You might be interested in Buzz Hollander’s remarks about Damar Hamlin’s onfield collapse and talk of myocarditis. I want to underwrite this observation:
If someone wishes to make the case against using the mRNA vaccines in this population, at this point in the pandemic, there is absolutely no need to display the sort of indefensible thoughtlessness of using someone in the midst of a life threatening emergency to make the point. We have more than enough quality science to this effect: the myocarditis concern in this cohort is substantial (in this JAMA article out of Canada, a commonly-reported 1/3000 clip), it might be of greater incidence via subclinical cases (a 2% rate in this well-designed study from Thailand), and Pfizer is behind schedule in releasing its Study C4591031 data on subclinical myocarditis after a booster shot in young men.
As I have written many times before, giving young, healthy men the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines is likely a cost:benefit loser due to this risk of post-vaccination myocarditis, especially since the benefit of the current boosters in those with prior infection or at low risk of severe disease appears to be ephemeral and limited. Mandating them is inexcusable for this reason. The NFL has not mandated boosters, appropriately; those few educational institutions still insisting on required boosters for their students this past year have received appropriate heat.
The anecdotes gained from tragedies of athletes collapsing on the pitch are just that: tragic anecdotes. They need to be carefully curated to have any statistical value. To my eyes, that has not been accomplished.
Sixty-four cases, the number NCAA athletes who died of sudden cardiac arrest, is a pretty small domain. Even when you expand the domain past the NFL into all people playing football at any age, the domain is still tremendously small. I’m not sure that any conclusions can reasonably be drawn from such a small sample.
The other observation revolves around the old rule of thumb that when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebra. Wwhether you think horses or zebras depends on where you are. If you’re in a New York hospital, horses are probably the smart bet. If you’re in the middle of a veldt in Tanzania, zebras might be a smarter guess.
So, where are we? I don’t think we know. The COVID-19 pandemic is still technically in progress and will probably be studied for the next century at least. It may be the better part of a century before we’re able to tell the horses from the zebras.
Don’t you think those examples work at cross purposes?
Yes, a small domain, but it is specialized and makes it stick out. Further, highly conditioned athletes is not where you start thinking chance, natural causes. Even if shit happens to all populations.
Not that many people really care about what happened to the guy, they just want to use it to score points. We should wait and if the guy/family want to release what is found that is up to them.
As the author points out most of these people have some underlying problem which no one knew about. Given the extreme condition put themselves under for a lot of sports, think Iron Man, boxing/MMA, etc I am always surprised we dont see more people uncovering stuff.
Steve
Hearing†hoof sounds makes it more difficult to discern what animal is making them. However, “seeing†the actual animal, with your own eyes leaves no doubt. In the same way comparing data before and after the initiation of our universal COVID 19 vaccination push shows an abnormal spike in athlete deaths between 1/21 – 4/22. During that 16 month period of time 673 young athletes experienced sudden death, while between 1966 – 2004 – a 39 year period of time – 1101 athletes were reported to have suddenly died. The differential of deaths alone should cause people to at least question the reasons behind young athletes dying suddenly in greater numbers now versus in times before this vaccine was widely administered.
Consequently, Hamlin’s heart attack, in the midst of a big game, should we be treated no differently in reviewing both his medical and vaccination histories, to see if there is any adverse connection between the two.
https://yournews.com/2022/06/11/2357621/study-finds-athlete-deaths-are-1700-higher-than-expected-since/
An side note; a recommended memoir of China of the last 3 years by a British expat.
https://lateralthinkingtechnology.wordpress.com/2023/01/07/add-oil-the-tragedy-of-zero-covid/
What stands out is the gulf between what actually happened, the lived experience in China during “zero-covid”, and how people outside China perceived had occurred in China.
Thank you for posting that link, CuriousOnlooker. That’s a very interesting (lengthy) even necessary post. This is a key passage:
which is not entirely true. China might have defeated the disaster in the third quarter of 2019. And the rest of the world might have been saved from the disaster by banning travel to/from China. All of which is why I think this statement from early in the piece is an understatement:
Ultimately, Zero-Covid was futile after November 2019.
It should also be noted that AFAICT nobody except possibly some in China believe the present official statistics regarding COVID deaths. To believe them you need to think that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, all of which had similar early experiences, are lying or mistaken.
Nic piece CO. I think it is about what I thought really happened after talking with my daughter who lives there now, but not through the really bad parts. It certainly has not been everyone locked down in their homes for over 2 years. I think there is a bit of this also in the US where some people seem to think that much of the US had everyone locked down in their homes for 2 years. I think that when lockdowns did occur they were more thoroughly policed, most fo the time, in China. In the US they were largely ignored in some areas and most of the time only moderately enforced.
Steve
In November 2019 it was just another viral illness. They couldn’t test for it. It had asymptomatic spread so it would have been hard to stop. So maybe in theory if everything went exactly according to plan if China had closed itself off after recognizing the very first case and knowing based upon that one case they had something different they might have stopped it.
Steve