Eating vegetables and drinking coffee are associated with diminished risk of COVID-19 in the UK health biobank. As a coffee drinker, I find this encouraging (even if the reduction is modest).
Eating at least "... 0.67 servings/d of vegetables (cooked or raw, excluding potatoes) was associated with a lower risk of COVID-19 infection." 2/3 of a serving a day? Do a lot of people in the UK eat one serving of a vegetable less than 2 out of 3 days?
Of course, this is associational, not experimental, so causality is not demonstrated.
I was saying back in January of 2020 that we needed a rapid antigen test, costing $1. Honored that you agree.
I've also had a very hard time figuring out how weekly tests matter, given the incubation period of this virus (which is seemingly even shorter for the Delta variant).
You wrote, "Even if the test result is very fresh, 40% of those negative results might actually be people who are positive. By comparison, vaccination prevents 85% of cases—meaning that vaccinated people are about 15% as likely to be positive as unvaccinated people are. A random person who has received a negative test but is unvaccinated might well be more likely to be infected than a random vaccinated person." Aren't you comparing apples to oranges? 85% is the degree of protection (and that's not a very hard number) for the mRNA vaccines used in the USA. 40% is the *lower bound* of the false negative results of PCR tests. Comparing failure to detect actual viral infections with the *ratio* of the probability of being infected between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people ... I fail to see how they're directly commensurable.
(Why compare the worst PCR results with the best vaccine? Why not compare the 5% number to Sinovac's or Janssen's vaccine?)
"By the way, if you’re vaccinated, and you feel sick? Go get tested. It’s really important." I have hay fever. As I type this, I'm slightly sniffly. I suppose I could get tested every day, but in practice, given the current costs, I don't want to. One problem with COVID-19 is that it causes so many, and such diverse, symptoms. The only distinctive one I am aware of is losing smell and/or taste, pretty rare otherwise.
Relevant to your August 11 column: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/6/2114/htm
Eating vegetables and drinking coffee are associated with diminished risk of COVID-19 in the UK health biobank. As a coffee drinker, I find this encouraging (even if the reduction is modest).
Eating at least "... 0.67 servings/d of vegetables (cooked or raw, excluding potatoes) was associated with a lower risk of COVID-19 infection." 2/3 of a serving a day? Do a lot of people in the UK eat one serving of a vegetable less than 2 out of 3 days?
Of course, this is associational, not experimental, so causality is not demonstrated.
I was saying back in January of 2020 that we needed a rapid antigen test, costing $1. Honored that you agree.
I've also had a very hard time figuring out how weekly tests matter, given the incubation period of this virus (which is seemingly even shorter for the Delta variant).
You wrote, "Even if the test result is very fresh, 40% of those negative results might actually be people who are positive. By comparison, vaccination prevents 85% of cases—meaning that vaccinated people are about 15% as likely to be positive as unvaccinated people are. A random person who has received a negative test but is unvaccinated might well be more likely to be infected than a random vaccinated person." Aren't you comparing apples to oranges? 85% is the degree of protection (and that's not a very hard number) for the mRNA vaccines used in the USA. 40% is the *lower bound* of the false negative results of PCR tests. Comparing failure to detect actual viral infections with the *ratio* of the probability of being infected between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people ... I fail to see how they're directly commensurable.
(Why compare the worst PCR results with the best vaccine? Why not compare the 5% number to Sinovac's or Janssen's vaccine?)
"By the way, if you’re vaccinated, and you feel sick? Go get tested. It’s really important." I have hay fever. As I type this, I'm slightly sniffly. I suppose I could get tested every day, but in practice, given the current costs, I don't want to. One problem with COVID-19 is that it causes so many, and such diverse, symptoms. The only distinctive one I am aware of is losing smell and/or taste, pretty rare otherwise.