TallGuyJohninBKK

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous April 23, 2024 ... "At the heart of the question is whether the virus jumped from an animal or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory." https://apnews.com/article/china-covid-virus-origins-pandemic-lab-leak-bed5ab50dca8e318ab00f60b5911da0c US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents June 24, 2023 ... But Friday’s report said the intelligence community has not gone further. Four agencies still believe the virus was transferred from animals to humans, and two agencies — the Energy Department and the FBI — believe the virus leaked from a lab. The CIA and another agency have not made an assessment. https://apnews.com/article/covid19-united-states-intelligence-china-23dcbde0be5638556739b564ece97027

Virologists and epidemiologists back natural origin for COVID-19, survey suggests 6 Feb 2024 No scientific dispute has ever been resolved by an opinion poll, and plenty of famous researchers have been on the wrong side of scientific history. But a group of risk experts has found a new angle on one of the most hotly contested science issues of our time—where the SARS-CoV-2 virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic came from—by conducting what it calls the first systematic survey of scientific opinion on the matter. The report, posted online on Friday, suggests virologists and other scientists with relevant expertise favor the view that the pandemic began when a natural virus jumped from an animal to a human, not because of an accident in a research lab studying or manipulating coronaviruses. The survey, like every other morsel of information around the pandemic’s origin, triggered a fierce debate on social media, where the report was both praised as “an important global survey” and panned as a “fake study.” https://www.science.org/content/article/virologists-and-epidemiologists-back-natural-origin-covid-19-survey-suggests

If you read the thread I posted, you'll see it includes the names and all the pertinent details, as of that writing in March, of FOUR different locations in BKK that were offering the XBB vaccine for a fee. All the details of each of the four, including Praram 9 and Bumrungrad hospitals, are given in the second post in that thread. All the details for the Thai Travel Clinic are listed there as well. The March post had a summary as follows: The four locations thus far confirmed to be offering the Pfizer XBB vaccine are: --Mahidol University’s Thai Travel Clinic, --the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute affiliated with the Thai Red Cross Society, --and at least two private hospitals, Bumrungrad International and Praram 9 Hospital.

Cannabis use is linked to an increased risk of more serious COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission—similar to risks from tobacco use—according to a study in JAMA Network Open from researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. ... "What we found is that cannabis use is not harmless in the context of COVID-19. People who reported yes to current cannabis use, at any frequency, were more likely to require hospitalization and intensive care than those who did not use cannabis," said senior study author Li-Shiun Chen, MD, MPH, ScD, in a press release from Washington University School of Medicine. ... Cannabis not tied to increased risk of COVID death The authors calculated risks for hospitalization, ICU admission, and all-cause mortality [during the first 2 years of the pandemic]. They found that cannabis use was significantly associated with increased risk of hospitalization (odds ratio [OR] 1.80; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.68 to 1.93) and ICU admission (OR 1.27; 95% CI, 1.14 to 1.41) but not with all-cause mortality (OR 0.97; 95% CI, 0.82-1.14.) (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/cannabis-use-linked-worse-covid-19-outcomes

