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Dec 1, 2023Liked by TACT

Purely anecdotal: my daughter tested positive for covid on Sept 20. She's 35 and has mild asthma, but is otherwise healthy and fit. On Sept 28 she tested negative. She felt better. At the beginning of Nov, she started coughing again, and she was diagnosed with "post covid pneumonia" . She has been on several antibiotics and they don't seem to be working. She's coughing so hard her ribs are bruised. This is a walking pneumonia and she is still working. She went in for pain in the ribs a couple of days ago, and after x-rays and a CT scan, she still had pneumonia "unspecified", but now she also has thrush on her tongue... they gave her a different medication and sent her home. I'm wondering if she has this pneumonia, although she doesn't fit the age range. I hate that we don't know, and that clinics, public health, countries and media are not saying much. We're left to speculate and figure it all out on our own. We're living in scary times

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I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. It is tragic how the agencies that we pay tons of money to don't do their jobs.

This will expand up through the age group's eventually getting to seniors who will have an even harder time with variants like this. Sadly, for many it will end in death.

As far as your daughter, why are they giving her antibiotics? Have they discovered it is caused by a specific bacteria?

Post COVID pneumonia could be bacteria, or viral and more often than not, it is viral. If it is then of course it isn't working. It may be making things worse. They have to confirm the pathogen that's causing the infection, which in many cases, they fail to do.

Do you know if they confirmed that it is a bacterial infection and if so what type?

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Dec 1, 2023Liked by TACT

They didn't tell her and the recent paperwork just says unspecified organism. She just got out of the ER, and I'll check in with her and look more closely at her paperwork, especially any blood work. I can't imagine they didn't do bloodwork in the ER but she didn't mention any.

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Definitely need to investigate what these doctors are doing or not doing. Clearly, something has to be done to change the trajectory of her situation. Need details of blood work. T and B cell counts. What tests have they done to determine the pathogen? Many questions. Hope that you can help get the answers.

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"64% were resistant to fluoroquinolones. Patients with a bacterial co-infection had a higher proportion of severe disease than those without a co-infection. The results reinforce the importance of using appropriate targeted antibiotics and effective infection control practices to prevent the spread of resistant nosocomial infections." (Feb 2023)

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/12/3/370

2. "This study underlines the importance of considering, depending on the clinical context, a possible co-infection between SARS-CoV-2 and atypical bacteria, such as Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Co-infections with other respiratory pathogens during the pandemic and hospital stay can cause mistakes in clinical diagnostic and drug treatment." (Published Sept 2022; Location: Italy)

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/10/10/1936

3. "A total of 1,208 patients with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test were identified. Among them, 604 (50%) had an M. pneumoniae co-infection"

COVID with a concomitant M. pneumoniae infection was found to have worse outcomes and overall prognosis.

https://www.cureus.com/articles/93180-the-severity-of-the-co-infection-of-mycoplasma-pneumoniae-in-covid-19-patients.pdf

3. "The most common bacterial targets were Haemophilus influenzae (36%), Staphylococcus aureus (23%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (10%) and Enterobacter cloacae (10%)."

This is w/older variants, much less immune suppressive than the BA.2.86 variants.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23744235.2021.1985732

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Show this to the doctors to remind them that it is not uncommon for people to have co-infections and in many cases more than one pathogen taking advantage of COVIDs damage to the immune system.

Ensuring no other infections are acquired is extremely important. It takes months in many cases and sometimes beyond 8 months for the immune system to fully recover.

"One of the most significant findings of this study was the high proportion of co-infections observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, with almost a third of the SARS-CoV-2 positive samples being co-infected with one or more acute respiratory pathogens."

"Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae were the most co-infecting ARI pathogens, which is similar to previous studies that identified these two pathogens as some of the most common co-infecting pathogens in ARIs"

"Bacterial aetiologies are often not investigated in most ARI cases as they usually present as secondary infections following a viral infection and require further diagnostic approaches, including culturing and antibiotic susceptibility"

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irv.13227

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Dec 1, 2023·edited Dec 1, 2023Liked by TACT

The rapid antigen tests are a serious problem. I went to urgent care in late July with a fever of 105 F after having been sick a week and a half. The nurse at urgent care used the BinaxNow rapid antigen test to rule-out COVID. I suppose the fact that I had been sick for a week made the test a little more trustworthy, but I don't think urgent cares and ERs should be using these misleading tests. EDIT: I didn't have COVID, so the rapid test was correct, but I think they should use the PCR tests. They need to be made affordable if that is the problem.)

