Pandemic of the Vaccinated

The latest breakthrough numbers for Indiana are in and they don't look good for the vaccines: 87% of last week's cases are among the vaccinated as are 44% of deaths. And yet they account for only 2% of hospitalizations. Either the injections make you both more likely to get infected and yet far less likely to get very sick but they don't prevent you from dying...or something here doesn't add up.

Could the vaccinated be getting Omicron while the unvaccinated are getting much sicker with delta? Omicron accounted for 98% of cases as of January 10 in Indiana according to the state's coronavirus website. So there were (by my calculations) 1,600 cases of delta and 3,526 hospitalizations last week. Even if every man, woman and child with delta went to the hospital, over half the patients there had Omicron.

Hospitals Overrun with Unvaccinated?

How do Indiana's hospitalization numbers compare to Denmark's--a country with a very high vaccination rate compared to Indiana's 54%?

"Vaccination status - Newly admitted last 7 days."
Dark blue=fully vaccinated
Medium blue=partially vaccinated
Light blue=unvaccinated
Source: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/aa41b29149f24e20a4007a0c4e13db1d/page/page_5/

The vaccinated account for 75% of hospitalizations in Denmark. To be fair, unvaccinated Danes are going to the hospital at higher rates than vaccinated ones. But they don't make up anything in the neighborhood of 98% of patients.

Likewise in the UK, the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated in the hospital. The boosted in particular are occupying beds.

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1050721/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-4.pdf

Putting the UK's numbers in a chart based on the numbers from the table, we see it's similar to the one from Denmark, with the vaccinated making up two-thirds of hospitalizations:

I keep hearing that places with high vaccination rates will have more vaccinated patients just because almost everybody is vaccinated. Indiana is less vaccinated at 54%, but something in the chart below seems out of proportion.

Based on data from Indiana COVID and Regenstrief dashboards.

Either the vaccines are orders of magnitude more effective here than they are in Denmark and the UK, but only for hospitalizations, not cases or deaths, or there is some creative accounting going on.

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This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Paleo Diet: Eating Differently from Everyone Else is Fine!

I've been seeing more and more articles by women (it's always women) whose heads have exploded trying to figure out life without yogurt and cupcakes. Oh, the shenanigans they get up to: bathroom problems from stuffing themselves with vegetables, paleo baked goods that don't taste the same as ones from the bakery, and especially the irresistible urge to eat "normally." The technical problems aren't hard to sort out: substitutes like baked goods will taste different because they are different, but an adjustment period of a few months will make those foods taste normal. And whatever you eat, don't stuff yourself. First, though, read a book by Loren Cordain or Mark Sisson to learn about the paleo diet before diving in. The articles I keep reading, though, have more to do with attitude: the urge to be exactly like everybody else or the urge to be helpless. If you're in the second category, I can't, by definition, help you. If you'd rather be Lu

Decongestant Ineffective; Vibration Plate Works

A common ingredient in many cold medicines has been shown so ineffective that the FDA recently proposed taking it off the market. The ingredient, phenylephrine, "failed to outperform placebo pills in patients with cold and allergy congestion," say researchers from the University of Florida. "The same researchers also challenged the drug's effectiveness in 2007, but the FDA allowed the products to remain on the market pending additional research," according to CNBC . Mostly placebos. Photo from Pixabay . I can attest that phenylephrine doesn't work. Before I stopped eating wheat, I constantly had nasal and sinus congestion. I helped keep Sudafed in business when the active ingredient was pseudoephedrine, but I noticed the PE (phenylephrine) variety didn't work at all. The only other decongestants I've found helpful are guaifenesin (Mucinex) and spicy food. Mucinex is expensive because it works! (The cheaper store brands work just as well, though.) Su

Robert F. Kennedy shows up at the FDA

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder .

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87% of COVID Cases are Among Vaxxed in Indiana