Thailand MoPH Weekly COVID report for June 16-22, 2024: --1,823 new COVID hospitalizations, averaging 260 per day, down 1,058 / -36.7% from 2,881 the prior week --12 new COVID deaths, up 5 / 71.4% from 7 the prior week --732 current COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition (pneumonia symptoms), down 16 / -2.1% from 748 the prior week (dark purple) --347 current COVID patients hospitalized requiring intubation/ventilation to breathe, up 8 / 2.4% from 339 the prior week (light purple) The latest tally of 12 weekly COVID deaths is tied for the second highest weekly total thus far in 2024, and is exceeded only by the 16 COVID deaths reported for the week ending May 18. The current level of new weekly COVID hospitalizations, even with the week's huge decline, remains almost four times the number (501) at the start of the recent surge in mid-March, though now well below the year-high from two weeks ago of 2,881. The latest weekly tally of 732 serious condition COVID hospitalized patients declined slightly from the prior week's total that had been Thailand's highest since late August 2022. Last week's tally of 347 hospitalized patients requiring ventilation to breathe rose slightly and remained at Thailand's highest level since late December 2022 when the number was 352. Cumulative figures since the start of the year are COVID hospitalizations (27,949) & COVID deaths (156). Of the 12 new official COVID deaths for the past week, the MoPH is reporting that 8 were male and 4 female. By age, 11 were ages 70 and above, and 1 age 10-19. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main The latest MoPH report on 1,823 new weekly COVID hospitalizations marks the largest one-week decline of 2024, following the prior week's year-high weekly total of 2,881. The new weekly COVID hospitalizations since this year's spring surge began in mid-March have been: March 16 -- 501 March 23 -- 630 March 30 -- 728 April 6 -- 774 April 13 -- 849 April 20 -- 1,004 April 27 -- 1,672 May 4 -- 1,792 May 11 -- 1,880 May 18 - 1,882 May 25 -- 1,801 June 1 -- 1,863 June 8 -- 2,762 June 15 -- 2,881 June 22 -- 1,823 By comparison, Thailand's key weekly COVID indicators to start 2024 were 664 new COVID hospitalizations and 4 COVID deaths for the first week of the year. Last year, Thailand had a similar spring COVID surge that saw new weekly COVID hospitalizations peak at 3,085 in early June before declining into the fall.

Of course, that's not what the posted statements that you're responding to actually said. What they actually said was: "Rare adverse events associated with the COVID vaccine have been severely overplayed and spread like wildfire on social media." AND "False and misleading information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines on social media often exaggerates the frequency and severity of side effects. Misinformation also wrongly attributes unrelated medical events to the vaccines."

"Botched public health messaging also allowed for [COVID vaccine] misinformation to run rampant. Rare adverse events associated with the COVID vaccine have been severely overplayed and spread like wildfire on social media. "Patients need to know that like any vaccine, vaccine injury does occur, but these vaccines have a better safety profile than almost any others," Al-Aly said. "The rewards of getting the vaccine far outweigh the risks, and patients need to understand that." Medscape May 02, 2024 https://archive.ph/BxlSZ#selection-967.1-967.13 AND "False and misleading information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines on social media often exaggerates the frequency and severity of side effects. Misinformation also wrongly attributes unrelated medical events to the vaccines. Vaccine misinformation leading individuals to decline vaccination has very likely led to many more deaths than adverse effects of the vaccines. ... There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines have contributed to excess mortality during the pandemic. Excess mortality largely coincides with peaks of SARS-CoV-2 infections, particularly during the first waves when vaccines were not available. In fact, there is strong evidence that COVID-19 vaccines save lives and prevent the serious harm associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. https://icmra.info/drupal/strategicinitiatives/vaccines/safety_statement International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities

Speaking personally, I did my best to avoid hospitals and hospital visits during the COVID pandemic here in Thailand because -- in the absence of something absolutely requiring it -- I didn't want to be around and be exposed to large numbers of other people already sick and contagious with COVID. And I didn't want/need to be adding, unless absolutely necessary, to the tremendous burdens that COVID already placed on overworked doctors and nurses here and elsewhere, many of whom became sick and many globally died in the pandemic. That's not too hard an idea to figure out.

There's no credible information that overall, over the course of the pandemic, that COVID deaths have been over-reported in first world countries. Even in places like the U.S. official COVID deaths even now are still considered to have been undercounted: Covid death toll in US likely 16% higher than official tally, study says Researchers think undercounting goes beyond overloaded health systems to a lack of awareness of Covid and low levels of testing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/21/us-covid-death-rate-testing-reporting AND Quarter of US COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented by vaccination: analysis 04/22/22 A new analysis finds that approximately 234,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19 since June 2021 could have been prevented if people had been vaccinated. The analysis from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation underscores the importance of vaccination, and indicates a significant portion of the heavy toll from the virus could have been prevented. The 234,000 preventable deaths translates to about one quarter of the nearly 1 million U.S. deaths from the virus since the pandemic began, and 60 percent of the deaths since June 2021, when vaccines became widely available. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3459664-quarter-of-us-covid-19-deaths-could-have-been-prevented-by-vaccination-analysis/

And part of the reason people didn't get checked and/or treated for cancer, heart disease and other conditions during the COVID pandemic was because hospitals were being overrun with lots of contagious and sick COVID patients -- many of whom chose not to get vaccinations that would have reduced their chances of COVID illness and kept many of them out of the hospitals.

