Who Are The Real Superspreaders?

DISCLAIMER:  The following article references third-party sources and is intended for general information only, and is NOT intended to provide medical advice or otherwise diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, including (but not limited to) COVID-19.  Consult a qualified physician before beginning any sort of treatment or prophylactic regimen and/or if you know or suspect that you currently have COVID-19.  Anyone who takes or does anything mentioned (or alluded to) in this or any other TSAP article does so entirely at their own risk and liability.  The TSAP thus makes absolutely no warranties, express or implied, and is not liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from any act or omission on the part of the reader(s) or others. Caveat lector.

See also our previous articles here, here, and here as well.  Also, special thanks to Bill Sardi, Dr. Gareth "Gruff" Davies, Dr. Dmitry Kats, Dr. Mikko Panunio, and Swiss Policy Research, et al. whose research this article draws upon and cites in the links throughout.

"You're the superspreader!" "No, YOU'RE the superspreader!"  Alas, this is what passes for discourse these days, when people are literally now debating who are the biggest superspreaders of the COVID:  the vaccinated or the unvaccinated.  Technically, both can be, since the vaccines are "leaky", and there are documented examples of both, but it is not clear who is more likely to be.

(Correction:  The CDC's now-leaked unpublished data, that they are using to push masks once again, is a lot more nuanced than they miscommunicated, and apparently involves a vaccine in India that is not available in the USA, and also a study of a rather unrepresentative sample in Provincetown, Cape Cod.  Thus, while vaccinated people can indeed still spread the virus, they are still signifcantly less likely to do so than if they were not vaccinated, even if only because they are somewhat less likely to become infected in the first place.  And truly asymptomatic transmission, while possible, is not the primary way it spreads.)

Either way, this completely misses the point though.  The vaccines were never designed to prevent all transmission or all infections, just to make the disease less bad if one happens to contract it while vaccinated.  You know, kinda like the flu shot.  That alone is enough to largely defang the virus and reduce it to a mere nuisance like seasonal flu and the common cold, provided enough vulnerable people get vaccinated (which they all either a) already have, or b) they chose not to get it).  For the young and healthy, not so much.  And thus any benefit to the community that results from less transmission of the virus would simply be a bonus, as vaccines are primarily for self-protection.  And now that we are seeing that these vaccines may be just as "leaky" as flu vaccines (funny how no one seems to care about the latter), the whole specious argument for vaccine mandates or passports "to protect others" becomes as threadbare and useless as the most poorly constructed cloth mask.

Now, a nasal vaccine might actually produce "sterilizing" immunity enough to prevent virtually all transmission.  That is because of the mucosal antibodies and other immunological "dark matter" that they would generate at the usual point of entry and exit for the virus, the lining of the nose and throat.  But injections are unlikely to do that, only producing antibodies and T-cells largely in the bloodstream instead.  And while important, it is incomplete since it leaves the nose and throat wide open for a time before enough of an immune response is mounted to knock the virus out quickly.

But there are no nasal vaccines available currently, except of course the low-tech one, which is...natural exposure to the wild virus.  And the large chunk of the population that has already had the virus and recovered has a very low reinfection rate, much lower than the breakthrough infection rate for vaccinated people.  Yes, even for Delta.  Thus, we already know who the superspreaders are almost certainly NOT:  people who have already had the virus, whether vaccinated or not.  Natural immunity for the win!

So having established who the superspreaders are NOT, do we then know who they actually ARE?  Well, a study of influenza from 2008 provides some excellent clues.  It postulates that Vitamin D not only explains the seasonality of influenza, but also who is most likely to be what we would now call a superspreader, where one person infects dozens of others.  And most curiously, that is postulated to occur in a tiny number of people even in the absence of symptoms!  That is, Vitamin D deficiency can make one much more likely to spread it, and thus it not only endangers the deficient, but also those around them as well, in a sort of "second-hand malnutrition". This is very likely true for COVID, and also very likely true with other nutrients as well, particularly Vitamin C, thiamine, niacin, zinc, lysine, and selenium.  A deficiency in the latter can even make one a "variant factory", since selenium stops viruses from mutating.  Fortunately, we can very easily solve this problem even without appealing to (strong) altruism, since the benefits to the individual are at least as great as that to those around them.  Good nutrition and supplementation is a win-win-win for all.

