YAHOO! NEWS – CDC director Rochelle Walensky on Sunday failed to clarify how many of the 836,000 U.S. patients whose deaths were attributed to Covid in the last two years had underlying medical conditions.
“How many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. linked to Covid are from Covid or how many are with Covid but they had other co-morbidities. Do you have that breakdown?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked.
“We’re following that very carefully, our death registry takes a few weeks to collect and Omicron has been with us for just a few weeks but those data will be forthcoming,” Walensky replied.
Throughout the pandemic, public-health officials have harped on the alarming fatality rate but have not clarified whether Covid death record-keeping reflects accompanying risk factors that may have been present.
For example, some mainstream news outlets published scientific studies last week recognizing the long-indisputable fact that obesity is a Covid comorbidity … READ MORE.
Omicron: Natural immunity idea ‘not really panning out,’ doctor explains
Adriana Belmonte·Senior Editor, January 8, 2022
YAHOO! NEWS – The Omicron strain of the coronavirus is fueling a rapid surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases — including among vaccinated and even boosted Americans — and a new rise in hospitalizations among unvaccinated Americans is further weakening the notion that natural immunity alone provides adequate protection amid the evolving pandemic.
“This idea of natural immunity is not really panning out with this virus,” Dr. Hilary Fairbrother, an emergency medicine physician based in Houston, TX, said on Yahoo Finance Live.
“I think part of that is because Omicron has so many mutations, and there’s really no way to know what the next variant will have.”
The U.S. is nearing 60 million confirmed cases and is averaging more than 500,000 new confirmed cases a day over the last week, raising new questions about whether the U.S. will be able to reach herd immunity.
“I think the problem with herd immunity is that is really taking into account that this virus won’t mutate significantly and we might not have a very significant variant roaming around that has nothing to do with omicron that really doesn’t see any natural immunity from people who have been sick with omicron,” Fairbrother said, adding that “that’s kind of what we saw with” previous variants … READ MORE.