Or perhaps that Thailand, like many non-first world countries, doesn't do a very complete job of tracking, identifying and reporting the actual causes of death every time someone dies here... Instead, it's just off to the temple to be cremated PDQ. From Our World in Data on COVID deaths: "The reported number of deaths might not count all deaths that occurred. This is the case for two reasons: First, not all countries have the infrastructure and capacity to register and report all deaths. In richer countries with high-quality mortality reporting systems, nearly 100% of deaths are registered. But in many low- and middle-income countries, undercounting of mortality is a serious issue. The UN estimates that, in “normal” times, only two-thirds of countries register at least 90% of all deaths that occur, and some countries register less than 50% — or even under 10% — of deaths. During the pandemic the actual coverage might be even lower.11 https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid#excess-mortality-during-covid-19-background

There's been some talk and industry posts lately on a supposed COVID vaccine that's being developed/tested here in Thailand (with involvement of Mahidol University) that the Thai GPO might produce at some point.... But the one they've been testing apparently was one aimed at older variants, not the currently circulating ones. So no clear idea what if anything will come from all that. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abo2847 An inactivated NDV-HXP-S COVID-19 vaccine elicits a higher proportion of neutralizing antibodies in humans than mRNA vaccination 15 Feb 2023 Together, these data highlight the promise of NDV-HXP-S, which has moved into a Phase III trial in Thailand. --------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Last time I checked, there still hadn't been any peer-reviewed journal article published reporting the final results of the above referenced Phase III trial on that vaccine candidate. The Bangkok Post reported in Sept 2023 that the abovementioned vaccine could be ready for use as a booster "early next year" -- meaning early 2024. But since then......

Yep, let's let the facts come out, as the Reuters report did earlier in this thread. Kobach's lawsuit, and the prior Texas one the Kansas lawsuit is modeled after, complain about COVID vaccines and about supposedly undisclosed myocarditis and miscarriage issues. And yet as the Reuters report on the Kansas lawsuit notes: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June 2021 added a warning about myocarditis and pericarditis to the vaccine's label. The side effects are rare and most often occur in adolescent boys and young men. AND "A 2023 review of 21 studies by the U.S. National Institutes of Health concluded that COVID vaccines were not linked to miscarriage." https://www.reuters.com/legal/kansas-accuses-pfizer-misleading-public-about-covid-vaccine-lawsuit-2024-06-17/ Or the following from back in fall 2021 when COVID vaccines were first recommended for pregnant women in the U.S.: "Clinical trials and medical studies have indicated that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant people." ... Update, Aug. 16: Citing more accumulated safety data, including an analysis of outcomes of pregnant people enrolled in v-safe, another vaccine surveillance system, the CDC recommended on Aug. 11 that pregnant people be vaccinated. The new CDC study, not yet peer-reviewed or published, found no increased risk of miscarriage with vaccination. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine had already strongly recommended vaccination for all pregnant people on July 30, given evidence “demonstrating the safe use of the COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy from tens of thousands of reporting individuals over the last several months, as well as the current low vaccination rates and concerning increase in cases.” https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-evidence-points-to-safety-of-covid-19-vaccines-for-pregnant-people/

One might legitimately wonder why given that Thailand and the UK both have roughly the same size populations, that the UK reported 139 COVID deaths caused primarily or at least partially by COVID for the most recent week, and Thailand only reported 7 -- and that official week-to-week COVID death figures here haven't increased at all even while weekly COVID hospitalizations here have increased five-fold. Perhaps the doctors in Thailand have found some magical treatment that keeps patients hospitalized for COVID and/or listed in serious condition with COVID -- numbers that have increased dramatically here in recent months -- from dying that isn't known or available to doctors in the UK? Or, could it possibly be instead that the Thai MoPH decided much earlier in the pandemic that they were only going to count COVID deaths as those that occurred due to respiratory complications, and apparently ignore everything else when it came to COVID death reporting? And perhaps that the Thai government in general isn't anxious to give potential tourists the idea that people are still getting sick and dying from COVID here. "Anutin said the meeting discussed that when patients died while they were on a ventilator and died of lung inflammation caused by Covid-19 virus, they could be classified as Covid-19 deaths." https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40013255 In reality, over the life of the pandemic, COVID is a disease that triggers all kinds of different systemic health issues in people, various of which also can and have proved to be fatal.