Especially since, for the individual, it is painfully obvious now with COVID:  not enough D and you die.

Vitamin D also seems to be good at fighting that other pandemic that is raging even more these days:  substance abuse, especially opioid addiction.  Vitamin D deficiency apparently leads to exaggerated cravings for opioids and probably other substances as well.  And the same can apparently be said for Niacin as well, as AA founder Bill W. had discovered it as a potential treatment for alcoholism.  With America drowning in the bottom of a bottle thanks in no small part to the long-term after-effects of lockdown, such a rediscovery cannot come soon enough!

And of course, Niacin works wonders for COVID, as Dr. Dmitry Kats had discovered.

So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  See also here, here, and here for some good articles from The Daily Sceptic about the nuances of herd immunity.  And yes, it is very nuanced indeed.

If Masks Really Worked...

Once again, the witty Professor hits another homerun right out of the park here: 

That basically explains the TSAP's evolving position over time.  Originally we were pro-mask since we honestly believed they worked based on some spurious observations in a few East Asian and Eastern European countries, plus a few sketchy studies, and thus they seemed like a safe pathway out of lockdown.  But as time went on, the evidence just kept on mounting against them.  And the past 18 months pretty much answers that question--if they worked, not only would it be so obvious to everyone that no one would have to be forced to wear them, but COVID would have been gone within a few weeks of (near) universal masking as the R value would thus drop well below one and even close to zero, and we would not still be having this debate to this day.

Are you old enough to remember when face masks were initially discouraged by nearly all of the experts as well as "experts", including Dr. Fauci himself?  And then, seemingly out of the blue, the idea caught on that masks not only work, but work so well that if 80% (or is that 90%, or 95%, or 99%?) or whatever % of the population were to wear them, COVID would be practically wiped out, or at the very least 100,000+ lives would be saved?  Right?  And the logical implication being:  the sooner everyone would wear them for just a few weeks, the sooner no one would ever have to wear them again, because COVID would be gone!

Well, that didn't really pan out, did it?  Look, you can cherry-pick the data all you want, but it's pretty self-evident that masks made no practical or statistical difference overall in terms of COVID case, hospitalization, or death rates, even with the strictest mandates and/or very high compliance above 90% or 95%.  While no one can completely rule out modest benefits perhaps in very selected instances, the macro-level data supporting universal masking simply isn't there.  Clearly, after 18 months, if a "signal" still cannot be boosted even with great effort, is was most likely just noise all along.

And all that applies a fortiori to children as well, as we have noted previously.  There is even less evidence in favor, and even stronger arguments against forcing kids to wear them, especially at this juncture.  

Thus, we are re-learning the hard way the painful lessons our ancestors learned in 1918.  There was clearly a reason they stopped wearing masks in 1919, after all.  And no, it wasn't "selfishness" or "anti-science" sentiment, but a rather a good strong dose of reality that turned even their greatest enthusiasts against them in droves.  They simply didn't work.

And now with some "experts" wanting to bring back mask mandates yet again at this stage (!), despite the obvious fact that they would even LESS effective still against the MORE contagious Delta variant, beware.  The following Tweet sums it why that is a very bad idea in both theory and practice:

Mask mandates are in fact the THIN end of a very long and thick wedge of coercion.  Slopes are indeed much, much slipperier than they appear.

