Ivermectin is absolutely NOT an anti-viral. For humans or animals. It’s an antihelmintic.
I received a text this morning from one of my most “Covid Hoax” friends. She sent me what must be going around online recently. It’s a link to Ivermectin stopping cancer tumors. Her exact words are:
Look what they’ve finally admitted. NIH.gov finally admits that ivermectin is effective in treating cancer. Even colorectal cancer. Hmmmm probably not happy with this since ivermectin is so cheap. Check it out. Go to NIH.gov and put ivermectin in the search bar.
So I did (and added cancer in the search bar to avoid all the Covid stuff). It’s not new or just released. It’s been discussed since 2018 with more recent reports in 2020 and 2021 - August being the latest date I saw, though I didn’t check everything that came up. It’s in trials and the little bit I was able to see from research is that it works best with current drugs - again - I didn’t look at everything.
I hope it does work. I’m all for anything working against cancer. But I know her “intent” was for me to believe it works against Covid and is just too cheap for the drug companies to want to promote, so they’re “hiding” it.
I didn’t care to point out to her that her info isn’t even remotely “new” like her text implied - or that if she reads the articles they’re seeing promise, but nothing absolutely conclusive yet, and using it with other currently used meds. It IS being investigated (as it has been with Covid). Being “cheap” doesn’t knock it out of contention. Many people want to find cures to cancer.
But I’m on vacation and enjoying the lack of “us vs them” TBH. I might casually mention it when I get back home.
NJ to join PA in eliminating the state-wide mask mandates in schools. Local school districts still have authority to require masks, however.
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Illinois school mask mandate overturned last Friday. School reaction varied today, partially based on whether they were part of the lawsuit and/or how prepared they were for the mandate to be overturned. Illinois State/Gov Pritzker set to appeal ruling.
Perhaps this will spur more parents to get their kids vaxxed.
I know people who have taken it too. And because they recovered they are convinced it helped them. When my brother-in-law died of covid I heard whispers of “ivermectin…if only” at his funeral.
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The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.
“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” the company’s CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference this week. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”
Davison said the increase in deaths represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.
“And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic,” he said.
“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So 40% is just unheard of.”
Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said.
“What the data is showing to us is that the deaths that are being reported as COVID deaths greatly understate the actual death losses among working-age people from the pandemic. It may not all be COVID on their death certificate, but deaths are up just huge, huge numbers.”
He said at the same time, the company is seeing an “uptick” in disability claims, saying at first it was short-term disability claims, and now the increase is in long-term disability claims.
The number of hospitalizations in the state is now higher than before the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced a year ago, and in fact is higher than it’s been in the past five years, Dr. Lindsay Weaver, Indiana’s chief medical officer, said at a news conference with Gov. Eric Holcomb on Wednesday.
Just 8.9% of ICU beds are available at hospitals in the state, a low for the year, and lower than at any time during the pandemic. But the majority of ICU beds are not taken up by COVID-19 patients – just 37% are, while 54% of the ICU beds are being occupied by people with other illnesses or conditions.
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They must have data on causes of death. I wish they’d share that. And I wish other insurance companies would disclose if they’re seeing similar numbers. One would think other insurance companies would be seeing similar increases.
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CDC data shows a spike in excess deaths for ages 25 - 64. See the following link for excess mortality (ETA: all causes) and click on the “age” dashboard. You can sub-categorize for 25-44 and 45-64. 2021 is the yellow line.
Two causes of death that are up significantly over baseline would be traffic fatalities and homicide. Those wouldn’t be the primary causes of excess death, of course, but they do suggest that the US is struggling with multiple issues during this pandemic.
Traffic Fatalities Rise in First Nine Months of 2021 | NHTSA
My guess is it’s a combo of Covid or Covid related (clot after getting better) and those who either by choice (don’t want to go in to the ER) or by lack of appointments succumb to other things (later stage cancer, heart disease, etc).
I know I’ve seen a lot of younger aged folks in our local obituaries for quite some time. Some I know are Covid either because the obit says so, I knew them, or someone I know knew them. Others I’ve wondered about.
Now I wonder how much life insurance is going to go up. 40% is a lot if that’s common among insurers.
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This link, once you compare 2021 to 2020, (no data for 2019 or prior as the purpose is to track Covid-related deaths and their contribution to overall deaths during these two years) shows that the percentage increase in “death from all causes” is significantly lower than deaths with confirmed or presumed Covid for all age sub-groups 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-64.
