Figure 1. Daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh between 4 March 2020 and 5 October 2021. Daily new confirmed cases are presented as the rolling 7-day average. Data and image from covid19india.org.
Posted on 01/01/2022 9:14:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
FULL CLAIM:
"The most populated state in India just declared they are officially COVID-19 free after promoting widespread use of the safe proven medicine"
In mid-September 2021, a similar claim that the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh had become COVID-19 free, proving the effectiveness of [the] ‘deworming drug’ Ivermectin” spread on outlets, including One America News Network (OAN), The True Defender, and Gateway Pundit. Versions of the claim received more than 100,000 interactions on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter, according to the social media analytics tool CrowdTangle.
The government of Uttar Pradesh started recommending the use of ivermectin to prevent and treat mild COVID-19 patients in August 2020. By comparing the epidemiological data in Uttar Pradesh with other Indian states and the U.S., these outlets suggested that ivermectin is more effective than COVID-19 vaccines to control the pandemic. However, no scientific evidence supports this claim, as we will explain below.
According to data from covid19india.org, a project spearheaded by volunteers dedicated to documenting COVID-19 statistics using multiple official sources, Uttar Pradesh suffered two COVID-19 waves peaking around mid-September 2020 and end-April 2021 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh between 4 March 2020 and 5 October 2021. Daily new confirmed cases are presented as the rolling 7-day average. Data and image from covid19india.org.
In September 2021, the regional government announced a 99% decline in the number of cases that some linked to ivermectin recommendations. However, Uttar Pradesh isn’t “COVID-19 free”, as some outlets claimed (see examples here and here). Although the state reported only 147 active COVID-19 cases as of 7 October 2021, only 37 of its 75 districts have been declared free of COVID-19.
Furthermore, the difference between the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the percentage of the population with antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (seroprevalence) indicates that India is largely undercounting SARS-CoV-2 infections. This underreporting is unevenly distributed among regions, making it difficult to compare the epidemiological situation in different states.
For example, Kerala currently accounts for about half of the new COVID-19 cases in India. OAN and Gateway Pundit claimed that this was proof that this state, which they described as “over-dependent on vaccines and less dependent on Ivermectin”, failed to control COVID-19 cases. However, estimates from July 2021 based on seroprevalence studies indicated that, at that time, Kerala had a far more effective testing strategy than Uttar Pradesh. While Kerala detected one COVID-19 case every six, Uttar Pradesh only detected one case every 100. This means that Kerala doesn’t necessarily have more COVID-19 cases than Uttar Pradesh, but rather might have detected a higher proportion of them.
Simply because two events happened at the same time doesn’t necessarily mean that one caused the other. In other words, correlation alone doesn’t imply causation. Instead, this correlation can be coincidental or the result of a third “confounding factor” that affects the other two events. For instance, the fact that drownings increase at the same time that ice cream consumption doesn’t mean that eating ice cream causes drowning. What happens is that both events are more frequent when the weather is hot, which is the confounding factor.
Likewise, the ivermectin recommendation didn’t necessarily cause the current drop in COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, which can be due to other factors. In an article for The Conversation, epidemiologist Rajib Dasgupta explained that the sharp decline in COVID-19 cases in June 2021 might be due to the high proportion of previously infected individuals, combined with COVID-19 vaccination and increased testing.
Indeed, the fourth nationwide seroprevalence study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in June and July 2021 showed that 67.6% of the population over the age of six had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 as a result of either vaccination or previous infection. This figure is much higher than in the previous three national serosurveys (0.7% in May-June 2020, 7.1% in August-September 2020, and 24.1% in December 2020-January 2021)[1].
While previous infections account for a proportion of this high seropositivity rate, COVID-19 vaccination also plays an important role. As of 7 October 2021, almost 40% of the Indian population received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 18% is fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data. Based on data collected between April and August 2021, Indian public health experts found that a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine is “96.6 percent effective in preventing death”.
The fact that many people have antibodies against the virus means that a large proportion of the population is protected from disease to a certain extent, reducing the chances of new infections happening. In late July 2021, an article in the Hindustan Times reported that Uttar Pradesh was one of the states with the highest seropositivity rate (71%).
Interestingly, Kerala had the lowest seropositivity rate (44.4%). Notably, at that time, 35% of its population had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and almost 20% were fully vaccinated. These statistics taken together suggest that the seropositivity was mainly the result of vaccination, not infection. This suggests that Kerala was more effective at slowing the spread of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic than in the rest of the country. In a New York Times article published in May 2021, health experts explained that this result was due to a combination of high investment in healthcare and rigorous testing and contact tracing strategies from the beginning of the pandemic.