People can still source and buy legitimate N95 masks these days, though it's probably earlier to source them from suppliers in places like the U.S. than in Thailand, where Chinese fakes are rampant. One good thing about the decline of COVID deaths and hospitalizations globally in recent months, and the lifting last year of the COVID emergency declarations, is that N95 supplies are more readily available than they were earlier during the peaks of the pandemic.

And yet about 300 people per week are still dying from COVID in the U.S., where they actually do a diligent job of assessing and reporting causes of death. Yes, that number is much down from what it has been in the past. But 300 per week is not insignificant. And add onto that another more than 100 every week in the UK: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00 https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/ The global COVID death toll even now continues to slowly creep higher week after week, no matter how many posters here try to deny or deflect from it.

Worth mentioning, new weekly COVID hospitalizations right now in Thailand are at their highest level in the past year. If this year follows the pattern from last year, those will begin falling / reducing as we move into this fall and toward the end of the year.

If you're wearing a legit N95 respirator mask, they're pretty good at defense as well, at least during the times when you actually wear them. What doctors wish patients knew about wearing N95 masks Jun 24, 2022 "Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians and other health professionals have continued to stress the everyday necessity and importance of wearing masks to protect against the spread of SARS-CoV-2. While reusable cloth masks have been recommended until recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other experts acknowledge N95, KN95 or KF94 masks provide the most protection when in public indoor spaces given how transmissible the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is. ... In fact, N95 and KN95 masks were found to be 48% more effective than surgical or cloth masks, according to a CDC study. Wearing an N95 or KN95 mask reduces the odds of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 by 83%. This is compared with 66% for surgical masks and 56% for cloth masks, further pushing the need to swap out such face coverings for an N95 or KN95 mask for protection from SARS-CoV-2. https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-wearing-n95-masks

The updated XBB variant COVID vaccine (only Pfizer) is available at at least several locations around Bangkok on a pay for service basis (no longer provided by the Thai government for free). https://aseannow.com/topic/1323285-new-pfizer-covid-xbb-vaccines-finally-become-available-in-thailand-–-for-a-price/ Outside of Bangkok, you might call the Ministry of Public Health's COVID hotline at 1422 and see if they have any COVID vaccination locations available for your particular locale. There will be a new version of the COVID vaccines rolled out in the West (U.S., U.K., etc.) this coming fall aimed at the currently circulating COVID variants. With the current XBB vaccines, if that's any comparable experience, their availability in Thailand came about 6 months later after their launch in the West.

Yeah, and the cohort of people you supposedly "know", whatever number that may be, is most certainly not any kind of statistically or scientifically meaningful sample. Unlike the following, based on a U.S. CDC study of fall 2023 COVID hospitalizations: "COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of symptomatic disease and hospitalization by about 50% compared to people not up to date on vaccination. ... Among adults with COVID-19-associated hospitalizations during October–November 2023, over 95% had not received an updated (2023–2024) COVID-19 vaccine, and most (70%) had also not received an updated vaccine from the previous year (2022–2023)." https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/background/index.html#:~:text=Over 95% of adults hospitalized,of receiving the latest vaccine

