Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has died aged 61, the country’s vice-president has announced.
…Mr Magufuli had not been seen in public for more than two weeks, and rumours had been circulating about his health.
Opposition politicians said last week that he had contracted Covid-19, but this has not been confirmed.
I don’t know what to add to that, really. Except to hope that maybe now Tanzania’s public health policies will focus a little less on steam inhalation and herbal medicines, and a little more on vaccines, COVAX permitting.
That comment is proof that Trump didn’t really cause ‘Trumpism’, as it already existed as an unnamed phenomenon. Trump was just the first one to identify that ‘market’ and capitalize on it for political purposes.
Now that Trump is no longer a viable vehicle to use for hauling their grievances around, more and more are probably done with him. On to the next authoritarian demagogue.
Does this mean there’s evidence that asymptomatic COVID-19 in expectant mothers could lead to autism in their children? Maybe I’m reading your post wrong? Otherwise, that is really interesting.
No, what she was saying was that there are a lot of things that are not apparent immediately after birth that can be defects caused by COVID-19. Furthermore, we may never know because there were a lot of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.
I’d rephrase that even more for greater clarity and fewer unwanted implications.
As a general matter there are a lot of developmental defects that can occur in fetuses for whatever random reason. Many of these defects are hidden in infants and only manifest months or years later as the child grows. Autism is an obvious example, but so is poor vision, dyslexia, some hearing problems, or Huntington’s disease.
We have no reason think COVID specifically causes any such defects, much less any particular type of defect.
But we also don’t (yet) have enough statistics on COVID babies growing up to rule out the possibility.
In 2020 & 2021 a lot of people had symptomatic COVID without being tested, and an even greater number had asymptomatic COVID without being tested. Only a very small fraction of all COVID cases ever got tested and therefore definitively identified as COVID vs flu vs common cold vs nothing at all. Women (and men) of childbearing years are particularly likely to have mild to asymptomatic COVID cases and are therefore less likely than the average person to have gotten a COVID test for their infection.
That means that if we later observe an actual bump in some kind(s) of defects it will be very difficult to prove or disprove any connection with COVID because so few of the parents with defective kids will have been tested for COVID at the time. We will be left with only a correlation, not a proof of causation.
I remember a WWII poster for army camps (not for civilian consumption) which showed a child addressing a soldier: “I bet you’re not afraid of anything.” And the message at the bottom was LIVE UP TO IT SOLDIER. Maybe it’s time to revisit that message.
By the way: The poster’s intent was to encourage soldiers to take VD prophylaxis.
So for statistics - Minnesota is done-ish vaccinating th 65+ crowd (as in, we’ve been open to other people for a number of weeks - when I work the clinic, I still see a few Seniors just getting around to getting their shots. 84.1% of that population has had at least one shot. So max - 16% are refusers. In the general population, we are over 40% at least one dose in, and we seem to be having some issues in communities of color - although whether that is vaccine refusal or distribution issues (it can be hard to find a vaccine without access to a car), I don’t know.
I’d like to further emphasize something I tried to say in my original post, but it got lost, is this:
We do know FOR A FACT that a number of viruses, which are asymptomatic in the mother, cause birth defects in the fetus. Zika and rubella are two examples, but there are others, and a few suspect, but nothing proved.
It does not seem a far-reach, therefore, to speculate that asymptomatic COVID in a mother could cause something in a child that will not be obvious at birth.
If you continue, “Alternate Gothic” will be saved as the current font. This font isn’t available on the device you are currently using, so another font may be used for display, for print, or for both. Do you want to continue?
I used Franklin Gothic Medium (except for the COVID-19 part, which I forgot to change), which is close.
