that the adverse reaction rate is higher than reported. Even if wrong about that, doesn't he or she have the right to be wrong?

According to a CDC report:

During December 14–23, 2020, monitoring by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System detected 21 cases of anaphylaxis after administration of a reported 1,893,360 first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (11.1 cases per million doses); 71% of these occurred within 15 minutes of vaccination.

CDC report
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7002e1.htm

The CDC found that vaccination drastically reduced the risk of contracting Covid, according to a recent report. Vaccination also curbed the Delta Variant, researchers said.

Vaccination report
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/cdc-vaccinated-people-reduced-risk-of-mortality-by-more-10-times

During April 4–July 17, a total of 569,142 (92%) COVID-19 cases, 34,972 (92%) hospitalizations, and 6,132 (91%) COVID-19–associated deaths were reported among persons not fully vaccinated, and 46,312 (8%) cases, 2,976 (8%) hospitalizations, and 616 (9%) deaths were reported among fully vaccinated persons in the 13 jurisdictions.

Vaccinated persons who contracted Covid anyway ran about the same risks as those who had not been vaccinated, according to the CDC figures.

Unvaccinated
Of 569,142 affirmed Covid cases, 6192 ended in death, for a mortality rate of 1%.
Of 34,972 Covid hospitalizations, 6192 ended in death. That is, a person treated for Covid in a hospital faced a 17.7% death toll.

Vaccinated
Of 46,312 affirmed cases, 616 ended in death, for a mortality rate of 1.3%. But the chance of catching the disease was only 8% of the number of unvaccinated who came down with Covid.

Of the 2,976 hospitalized for Covid, the death rate was 20.6%. Though that figure is slightly higher than the comparable figure for the unvaccinated, there are a number of variables that make it difficult to say that the difference is statistically significant.

A word on death tolls: The rate may be the number of deaths divided by population (and multiplied by 100 to obtain a percentage). The rate may be the number of substantiated cases divided by number of deaths. The rate may be number of hospitalizations divided by number of deaths.

According to recent figures, the Covid death rate is well below 1% at about 0.212% for a 22-month period (701,000 U.S. deaths divided by a U.S. population of 329.5 million). That accords with the finding that about 1% of people who catch Covid die from it. One would then suppose that the death rate for a relatively large population would be significantly lower that that.

When we reflect on the generally low death toll from Covid, we are left perplexed as to why federal health officials advocate mass wearing of cloth masks, which are unlikely to be much of a screen against the ultra-tiny virus particles and which are easily contaminated by the wearer's hands, which are far more likely to encounter Covid particles, especially on door handles.