SARS-2 and Paxlovid resistance; the vaccinator myth of myocarditis from Covid; the continued collapse of mask mandates in Germany; the coming Pfizer and Moderna 400% price hike
SARS-2 appears to be on the verge of evolving resistance to the widely over-prescribed Paxlovid, as indeed many suggested it might. Limiting use of the antiviral to avoid placing selective pressure on SARS-2 to develop Paxlovid resistance, however, would mean less money for Pfizer, so it’s not going to happen. It’s also not in keeping with the ways of the pandemicists, who prefer always and everywhere universal solutions and know nothing of strategy, prudence or moderation.
A Twitter friend points to this literature review of 50 studies involving a total of nearly 550 postmortem investigations, failing to find once again that myocarditis is a symptom of Covid infection. Vaccinators have promoted the opposite view, to cast SARS-2 as more dangerous than their myocarditis-inducing vaccines. In retrospect, this makes the explosion of anxiety surrounding Covid-induced myocarditis (specifically in young male athletes) in Fall 2020, just as Pfizer/BioNTech were preparing to take their vaccines to Phase 3 trials, particularly interesting. At the time nobody could’ve known what effect the mRNA vaccines would have upon widespread administration, but myocarditis is a well-studied side-effect of the smallpox vaccine, and is often included in lists of possible adverse events from vaccination.
As more and more German states abolish public transit mask mandates, political pressure is growing to end federal rules requiring masks in long-distance trains, the last refuge of mask rules in everyday life. It’s just unbelievably stupid, to travel via the underground unmasked to the main train station, where you must then don a mask to take your train to the next city. Nobody believes this does anything.
Moderna and Pfizer are planning to increase the cost of their elixirs by 400% over current prices, as their government purchasing contracts expire and they anticipate lower demand in the upcoming Fall 2023 booster ritual. Stephane Bancel of Moderna argues that the new price, of over $100 per dose (yielding an estimated margin of 10,000%) “is consistent with the value.”
Slightly off topic from this post, but it appears to me that, when the dust settles eventually, the entire covid vaccination saga will have made people suspicious of _all_ vaccines on an unheard-of scale. What do you think?
I’ll take the under on $0 as consistent with the true value.