Finally, OAN claimed that ivermectin allowed Uttar Pradesh to control COVID-19 “without the need of lockdowns” and other restrictions. This is false. The administration of Uttar Pradesh did implement restrictions to curb the spread of the virus, including a complete lockdown on 30 April 2021. The lockdown was extended several times across May 2021, followed by night and weekend restrictions until September 2021.
Uttar Pradesh’s government did release guidelines recommending ivermectin to treat mild COVID-19 patients in August 2020. However, this recommendation isn’t on its own proof that the Uttar Pradesh population used the drug more than populations in other states.
Furthermore, ivermectin has been promoted throughout the country at some point during the pandemic, particularly in some states such as Goa. And during the second COVID-19 surge, India’s Ministry of Health & Family Welfare included ivermectin as a possible treatment for patients with mild COVID-19. On 17 May 2021, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) followed suit, although it acknowledged the low quality of evidence supporting ivermectin use in COVID-19 patients. But like in the case of Uttar Pradesh, we don’t know whether these recommendations translated into greater ivermectin use among the population.
OAN’s claim that ivermectin is one of the “safest, most effective medicines in the world” is also misleading. This status only applies to the concentrations and conditions recommended for treating parasitic infections, not as an antiviral in COVID-19 patients.
Public health agencies, including the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, warn about the lack of clear evidence supporting claims about ivermectin’s effectiveness in reducing disease severity, hospitalization, or mortality in COVID-19 patients. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, explained in his blog that most of the studies so far evaluating the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19 have important methodological limitations, including small sample sizes and a small number of events.
Notably, one of the studies that contributed to positive assessments of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment was withdrawn in July 2021 over ethical concerns. As Health Feedback explained on numerous occasions (here, here, here, and here), more reliable studies didn’t find a benefit of the drug in COVID-19 patients. In a July 2021 Cochrane review of 14 previous studies, the authors concluded, “we are uncertain whether ivermectin reduces or increases mortality compared to no treatment”[2]. Given the lack of evidence supporting ivermectin’s use, the ICMR removed this drug from the September 2021 update of its COVID-19 treatment guidelines.
The claim that Uttar Pradesh is now COVID-19 free due to the use of ivermectin is inaccurate and unsupported by scientific evidence. Uttar Pradesh isn’t entirely free of COVID-19, and comparisons with other states are challenging due to differences in testing capacity. Furthermore, many factors other than ivermectin use could have influenced the course of the second COVID-19 wave in Uttar Pradesh, including restrictions and immunity from previous infection and vaccination.
In addition, the quality of evidence supporting ivermectin use in COVID-19 patients is very low. For this reason, public health authorities don’t recommend the use of ivermectin for preventing or treating COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. Given all these uncertainties, we can’t determine whether ivermectin played any role at all in the decline of COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh.
Anti vaxxer podcaster Doug Kuzma, radio host Phil Valentine and many others had stashes of Ivermectin.
They are now all room temp or as in Dougs case soon to be.
Shouldn’t you be standing in line for your 17th booster shot? And be sure not to leave the house without your slave muzzle.
One of the biggest Lies of the Biden(Obama, Xi, Soros) Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment headed by Dr. Fow-Chee.
Good post. Always helpful to know how and what the enemy is thinking and I appreciate your posts from sources I wouldn’t normally Find.
How I read this one is the MSM is now scrambling here to tamp down the story on the success of Ivermectin +++ in Uttar Pradesh.
The lefts Covid narratives are falling apart and this is just another attempt at damage control by them. Yeah, Uttar Pradesh didn’t monitor their tests to the standards the author will accept. Boo hoo
None the less, This extremely poor Indian state has outdone what the Purveyors of fear have been Unable to accomplish in their own back yards.
How does he even keep his job after lying to Congress? Also, has he ever explain his patent on COVID in 2006 or why he sold it to China if it wasn’t for gain of function?
You forgot the big one - crematories....that’s probably all you vaxxers out there are interested in for the ‘unwilling’ naysayers anyway.........
On August 25, 2021, the Indian media noticed the discrepancy between Uttar Pradesh’s massive success and other states, like Kerala’s, comparative failure. Although Uttar Pradesh was only 5% vaccinated to Kerala’s 20%, Uttar Pradesh had (only) 22 new COVID cases, while Kerala was overwhelmed with 31,445 in one day. So it became apparent that whatever was contained in those treatment kits must have been pretty effective.
News18 reported, “Let’s look at the contrasting picture. Kerala, with its 3.5 crore population - or 35 million, on August 25 reported 31,445 new cases, a bulk of the total cases reported in the country. Uttar Pradesh, the biggest state with a population of nearly 24 crore - or 240 million - meanwhile reported just 22 cases in the same period....