QED

AUGUST UPDATE:  Looks like there is even more evidence that masks are basically useless and little more than window dressing overall.  That is true even for adults, let alone for children to whom it applies a fortiori to.  The pro-mask side of what passes for "debate" really can't rely honestly on science anymore, so they increasingly resort to censorship and ad hominem attacks instead.  Ten years from now, if not much sooner, we guarantee that they will regret their stance just like they did not long after 1918.

SEPTEMBER UPDATE:  About that poorly-designed Bangladesh study that the pro-maskers are claiming "proves" once and for all that "masks work!", well, it clearly doesn't prove that at all.  It also says nothing at all about children, schools, or mandates, since neither of these were studied at all by this study.  The best it possibly says is that voluntary use of surgical masks when combined with distancing MIGHT work modestly at the margin in VERY selected instances (even if only a placebo effect as a universal symbol for "keep your distance!"), while cloth masks (i.e. the most commonly used kind) are basically completely useless, and it only goes downhill from there.

Clearly they haven't seen this other study of the results of an actual mask mandate in Bexar County, Texas (back when they had such a mandate last year) that really exposes such mandates for the theater that they really are.  And apparently Germany doesn't exist in their minds either.  Nor does Japan, Israel, Hawaii, Czechia, Spain, France, Peru, Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Miami, or any other place that imposed VERY strict mask mandates and/or otherwise had extremely high mask compliance of 90-95% or greater, and yet not only utterly failed to bend the curve in the right direction, but actually look like they bent it in the WRONG direction!  And remember most of that was pre-Delta, so if you think these things would somehow work on a MORE contagious variant, we got an even bigger bridge we'd like to sell you!

QED

OCTOBER UPDATE:  Comparing neighboring counties in California with different local mask policies (the statewide mask mandate ended in June) but similar vaccination rates shows essentially no correlation between mask mandates and case or hospitalization rates during the Delta wave.  This was noted even in the very mainstream San Francisco Gate, and it is one of the first major tests of such policies in the face of this particular virus variant that is notoriously more contagious than previous ones.  Masks clearly failed the test, unsurprisingly.  In other news, water is wet, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

JANUARY 2022 UPDATE:   Not only has the Bangladesh study fallen even further apart to the point that no one even dares to openly tout it anymore, but apparently even the strongest longitudinal pro-mask longitudinal study also falls apart too upon closer examination.  The latter study, Adjodah et al. (2021), curiously leaves out data after September 2020 (cherry-pick much?) in the first part where the imposition of mask mandates is examined.  And in the second part when lifting mandates is examined in the first quarter of 2021, it finds the expected correlation with "cases" but NOT with hospitalizations and deaths, and that is not easy to explain away.

And while they may not be quite as much in the spotlight right now as the "vaccines" are, the zealots are nonetheless quite busy doing damage control and are upping their game in a desperate attempt to salvage as many fragments of the rapidly collapsing narrative as possible, notably including masks.  To that, we defer to the wisdom of Steve Kirsch and Allan Stevo.  See also the factsheet by Just Facts as well.   If, after thoroughly reading what they all have to say, you are still a "true believer" in masks, you really need to have your head examined!  Most likely, your brain has been starved of oxygen for far too long.

Britannia Waives The Rules (Well, Kinda)

Well, it's official now.  The UK finally went ahead with Freedom Day today, after a month of delay.  Gone are the promises of irreversibility though (i.e. they will not rule out new lockdowns at some point in the future), and some restrictions will still remain though far less than before.  But generally speaking, virtually all mandated restrictions have now become downgraded to mere non-binding recommendations for the most part.  Better late than never, I guess.

One upside of delaying the final lifting of restrictions to July 19 is that it is being done at or very close to the peak of the current virus surge, so when we most likely see case numbers go down rather than up two weeks or so from now, that will thus thoroughly discredit any belief that these restrictions ever did any good.  Had Freedom Day occurred on schedule a month ago on June 23, the case numbers would have been about the same either way regardless of restrictions as we have seen, but people would have no doubt blamed the surge on the lifting of restrictions, then the government would have reimposed restrictions at or close to the peak, after which cases would drop again, and then take credit for the drop, as we have seen many times before.  But this time, restrictions are instead being lifted counter-cyclically (i.e. with opposite timing), which will be the real test of their effectiveness and relevance (or lack thereof).  Egg meet face, lockdown zealots!

