Published: February 16, 2021
Some quick covid updates on early treatment, face masks, vaccines, and more.
Vitamin D: Another Spanish prospective study with 930 hospitalized covid patients found that high-dose vitamin D (calcifediol) reduced ICU admissions by 80% and mortality by 60%.
Ivermectin 1: A large Indian prospective study with 3,500 health care workers found that just two doses of Ivermectin reduced the risk of infection over a one month period by 83%. This confirms the results of an earlier Argentinian study, which found that a weekly dose of ivermectin reduced the risk of covid infection by 100% in 1200 health care workers.
Ivermectin 2: An Israeli placebo-controlled, double-blinded randomized trial led by professor Eli Schwartz found a highly significant effect on viral clearance in 94 mostly young patients.
Face masks: The European CDC has updated its face mask policy recommendations. The ECDC acknowledges that after more than one year since the beginning of the pandemic, there is still no significant evidence supporting the effectiveness of medical and non-medical face masks in the community. Furthermore, the ECDC advises against the use of FFP2/N95 respirators by the general public. However, based on the ‘precautionary principle’, the ECDC does recommend the use of face masks in some situations and for some people.
Vaccines: Data from Israel confirms very high short-term effectiveness of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. On the other hand, according to adverse events reporting systems in the US, the UK and the EU, there are now over 2,000 confirmed post-vaccination deaths. Israel’s main problem was that its vaccination campaign ran in parallel to its largest covid wave, producing many infections in partially vaccinated people, which could increase the risk of vaccine-escaping virus strains.
Down Under: After local outbreaks, Auckland and Melbourne are once again under lockdown.
USA: Drug overdoses increased by 45% in 2020, according to the CDC.