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COVID-19 myths that refuse to die, from undue concern about children to variants and vaccines – National Post

Published

3 years ago

July 22, 2021

Harry Miller

The pandemic was never a danger to children

Author of the article:

Tristin Hopper

Publishing date:

Jul 22, 2021 • 3 hours ago • 5 minute read • 33 Comments

July 6 photo of children at a playground in Philadelphia. Photo by REUTERS/Hannah Beier

If you’re reading this in Canada, you live in one of the most vaccinated countries on earth when it comes to COVID-19. Over the weekend, the rate of Canadians who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 officially passed the U.S.

The effects have been dramatic. On Saturday, a mere three Canadians died of the disease, and COVID-19 hospital wards across the country are emptying out. By any available metric, Canada has successfully vaccinated its way out of the pandemic and is now one of the safest places on earth for COVID-19.

Despite this, we continue to hold on to some of the Western world’s strictest lockdown measures, while public opinion continues to assign far greater danger to COVID-19 than it now deserves. Below, a list of some of the most pervasive myths still clinging to the novel coronavirus, as well as the science as to why they’re wrong.

COVID-19 is dangerous to children

Only 25 children in the U.K. died from COVID-19 complications in the first year of the pandemic.

The same period, from March 2020 to February 2021, saw 97,000 total British COVID-19 fatalities, as well as the deaths of 3,105 children from all causes, including cancer, drownings and car crashes. This month, a National Health Service study concluded that any child under 18 who contracted COVID-19 in the U.K. had a 99.995 per cent chance of surviving.

And the U.K’s child death rate is high by global standards. Only 397 children aged 18 and under in the U.S. have died of COVID-19, against more than 49,000 American children who died of other causes (and more than 598,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths total). In Canada, the under-18 deaths is 14, roughly 0.1 per cent of the country’s total COVID-19 death toll. Since the pandemic began, at least five times that number of Canadian children have died of drowning.

A comprehensive analysis of hospital admissions and reported deaths across England suggests that overall risk of death or severe disease from COVID-19 is very low in kids. https://t.co/jOa2kmpnPo

— nature (@Nature) July 16, 2021

What’s more, children’s inherent immunity to COVID-19 has been common knowledge ever since the first North American COVID-19 cases started hitting Washington State. As early as February 2020, it was clear from early case data out of Wuhan, China that the disease’s risk to children was roughly on par with the flu.

These numbers are an indictment of many child-centric lockdown policies, such as school closures. The extremely low risk of COVID-19 to children is why many epidemiologists are now cautioning against universal vaccination of teenagers given recent accounts of the Pfizer vaccine being linked to heart inflammation among youth.

While the side-effect is extremely rare, the benefits that a COVID-19 vaccine offers to teenagers is so vanishingly small that it may not be worth even a minor risk of vaccine injury. This is why the U.K. is not recommending jabs for most children under 18, while countries like Germany and the Netherlands are only advising vaccines for children with pre-existing conditions. As the British Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation put it in a July 15 statement, “the health benefits in this population are small, and the benefits to the wider population are highly uncertain.”

UK government’s report on why UK decided to limit vaccination <18 to kids with co-morbidities/ risk factors

Very similar to our analysis featured in multiple op-eds re: myocarditis/ potential upside benefit

Rationality & numeracy, alive & wellhttps://t.co/H5TCBNQq3b pic.twitter.com/hRr7KDwEwf

— Vinay Prasad, MD MPH ????️???? (@VPrasadMDMPH) July 21, 2021

Masking and self isolation is necessary after full vaccination

Of the 159 million Americans who have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine since January, only 1,063 of them have subsequently died of a “vaccine breakthrough” case of the disease.

For context, given current U.S. death rates, in the same period that cohort of 159 million people likely saw 142,000 deaths due to heart disease, 10,000 deaths due to suicide and 11,000 deaths due to flu or pneumonia.

