onthedarkside

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A stinging new Lancet Commission report on the international COVID-19 pandemic response calls it "a massive global failure on multiple levels" and spares no one the responsibility—including the public—for millions of preventable deaths and a backslide in progress made toward sustainable development goals in many countries. Noting an estimated 17.2 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide through May 31, the commission said, "This staggering death toll is both a profound tragedy and a massive global failure at multiple levels. Too many governments have failed to adhere to basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency, too many people—often influenced by misinformation—have disrespected and protested against basic public health precautions, and the world's major powers have failed to collaborate to control the pandemic." ... It details national negligence in prevention, rationality, public health practices, and international cooperation, as well as "excessive nationalism" that led to unequal access to resources such as personal protective equipment (PPE), vaccines, and treatments. The report also acknowledges that many members of the public openly flouted government efforts to control the pandemic. (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/09/lancet-commission-covid-19-response-massive-global-failure Source report: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext

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Sept 14 (Reuters) - The world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, urging nations to keep up their efforts against the virus that has killed over six million people. ... The comment was the most optimistic from the UN agency since it declared COVID-19 an international emergency and started describing the virus as a pandemic in March 2020. ... Deaths from COVID-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the U.N. agency reported. Still, countries need to take a hard look at their policies and strengthen them for COVID-19 and future viruses, [WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus] said. (more) https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-chief-says-end-sight-covid-19-pandemic-2022-09-14/

Data highlights ‘urgent need for more analysis, more investment, more support, and more solidarity with those who experience this condition,’ says WHO Europe boss Around 17 million people have been stricken with long COVID in the first two years of the pandemic across the European region, according to modeling conducted for the World Health Organization. ... Across the WHO Europe region of 53 countries, the modeling finds that women are twice as likely as men to experience long COVID, which includes symptoms such as fatigue with bodily pain and mood swings, cognitive problems, and shortness of breath. The risk increases dramatically among those who experienced severe COVID-19 that required hospital treatment, with one in three women and one in five men likely to develop long COVID. ... Globally, nearly 145 million people suffered from long COVID in the first two years of the pandemic, according to the modeling from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. (more) https://www.politico.eu/article/who-urges-action-as-17m-long-covid-cases-estimated-in-europe-region/

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I was scratching my head, just a bit, wondering what a bunch of ear, nose and throat doctors (ENTs) were doing writing a study relating to Vitamin D and COVID.... From the study's info section on its authors:

Charles officially announced as king at royal ceremony LONDON (AP) — King Charles III was officially announced as Britain’s monarch Saturday, in a ceremony steeped in ancient tradition and political symbolism — and, for the first time, broadcast live. Charles automatically became king when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died on Thursday, but the accession ceremony is a key constitutional and ceremonial step in introducing the new monarch to the country. Scores of senior politicians past and present, including Prime Minister Liz Truss and five of her predecessors, gathered in the ornate state apartments at St. James’s Palace for the meeting of the Accession Council. They met without Charles, officially confirming his title, King Charles III. The king joined them to make a personal declaration, vowing to follow his mother’s “inspiring example” as he took on the duties of monarch. (more) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/charles-officially-announced-as-king-at-royal-ceremony/ar-AA11FDtJ

From the study you cited: "while our findings have identified an association between pre-infection vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 severity, these results do not necessarily imply that vitamin D treatment will impact COVID-19 outcomes. Therefore, we should remain cautious about overestimating the potential benefit of vitamin D supplementation in improving outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection." ... "Our study warrants further studies investigating if and when vitamin D supplementation among vitamin D deficient individuals in the community impacts the outcome of an eventual COVID-19 episode."

Americans likely to need annual COVID-19 booster, officials say — but questions abound Experts raised questions about comments from U.S. officials this week that the new bivalent COVID-19 boosters are likely the first of what will become annual shots against SARS-CoV-2. “We likely are moving toward a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual, updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population,” Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a White House briefing on Tuesday. ... There is concern, however, that similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza have been overestimated as scientists have raced to keep up with the emergence of new variants and repeated waves of infection. “I don’t think it’s possible to telegraph the behavior of SARS-CoV-2 at this point. There are some analogies of influenza, but they only hold to a certain extent,” Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Healio. (more) https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20220908/americans-likely-to-need-annual-covid19-booster-officials-say-but-questions-abound

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Here's the findings of one of the studies in your list, a recent one from Jan. 2022: A critical update on the role of mild and serious vitamin D deficiency prevalence and the COVID-19 epidemic in Europe Highlights "There is not sufficient data to associate vitamin D prevalence with the COVID-19 epidemic in Europe. Vitamin D supplementation cannot be recommended as a preventive measure against COVID-19 infection. Mortality due to COVID-19 infection can be influenced by several parameters of an individual's health; therefore, further research is needed to state that vitamin D deficiency can be related with COVID-19-specific mortality." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900721003038 At the least, the notion of Vitamin D supplementation as a measure to fight COVID seems to be quite an unsettled issue.

The two studies cited above DON'T say there's no reason to take Vitamin D in general. But they DO say, taking it won't help prevent getting COVID or reduce the symptoms of COVID. As for Fauci... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advisor-fauci-takes-every-day-to-help-keep-his-immune-system-healthy.html "During another interview with actress Tiffany Haddish released on Sept 4 [2020]., Fauci said in clinical studies most “so-called” immune-boosting supplements didn’t really help people unless they had some sort of a deficiency. In fact, a lot of these herbs “either do nothing, or, if you take too much of them, they harm you,” Fauci told Haddish." But the same article does mention: "(In fact, researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine recently found a link between vitamin D deficiency and the likelihood of being infected with Covid-19 — those with an untreated deficiency were more likely to test positive. “Vitamin D is important to the function of the immune system and vitamin D supplements have previously been shown to lower the risk of viral respiratory tract infections,” David Meltzer, chief of hospital medicine at UChicago Medicine and lead author of the study said in a press release on Sept. 8.)"

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Findings from two large clinical trials published yesterday in BMJ discount the notion that vitamin D supplements protect against COVID-19 or other respiratory-tract infections, although both had notable limitations. ... "Among people aged 16 years and older with a high baseline prevalence of suboptimal vitamin D status, implementation of a population level test-and-treat approach to vitamin D supplementation was not associated with a reduction in risk of all cause acute respiratory tract infection or COVID-19," the authors wrote. ... In Norway, a team led by Oslo University researchers studied whether low-dose vitamin D supplementation in the form of cod liver oil in winter would prevent COVID-19 infection, serious illness, or other respiratory infections in adults not already taking the vitamin.... Cod liver oil was not tied to a reduced risk of COVID-19 infection, serious illness, or other respiratory infection. ... In a related editorial, Peter Bergman, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, said that the findings of both trials could have been skewed by the concurrent "highly successful" COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United Kingdom and Norway. (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/09/vitamin-d-doesnt-prevent-covid-19-other-respiratory-infections-studies-find UK: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071230 Norway: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071245