It is rather curious that here we are 3-1/2 years after the worldwide rollout of COVID vaccines and more than 13 billion doses given at last check, and apart from this one recent, relatively small South Korean study, there seems to be little if anything elsewhere supporting its findings, and numerous studies and reports as posted above not supporting them. And instead, the bulk of the reported evidence thus far has pointed to COVID disease (not vaccines) as a main culprit increasing risks for Alzheimer's, such as: Risk for Developing Alzheimer’s Disease Increases by 50-80% In Older Adults Who Caught COVID-19 September 13, 2022 "Older people who were infected with COVID-19 show a substantially higher risk—as much as 50% to 80% higher than a control group—of developing Alzheimer’s disease within a year, according to a study of more than 6 million patients 65 and older. In a study published today in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers report that people 65 and older who contracted COVID-19 were more prone to developing Alzheimer’s disease in the year following their COVID diagnosis. And the highest risk was observed in women at least 85 years old. The findings showed that the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in older people nearly doubled (0.35% to 0.68%) over a one-year period following infection with COVID. The researchers say it is unclear whether COVID-19 triggers new development of Alzheimer’s disease or accelerates its emergence." (more) https://neurosciencenews.com/aging-alzheimers-covid-21407/

And at least as of May 2021, this is what Reuters had to report on the subject: No evidence that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine causes Alzheimer’s disease As of this article’s publication, the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech has not been shown to cause Prion diseases or neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). ... Dr Irina Skylar-Scott, a neurologist at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics who specializes in Alzheimer’s and other disorders of cognition and behavior, ... said she knew of no evidence linking any of the COVID-19 vaccines to Alzheimer’s, and emphasized that Alzheimer’s patients are particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus because the infection may put their cognition at risk. ... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s briefing documents for both the Pfizer vaccine (here) and the Moderna vaccine (here), which also uses mRNA technology, do not mention anything about the development of neurodegenerative diseases during clinical trials that involved tens of thousands of volunteers. A CDC spokesperson told Reuters via email that it “is aware of no evidence to date that vaccination contributes to the development of prion-related disease or neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and Alzheimer’s.” https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check-no-evidence-that-pfizers-covi-idUSL1N2MZ382/

Maybe the Korean study cited above represents actual real evidence of new and different outcomes, as opposed to "preliminary" and "potential" associations. Or maybe it doesn't, in line with past research on this subject: The neurological safety of covid-19 vaccines BMJ - Published 16 March 2022 "Leveraging data on 8.3 million people from two large electronic health record databases in the UK and Spain, Li and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj-2021-068373) studied the association between covid-19 vaccines, either vector based or mRNA, and immune mediated neurological outcomes.1 Neither the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford-AstraZeneca) nor the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine was associated with an increased risk of neurological adverse events. [emphasis added] ... To explore such concerns properly, large scale epidemiological studies are needed, and only two such studies are available: the new study by Li and colleagues and a previous study by Patone and colleagues.6 The latter found a slightly increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome and Bell’s palsy associated with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, and of haemorrhagic stroke with BNT162b2. In line with Li and colleagues’ findings, the risks of all neurological outcomes in the 28 days after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result were substantially higher. ... Overall, the findings of both studies16 are reassuring about the safety of the vaccines, particularly compared with the observed risks associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Neither study should therefore lead to any changes in communications to the public about the positive benefit-risk balance of vaccines. (more) https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o522

Also interestingly, the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease also has reported on two prior studies that found various other vaccines (flu, shingles, TDP, etc.) all have been associated with reduced risks of developing Alzheimer's disease, as follows: Several vaccines associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease in adults 65 and older 21 August 2023 Prior vaccination against tetanus and diphtheria, with or without pertussis (Tdap/Td); herpes zoster (HZ), better known as shingles; and pneumococcus are all associated with a reduced risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research from UTHealth Houston. ... The new findings come just over a year after Schulz’s team published another study in the journal, which found that people who received at least one influenza vaccine were 40% less likely than their unvaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer’s disease. “We were wondering whether the influenza finding was specific to the flu vaccine. This data revealed that several additional adult vaccines were also associated with a reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s,” said Schulz, who is the Umphrey Family Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases and director of the Neurocognitive Disorders Center at McGovern Medical School. “We and others hypothesize that the immune system is responsible for causing brain cell dysfunction in Alzheimer’s. The findings suggest to us that vaccination is having a more general effect on the immune system that is reducing the risk for developing Alzheimer’s.” https://www.j-alz.com/content/several-vaccines-associated-reduced-risk-alzheimers-disease-adults-65-and-older