This peer-reviewed paper is one of the most cited of medical references of all time – period. That should alert any reader – immediately - to its historical significance. Dr. Tess Lawrie is a 30-year veteran WHO evidence synthesis expert. Her conclusion is every bit as meaningful as the article’s rank. Here are those words,
“Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using Ivermectin. Using Ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that Ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.”
India was in an “Ivermectin blackout”, then the news finally broke that ivermectin was used in kits In Pradesh, and news media immediately started attacking the breaking news, and then something happened znd india is again in an “Ivermectin blackout”, and now claim that ivermectin had nothing to do with the dramatic impressive reduction In cases, claiming without any vidence, that “something else must be responsible for the dramatic decrease”. Wow!
The lies just never cease from the left, even when evidence shows such dramatic drops like mentioned above after ivermectin was given there
Why hasn’t the US medical industry tested Ivermectin?
——————-
Ivermectin works. My Summit Care corrupted doctors said it was prohibited by their group to prescribe. So I took the Horse paste when my son caught it in August, he was slightly sick for thee days…by the time I caught it, I had taken one dose, and when my fever hit 103 I took a double dose- by that night my fever dropped to 100 and stayed there till I fully recovered 4-5 days later. UHC Piedmont doctors in my area( yes I will name them) have been corrupted and are guilty of murder at most, sins of omission at the least.
Actually, the distribution of ivermectin in Uttar Pradesh may have mitigated severity of Covid cases, considering the following:
Ivermectin may help covid-19 patients—but only those with worms [—Really ?!?!] https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4017143/posts
High prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth infections among primary school children, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2015 https://idpjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40249-017-0354-7
So, yes, ivermectin may well have been beneficial for Covid patients in Uttar Pradesh because ... worms!
Were I in charge of public health in Uttar Pradesh I might well consider handing out a dose every 6 months to keep the worms at bay as part of my anti-Covid strategy.
Yep, ivermectin doesn’t work on every single person, and. Either do vaccines and all the medicines that hospitals throw at a covid sick person. People are dying with the vaccines and mu,tiple medsmtoo, so what is your point again?
“Many others” huh? Got a Number? Because we can point to 1000’s and 1000’s who have died after being vaxxed, double handed and boosted. Heck they even post numbers zll over the net for daily deaths of “fully vaxxed”
That concept, however, does not invalidate the circumstantial evidence at hand - which does strongly indicate some conclusions not stated above. Including the most important one:
An America-sized population does NOT need the Trump SwampJab to beat CV.
There have been a few studies, but the ones completed so far have shown conflicting results.
See here:
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/tables/ivermectin-data/
All the studies were small and had significant flaws. It appears ivermectin may have a small effect, and this is why these early, small, flawed studies conflict. Detecting and measuring a small effect requires a large study.
There are a number of larger, well-designed studies being conducted in several countries now (two in Japan alone). It will be interesting to see what they show when complete.
RE: Anti vaxxer podcaster Doug Kuzma, radio host Phil Valentine and many others had stashes of Ivermectin.
With every anecdote you have like the one above, I can point you to this:
The daughter of a Hong Kong man who was treated in the ICU for coronavirus at Edward Hospital asserts that his recovery is due to a DuPage County judge ordering the hospital to permit him to receive ivermectin treatments.
Sun Ng, 71, was released from the hospital Nov. 27, according to a news release from Mauck & Baker, LLC, the law firm that represented the family’s case. Ng was hospitalized with coronavirus on Oct. 14 and placed on a ventilator four days later.
Ng’s daughter, Dr. Man Kwan Ng, sued Edward-Elmhurst Health after the hospital denied her request to allow her father to receive ivermectin, according to a previous news release from Dr. Ng’s lawyers.
In early November, Judge Paul Fullerton ordered the hospital to allow Dr. Alan Bain, who is not vaccinated against coronavirus, to come to the hospital to provide ivermectin treatments.
Which brings me back to what I would do if I were in charge:
ANYONE WHO DOES NOT WANT IVERMECTIN NEED NOT TAKE IT. ANYONE WHO WANTS IVERMECTIN FOR COVID SHOULD BE GIVEN THE FREEDOM TO TAKE IT.
No, it’s not the doctors’ fault directly. They were threatened by the AMA with losing their license if they used it. Blame the CDC and AMA for banning Ivermectin.
There have been many large studies in other countries, including Japan, Australia, and India. For some reason, the CDC and AMA choose to ignore them.
India has a very lucrative relationship with pharmaceutical companies and many manufacture drugs there. People forget this.