In recent weeks, virtually all U.S. fatalities from COVID-19 have been occurring among adults who are unvaccinated.

A recent British study meticulously followed frontline workers for four months, testing them every single week to track who was contracting COVID-19. Of 3,975 workers monitored, only five were infected with COVID-19 in spite of being vaccinated — and all five made full recoveries.

Public Health Ontario, meanwhile, found last week that a mere 0.02 per cent of fully vaccinated Ontarians have been infected by a “vaccine breakthrough” case of COVID-19. And given the province’s utterly plummeting rate of COVID-19 deaths (three days this week have seen zero fatalities), it’s safe to assume that almost all of those breakthrough cases are back to work.

PHO Report on Vaccinated “breakthrough cases” – obviously time lags but still good data

Spoiler: Vaccines work
Fully vaccinated adults make up 0.2% of hosp, 0.2% of ICU, and 0.3% of deaths from symptomatic COVID-19

This is a disease of the unvaccinatedhttps://t.co/ooUda56npj pic.twitter.com/jCnbbhwjku

— Zain Chagla (@zchagla) July 7, 2021

In short, we have known for several months that if you are two weeks past your second dose of vaccine, your risk of dying from COVID-19 is about the same as dying from flu or tuberculosis. Despite this, public health authorities across Canada have stubbornly continued to require masking or self-isolation regardless of vaccination status.

The U.S.-based Centres for Disease Control has been similarly prone to overcautious public health orders (only in May did they stop recommending social distancing for the fully vaccinated) but last month CDC director Rochelle Walensky was assuring the fully vaccinated that it no longer made sense to wear masks.

The variants are deadlier and resistant to vaccines

Despite initial fears that vaccines would be useless against the Delta variant, which was first identified in India, June data out of Public Health England found the opposite. In some cases, vaccines were better equipped to ward off the Delta variant than against the earlier Alpha strain, which was first identified in the U.K., but has been overtaken by Delta. Two doses of AstraZeneca, for instance, were 92 per cent effective at preventing hospitalization from Delta variant infection — as compared to 86 per cent effective against the Alpha variant. More recent data has the protection levels even higher.

Media reports of breakthrough cases sometimes leave the impression that the vaccines don’t work well against variants. Not so. Public Health England estimates good vaccine effectiveness for both alpha and delta (June 25 update; UK mostly uses AZ.) https://t.co/vK06s563tj pic.twitter.com/rcypunXsdW

— Caitlin Rivers, PhD (@cmyeaton) July 19, 2021

Just this month, Canadian data similarly emerged to show that full vaccination was just as effective against the Delta variant as against any prior strain of COVID-19. Even a single dose of vaccine was shown to “provide good to excellent protection against symptomatic infection and severe outcomes caused by the 4 currently circulating variants of concern,” reads a preprint paper out of the University of Toronto.

New strains such as the Delta variant are more troublesome for the simple fact that they’re more contagious, and are thus better able to rack up new infections. Earlier this year, despite a wave of reporting that COVID-19 variants were more dangerous to young people, research soon showed that while more people were contracting the variants, they weren’t any more likely to die or require hospitalization once infected. In the words of an April study in The Lancet gauging the severity of the Alpha variant, “we did not identify an association of the variant with severe disease.”

• Email: thopper@postmedia.com | Twitter:

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Business

Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit after gains at Vision Fund and other investments

Published

7 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.

Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.

Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).

SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.

WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.

SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.

The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on X:

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Business

Trump campaign promises unlikely to harm entrepreneurship: Shopify CFO

Published

8 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.

“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”

Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.

On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.

If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.

These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.

If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.

However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.

He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.

“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.

Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.

The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.

Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.

Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.

Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.

Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.

Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”

In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.

“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

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Business

RioCan cuts nearly 10 per cent staff in efficiency push as condo market slows

Published

8 hours ago

November 12, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.

The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.

The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.

RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.

The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.

RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)

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