UPDATE:  It was announced on literally the same day that, starting in late September,  there will be vaccine passports required to enter nightclubs and possibly even sporting events.  And it should go without saying that we do NOT support such a thing at all.  It is a slippery slope to totalitarianism, plus there is no statistical evidence to back it up.

UPDATE 2:  As of July 27th, it is now clear that cases have begun falling rapidly in the UK.  And "scientists" are apparently "baffled" by this.  They must not remember the famous Farr's Law, or even Hope-Simpson, right?  To the lockdown zealots, good luck getting all that egg off of your faces!

UPDATE 3:  Looks like Belarus, who practically had NO restrictions all along, really didn't do worse than their neighbors overall in terms of excess all-cause mortality.  In case the lockdown zealots didn't have enough egg on their faces already!

AUGUST UPDATE:  There has been some head-scratching about why cases started ticking up again in the UK after over two weeks of sharp declines.  But this is still no "exit wave" related to lifting restrictions, as it took too long to even begin, is not even a distinct new wave, and has still not topped the previous July high.  The best explanation is that the background epidemic has still been rising at the same rate regardless, while in July there was the rapid rise and rapid fall of a sharp and short-term outbreak related to the month-long Euro finals soccer gatherings, mainly in young to middle-aged men.  So the lockdown zealots still have egg on their faces to this day.  How will they live this one down?

Fortunately, as of September 11, Boris has finally relented (and hopefully repented!) on his vaccine passport plans, at least for the time being.

COVID Is Endemic. "Zero COVID" Is A Pipe Dream. Lockdowns And NPIs Are Useless.

The following Tweet really wins the internet:

Pretty much sums it up.  The virus can be defanged and reduced to a nuisance, and indeed it largely has already thanks to herd immunity and attenuation, but it will never be eliminated.  It will continue to ebb and flow to one degree or another indefinitely.  Even smallpox took over 200 years to eradicate after the vaccine.  And it's time we accept that fact and deal with endemic COVID like we do seasonal flu and the common cold.  That is, learn to live with the virus just like all other endemic viruses.  We know now that lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and stuff like that really make no difference to the course of the virus in the long run, and they come with their own set of problems, ultimately doing more harm than good.  And that applies a fortiori to endemic COVID.

That's right, these restrictions are all pain and no gain.  And there is a name for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We know how to treat this disease now.  We know what to use for prophylaxis as well.  We know that the virus, while bad, was never the apocalyptic Big One that some had predicted.  We know who the risk groups are, and we have already vaccinated them (plus a good chunk of the general population as well) to a greater extent and faster than we have for any other disease in history.  So anyone who says we still somehow can't go 100% back to normal yesterday because reasons is a LIAR with a hidden or not-so-hidden agenda.  And we thus must completely disregard their bluster.  Yesterday is not soon enough!

UPDATE:  Another Tweet, even more to the point:

This one too, setting the internet on FIRE:

And this one as well, to which we would also add "and early treatment and prophylaxis for all who want it":

UPDATE 2:  See also here and here for some good articles from The Daily Sceptic about the nuances of herd immunity.  And yes, it is very nuanced indeed.

UPDATE 3:  Yet another study finds lockdowns to be worse than useless.  Again.  Sooner or later, everyone (or at least those with anything approaching a conscience) will collectively regret how we panicked and knee-jerkedly threw the wisdom of the ages out the window like so much garbage back in March 2020.  Even the most rabid Zero COVID zealots can only keep doubling down so long to postpone, and ultimately amplify, the inevitable agony of regret.