COVID-19 Provisional Counts - Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics Not surprisingly, Covid itself played a huge role in excess deaths this past year.
(click on the “yearly” tab at bottom left to see all data by year)
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Mortality rate is highly predictable and consistent for a diversified pool. I have no reason to believe that the Indianapolis-based life company doesn’t have a diversified pool of insured. In fact, the life business is so predictable and competitive that most, if not all, life insurance companies have loss ratios in excess of 100%, meaning that the premiums they receive are insufficient to cover payouts and expenses (they have to rely on investment incomes to make up the difference and for profit). If life insurance premiums do go up because of the pandemic, I expect it will be short term, assuming COVID doesn’t increase mortality rate long term.
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“Just 37%”? When I worked ICU, we only rarely had people in the ICU with infectious diseases-particularly ones where hospitalization could be largely prevented with vaccination. Over 1/3 of ICU bed occupation due to one specific illness that could be mitigated with a vaccine is still a huge number.
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That’s the quote from the article. Maybe it’s phrased that way because previously COVID patients comprised a much larger percentage of the beds?
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Jumping from 0% (Pre-Covid) to 37% is incredibly high. We know all sorts of other things (accidents, heart attacks, strokes, and similar) are still happening.
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I don’t have little kids (mine are college-aged) so I, thankfully, have not had to deal with COVID in K-12. But I don’t understand why people are against masks in schools. Kids wear helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, goggles, eye protectors, gloves, etc for protection. Masks seem pretty darned easy and cheap to wear to protect children. What am I not seeing? Why would parents not want to do everything they could to protect their children? I was, and still am, genuinely confused.
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I would like to see the excess deaths stats given by vaxxed vs unvaxxed status…the curious mind does wonder…especially since it’s a younger cohort…
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I don’t have k-12 kids either but I have two 20 somethings who are WFH and might be going back to their respective offices soon. Personally I like the mask wearing bc I think it does protect not only my kids but me. But I also recognize that it’s definitely more of a protection of me than them due to their ages, lack of comorbidies and so forth. And I’m not the one wearing the masks all day long.
I think it’s important to consider whether mandating kids to mask is to protect the kids or to protect older people such as parents, teachers, grandparents etc…. Everyone who wants a vaccine and a booster can have one. Statistically the majority of people who have been hospitalized and died of Covid are unvaccinated. If people are concerned about or more vulnerable to COVID infection they are able to continue masking, social distancing etc… I haven’t read much about how teachers are responding to the dropping of these mandates.
Personally I think it should be left up to the parents to decide whether or not their children mask at school. I would say it should be left up to the school districts but I think at this point that’s creating too much division.
Or perhaps another solution is the teachers get to say whether they’re going to have a masked classroom or not and then they sort the kids based on the kids that wear masks and the kids that don’t. No easy solutions.
As far as the items you listed kids don’t wear those items for hours and hours a day and none of them cover their faces.
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i dont have a dog in this fight either; and would love to hear from elementary teachers; but i do know my S20 had a speech impediment & IEP; and this would have hurt him more. watching how words are pronounced, and hearing the exact sounds is big. Plus nonverbal cues facial cues are stinted. i’m guessing there’s many reasons educationally.
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Elem teacher spouse here. Though I don’t want H or I to catch it, at this point I realize masks are going to come off at some point. I wish they could establish a metric when it would be ok to take masks off. Around here, they are abandoning masks when the case count is over 100 known cases a day per 100K people. And with a 40% positivity rate it’s likely much much worse. And Right now 1 in 175 people in my city have already died from covid. We are not in great shape.
Contagious kids and staff will be at school. If they are unmasked, spread will happen faster. The more teachers that are out sick - even if for “only” 5 days - that is a nightmare. We do not have subs. Every day is a scramble trying to cover classes. H has been teacher for almost 30 years and I have never seen him this exhausted. He can barely drag himself off the couch most days. He is ready to retire ASAP.
And a data point. My SIL (50s and not in good health) is battling covid again. She got it from watching her grandkids (upper elem age) who are unvaxxd and unmasked at school. SIL had it June 2020. She was vaccine reluctant but did get Moderna in the fall when she was to take in my elderly, super fragile in-laws.
Both SIL and the grandkids (and her D) had really bad flu like effects for over a week - and still counting for SIL. My in-laws are both boosted and have been “fine.” Of course, they are in such bad shape if they had a mild cold version it may go unnoticed.