TWiV 1246 letters

Richard writes:

Gentlemen,

This is longer than usual, my apologies:

As you noted this week on Clinical Update, the CDC failed to report on the Current Cumulative Number of Measles cases in the US. I would like to review the events surrounding this outbreak with you and point to a few related circumstances  that may be pertinent to the subject of the CDC response and, in particular, to validate my own sanity. 

I note that this reporting  was first limited to once-a-week on Fridays as opposed to daily updates, as “Junior” was taking criticism over his casual approach toward the two deaths of the young girls in Texas and the single adult death in New Mexico. Conveniently this “Friday Reporting” provided a 72 hr cushion in a 24hr news cycle further dampening the effect of this infection data reporting might generated by this “Once-a-Week” Reporting  Protocol.

More recently, the “Report Day” for Measles Cases was changed AGAIN to Wednesday. This provided yet another hurdle of change to reporting methodology with no reason provided.

There has not been any comparison with previous weeks in the report or graphical representation of rate of increase of infection.

Now after another 4-8 week period of Wednesday reports, the current data on the outbreak is now UNAVAILABLE.

In the beginning, there appeared to be a rapid increase in rate of infection up until the time the reports were limited to once-a-week. The rate seemed to parallel that of Canada with Mexico, both reporting large numbers. Since the funerals of the two young girls and the scrutiny applied to “Junior’s” lying about measles outbreak prevalence and the 1st report interval change; the US rate has dropped dramatically and miraculously leveled off, with total infections  lumbering slowly in the 1300’s. 

At the same time Canada, with a robust national heath system and a slight lag in data collection, has p closed in on 5000 infections as you reported this week on Clinical Update. There remains the distinction of “Confirmed vs Suspected Cases”, but the it would seem that the US should at least have some equivalence with rates with Canada given their public health system and our vaccine hesitancy.

Over this same period, I have noticed on my “X” account and Google News a stead drip of anti-vax zeal replete with dubious half truth references delivered by HHS, directly from “His Secretarial Excellency” and his parlor interviewing Courtesans. This has been accompanied by the increasing appearance of interviews with anti-vax propagandists Molone and McCullaugh, et. al. All of this has occurred with seemingly increasing intensity, more crazies, and better graphics.  They are currently repositioning the Goal Posts” with the current target, ”Alum Adjuvant”. It leads one to wonder if this is algorithm or orchestration? 

Am I getting this Nightmare accurately, my wife and I just turned 79. We have worked professionally through all the pandemics since 1968 in face-to-face proximity to dental patients, with and without PPE and effective vaccination. Though retired we remain in a high risk category for the pathogens under discussion due to age. 

Many thanks for your dedication to real science. As a second generation Dentist in Southern California I have been exposed to these crackpot theories for health and longevity most of my life. Scientific clarity has been the only antidote for the disinformation both in and out of the health professions.

Best wishes and keep the Faith

Rich

Ellen writes:

My 77-year-old brother contracted Covid, which became symptomatic a few days ago. He  called many pharmacies in NY and NJ, but no one had Molnupiravir or maybe it was resdemavir (which his internist preferred for him because of other meds he takes). 

    Finally, the doc said Paxlovid would be okay in a pinch.   After many more calls, my brother found a pharmacy up on Dyckman Street that had Paxlovid.

  The bill was $279.00.  My brother, astonished, said that he thought insurance would pay most of it.  The pharmacy then informed him that the total would have been about $1,200.00 if he hadn’t had insurance coverage.

  Is this a result of the RFK regime?

Bill writes:

Daniel…

Just a brief comment on your mention of research in Antarctica…as I made six round trips to the Antarctic Peninsula in the late 80s aboard the then-NSF chartered research vessel Polar Duke (as well as 3 winters at the South Pole. The vessel involved, Le Commandant Charcot, is in fact a cruise ship, French flag, completed in 2020. It can house 270 passengers. I don’t know the exact details, but many cruise ships that visit the Antarctic have lab space that can be used by researchers…perhaps to give them bonus points with the country involved or allow them to get to places otherwise off limits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Commandant_Charcot

It was first detected on South Georgia Island (I’ve been there) in October 2023 (Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/04/forgotten-epidemic-with-over-280-million-birds-dead-how-is-the-avian-flu-outbreak-evolving )

September 2024 Nature Communications article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51490-8

—

Bill

Chris writes:

Daniel and Vincent, 

Love all your work on microbe.tv!

I know there are a lot of HHS officials waging war on US vaccine programs.

I am a bit confused on what is going on with the important vaccines for 65+ers like me. 

Is there an appropriately updated Covid-19 vaccine for the fall 2025 season, or was the advisory committee dissolved (or compromised) on this subject? What is your recommendation at present? Will insurance companies continue to pay for the Covid vaccines? 

Is there an appropriately updated influenza vaccine ready for the fall 2025 season?

For 65+ individuals, is RSV vaccination needed annually or is it a “one and done” vaccine?

Thanks for your work!

Chris Boles, Ph.D.

Mark writes:

In case you are unaware, Johns Hopkins has a U.S. Measles tracker at

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/ivac/resources/us-measles-tracker

with tabs for both Cumulative Cases and Recent Cases.

It appears they pull their data from both state and county health

departments (over 150 sources listed here):

https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/measles_data/blob/main/data_sources_by_state.csv

Since many of these data sources are press releases, I suspect there is

a lot of human effort to hunt down and gather these numbers.

Thanks for all your efforts.

Mark

Abbey writes:

Hi Daniel and Vincent, I work for a state public health lab and have been using the Pandemic Center Report from Brown as a source for measles data (in conjunction with, but now as a replacement for the CDC). They scrape state reports to gather their data. 

https://pandemics.sph.brown.edu/news/tracking-report-archive

Javad writes:

Hi!  Love all you do to keep us informed! I am a Primary Care Doctor (and Professor) in Minnesota.  I was disappointed to see that the Minnesota Department of Health has been telling our hospital systems not to test for Measles individually.  They want us to send the test to the Department.  Does this make sense to you?  I feel like this is an unnecessary burden that will make us test less.  A positive measles test would have to be reported anyway. But getting the MDH address, the proper packaging, etc is a big lift for us as primary care doctors.  Why not just let us send the test to our lab?  I feel like we are missing lessons from the Covid pandemic.  One was to make testing as easy as possible.  What are your thoughts?

Best,

Javad ( pronounication: Jav-odd)

— 

Javad Keyhani MD

Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine

University of Minnesota