Somebody on reddit suggested that perhaps the 4-5 day delay is a result of our immune systems reacting sooner to the infection due to the virus no longer being novel. In other words, maybe the incubation period has been shortened by 4-5 days and the tests are performing no differently.

I have a whole pile of those rapid antigen tests, but I don't know what to do with them. They are so untrustworthy. All they do is give a false sense of confidence to people.

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Most of them do work to detect COVID if not past the expiration date. Many expiration dates have been extended. See FDA.

The problem is that they aren't sensitive enough to detect COVID until after the virus has built up in the body for many days. Children are the largest drivers of transmission due to the time in one room with classmates and at home with siblings. The siblings take it to new classrooms, exposing another large group of people. That process creates a path for exponential growth.

Children often feel better after 4 to 5 days so if the tests don't detect the virus during the first 2 to 3 days while they are most sick, then parents and often doctors assume it isn't COVID. By day 5 when they are still very contagious, they are starting to feel better and allowed to go back to school, further spreading the virus for another 2 to 4 days, on average.

The Rapid Antigen tests create a situation that actually enhances transmission by providing this false sense of security.

The CDC guidance for 5 days isolation also enhances transmission because the peak contagious period is usually from 4 to 7 days after symptoms start, only declining after day 8. Most people are still contagious for 9 to 12 days. Many are contagious much longer.

The 5 day isolation guidance combined with rapid tests that don't detect the virus until 4 or 5 days after symptoms start create a situation that allows for transmission to continue, virtually unabated.

The CDC and the Whitehouse are allowing this to continue. The free tests aren't free at all. They are a tremendous cost on society. They are a scapegoat for disability claims in the future because people won't have a record even if they test positive, while tricking most into believing they didn't have COVID. It is criminal negligence at best.

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Sorry, if I’m repeating, I’m still trying to figure out how to use the Substack app… In any case, I am scared by what I read in your most recent a report, and at the same time or you confused at what I see as conflicting information from other sources. Following is an excerpt from Dr. Eric Toprol’s Substack recently....“The Good News

Unexpectedly, given the marked difference in mutations between XBB.1.5, the target of the monovalent “updated” booster compared with JN.1, there is very good cross-recativty as shown in 3 highly regarded labs (Yunlong Cao’s in Peking, David Ho’s at Columbia and David Veesler’s at U Washington). These labs have preprint published data showing solid levels of neutralizing antibodies for the XBB.1.5 booster against JN.1, our best surrogate marker for protection vs severe Covid (hospitalizations and deaths). From the Ho lab report, note the similarity of levels of neutralizing antibodies for XBB.1.5 boosters (Pfizer or Moderna) as seen with JN.1. We’d expect the same for the Novavax booster which was not assessed in that study.”........o another but related note, if I may, I’m very curious as to whom is the actual author of TACT is. Can you enlighten me? I enjoyed reading your Substack’s even though they scare me , I feel I need to stay informed. I am a paid subscriber, but would really like to know who is doing the writing. Thanks

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Solid? BA.2.86 is from XBB.1.5, as far as XBB.1.5 is from the original Wuhan strain.

We had 3 other target vaccines in between XBB.1.5 and the original. BA.5 vaccine doesn't work against XBB.1.5. This works against JN.1?

I highlighted the following and this doesn't add any insight into IgG4/IgG1 ratio, T-cell responses or even antibodies responses 3 months out. The discussion was written when JN.1 was barely on the variant proportions graph they display. Would they feel the same way today? They updated the study on 11/27, but the graph wasn't updated. It only goes until 10/27. Why didn't they update it? Was it because it would show JN.1 increasing fast?

When they cite the neutralizing antibodies against each variant, updating the graph is a critical piece to update. Instead, we have to assume they chose not to because it shows how fast JN.1 is outcompeting the variants with higher neutralization.

When I spot deception, it adds to the distrust of their interpretation of the results.

They aren't considering the other evolutionary changes of JN.1 at the individual mutation level or the reasons for those changes. They are trying to spin something positive out of an antibody only review that shows significantly decreased neutralization and only within a short period of time.

Not helpful in understanding the broader response and how that could impact us after an infection with the JN.1 variant.

The cumulative data shows that it could negatively impact us in several ways.