Many regions in India did the right thing but they chose not to publicize it because they did not want to lose the jobs with big pharma. The people in India are not stupid and in the absence of government official decrees they did the same thing many here in the US and elsewhere did and repurposed the drug on their own after hearing about it.
FWIW - Based on over 50 studies and papers it appears that IVM has around a 65-75% effectiveness against Covid and (my take) that number is higher when administered early and lower if given to the severely ill (already had the cytokine storm).
As others have said it is not foolproof or a miracle for everyone but given the well established safety record and lack of contraindications it is criminal that it was not used.
The real kicker and most overwhelming evidence is vitamin D deficiency in those with a negative outcome with Covid.
This factoid is the one that people will possibly be the most angry about. In the world of health statistics and efficacy studies this one will end up being the closest to 100% for Covid.
For those interested I have been reading studies here and there on quercetin and its properties as a zinc ionophore. In that role it appears to be just as powerful as HCQ when combined with zinc and it is a natural compound (a flavenoid) associated with fruits/vegetables.
The role of zinc in viral suppression appears to be very strong and I highly recommend this supplement as it is quite safe as is zinc in recommended intake. It also acts as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.
I have never been a big supplement person despite my background in biology and physiology. Quercetin, Zinc, and Vitamins D and C are something I will take the rest of my life after all the Covid reading!
Another great supplement to consider if you feel that you are sick and might have covid or any virus is NAC - N-Acytyl Cysteine. I have not finished reviewing all the papers on this but it clearly has a good efficacy and a good safety profile.
Gaffer wrote: “You forgot the big one - crematories....that’s probably all you vaxxers out there are interested in for the ‘unwilling’ naysayers anyway.........”
You couldn’t be more wrong. I want people to live long and healthy which is why I promote the vaccines and disparage the false anti-vaxxer narrative.
[[but given the well established safety record and lack of contraindications it is criminal that it was not used]]
Exactly. There is no reason I know of that it couldn’t be used in addition to, meds they are using for covid in hospitals- there is no downside to combining it, znd only a massive upside to,doing so. Pascal’s wager almost.
Folks do have to be a bit cautious of “all natural” products though. A .ot,of,the ones that fight covid, also are not good onmthe liver,or kidneys for those with serious problems, although the short time it is taken might not do,anything serious, but I don’t know for,sure. Some carry warnings for folks with liver or organ or internal bleeding issues, but “probably” are fine short term and in the smal. Amounts used.
For consideration:
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https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ivermectin_for_Prevention_and_Treatment_of.98040.pdf
Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines was published online June 17, 2021, by the American Journal of Therapeutics. It concludes, “Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.”
August 26, 2021 | Cureus
“Ivermectin as a SARS-CoV-2 Pre-Exposure Preventive in Healthcare Workers: a Propensity Score-Matched Retrospective Cohort Study”
a study from doctors who continued to use ivermectin to subdue COVID-19 with great success in the Dominican Republic. IVM as a Covid Pre-Exposure Preventive.
June 15, 2021 | J Antibiot (Tokyo)
“The mechanisms of action” of Ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2: An evidence-based clinical review article.” reports overwhelmingly positive data for ivermectin’s use in the pandemic.
“100% of 36 early treatment and prophylaxis studies report positive effects… using the most serious outcome reported 79% and 85% improvement for early treatment and prophylaxis respectively…Statistically significant improvements were seen for mortality, ventilation, hospitalization, cases, and viral clearance…100% of the 17 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) for early treatment and prophylaxis report positive effects, with an estimated improvement of 73% and 83% respectively, and 93% of all 28 RCTs.)… The consistency of positive results across a wide variety of cases has been remarkable. It is extremely unlikely that the observed results could have occurred by chance.”
Source: Database of all ivermectin COVID-19 studies – www.c19ivermectin.com – (constantly updated)
(I have not viewed the items in the database.)
There have been studies in various countries. They were all had significant flaws. Some showed some positive effect, some showed no effect. One showed slight negative effect.
When did Japan complete this large study? Do you have a link to share with us? I would love to see it, honestly, and very interested. Maybe it was completed and results published since November?
Japanese Health Minister Norihisa Tamura told a committee of the country’s lower house of parliament in August 2021 that more evidence needed to show the drug was effective in order for it to be prescribed for Covid-19.
Link: https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9R94PR-1
The official guidance for doctors from the Japanese Ministry of Health states that “compared to standard treatment and placebo, ivermectin did not reduce deaths, shorten the hospitalization period and improve time of virus disappearance.”
Japan’s Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said that it is necessary to wait for the proof of the effectiveness of the drug before making any change to the guidance.
Link: https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9M48JR-1
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