"Overall, serum titers against JN.1 were the

lowest, by 2.9-to-4.3-fold relative to titers against XBB.1.5"

"This study is limited to evaluation of serum neutralizing antibodies, without addressing T-cellresponses or mucosal immunity, both of which could provide added protection against SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, we have only examined acute antibody responses after XBB.1.5

monovalent vaccine booster or XBB.1.5 infection, but how such responses evolve over time will require follow-up studies."

The same authors published this is Oct 2022. Later we found little to no T-cell boost and higher IgG4 antibodies. Note that year later, it's still a pre-print.

It seems they published at key times to promote vaccine uptake.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.22.513349v1

Interestingly, David D Ho is a consultant for this Chinese manufacturer of vaccines and other biopharma biologicals. They have built 3 huge facilities in the U.S. since 2020. One more due to coming online in 2025.

Obviously, it could be a huge incentive to drive vaccine uptake if they have any part in the process. They must because of the huge investments since 2020. I doubt that's a coincidence.

https://www.wuxibiologics.com/locations-facilities/#Global_Network

Lastly, Eric Topol often promotes vaccines despite questionable data.

Why doesn't he discuss the following paper, which T.A.C.T. will do? Why isn't he encouraging preventing infections in schools, homes and healthcare settings?

In case there was any doubt, the study below confirms again, near constant SARS-CoV-2 in the air at schools. Influenza peaking the week before winter break. Both decline after winter break, but COVID doesn't stop. It resets to the community rate. Unsurprisingly, they both significantly contribute to absenteeism.

The next 3 weeks are the highest prevalence of the entire year.

"Four Methods for Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza A Virus Activity in Schools"

(Dec 5 2023)

Introduction

"As community-based SARS-CoV-2 testing programs waned, alternatives for monitoring virus activity emerged. Kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) schools provided excellent venues for surveillance given their role in respiratory virus amplification.

Methods

"The Oregon School District (OSD) serves 4114 K-12 students. We examined the concordance of 4 independent surveillance methods for IAV and SARS-CoV-2 in OSD schools, comparing the weekly results of each program in this cross-sectional study."

"From September 1, 2022, through January 28, 2023, 334 K-12 children participated in ORCHARDS, resulting in 114 IAV detections (34.1%) and 32 SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR detections (9.6%). Student absenteeism monitoring recorded 1425 a-ILI days and 883 a-CoV days. Of 200 RAT contemporaneously performed in school nurses’ offices, 24 (12.0%) were positive for IAV and 9 (4.5%) for SARS-CoV-2. Air samples were positive for IAV in 43 of 154 school weeks and 12 of 22 weeks; and air samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 in 101 of 154 school weeks and 22 of 22 weeks"

Discussion

"Air sampling provided equivalent results to 3 parallel methods for SARS-CoV-2 and IAV monitoring using study participant sampling with RT-PCR, cause-specific absenteeism, and school-based rapid antigen detection over a 22-week period. Differing patterns between these 2 viruses emerged. While SARS-CoV-2 detections were stable (endemic), IAV demonstrated a substantial (epidemic) increase throughout November and December, receding after winter break. These contrasting activity patterns were reflected in each surveillance platform, except for RAT postwinter break, which did not detect SARS-CoV-2 activity. This study was limited by evaluating a single school district for only 22 weeks. Use of complementary surveillance tools in K-12 schools, including air sampling, may enhance detection of respiratory virus outbreaks."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812566

#schooltransmission

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Thanks, very helpful, although some of it was above my level of understanding, I get the gist of it.

Still very curious about exactly who T.A.C.T. Is, I.e. who is the person whose commentary I am reading.thanks.

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I will tell you this. I have a son with a weakened immune system and other issues. I am doing my best to protect him and now everyone else from this disease by providing the latest science and data in a way that more people can understand so that they can take proactive measures to avoid infections. I discovered early in 2020, that the CDC and public health were not staying in front of it. They have consistently been weeks or months behind in providing the data or updating guidance that reflects the most effective and safe path forward. Public Health is almost constantly influenced by politics. Politically influenced public health consistently fails the people at highest risk.

If you or anyone else sees something that doesn't add up please point it out and question it. If you don't understand something, just ask. I am always appreciative of the feedback and will do my best to respond asap. Thank you for helping support this work. It is appreciated.

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Thank you. I think a lot of folks are looking or the real science for the same reason, to protect their families. I also agree that the government/powers that he haven’t done a great job of helping us protect ourselves. Particularly now, with so little data. It’s inexcusable that the reporting has fallen off. I’m one o the few that still hasn’t been infected, just trying to keep it that way. Thanks for what you are doing.

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