Marta Cohen: “The important thing will be to count how many more deaths have occurred in total during the pandemic”

– In all these data comparing deaths, infected people, tests, can there be epistemological differences in the statistics? In Germany, we speak of nuance among deaths from covid-19 or with covid-19. It is difficult to understand that in Brazil, with a less rigorous policy to fight against the coronavirus, the number of deaths per capita does not seem so different from Argentina. Will there be a new account when this is all over?

– One of the factors is the number of deaths due to covid-19. It is proportionately very high. But because the number of infected was more than double of those identified. This is because Argentina did not carry out enough tests. Argentina is in the order of 100,000 a day. On the day we write this report, 1,300,000 tests have been carried out and in Argentina 40,000. Not all cases have been identified. And surely, there have been more cases of death with covid-19. People who may have had a stroke and were not known to have the disease and therefore have not been diagnosed. The question refers to what is called excess deaths. It has happened all over the world. These are not necessarily deaths from covid-19, but they are deaths that should have been avoided. They happened because the health care system was dealing with the pandemic. In Europe, there were 50% more. Both factors play a role.

“Isn’t the real measure there?” I have lived in Brazil and am amazed that the number of deaths due to covid is not higher in proportion to the population. I guess something similar must be happening in India and other countries.

What matters is the number of people who have died, from covid or due to the pandemic. The UK has a very good public health system. Yet there are five million people on the waiting list. Many surely have cancer that progressed during the pandemic and went untreated. It will have effects. The important thing will be to count how many more deaths have occurred during the pandemic, by covid-19 or as a result of the lack of necessary care.

“Today, September 2021, I would recommend not to vaccinate children”

—In your latest Instagram posts, you describe the findings of a University of Oxford study, published by the British Medical Journal, which confirms positive results on vaccine side effects. Are all vaccines good?

-We do not know yet. The most dreaded vaccines were those like the Oxford one, specifically for thrombosis. However, now those of messenger RNA viruses, synthetic viruses, are also known to cause side effects such as myocarditis or thrombosis. It is not known what will happen in the long term, as they have been approved provisionally in an emergency. The only one that has been definitively approved is that of Pfizer, by the FDA and for adults only. We don’t know what will happen to long-term messenger RNA vaccines because it is a genetic message that is introduced into a cell which, using cellular machinery, produces a protein that mimics viral antigen to arouse an immune response. We do not know in the long term whether this may have consequences or not. It is very important to analyze the cost / benefit ratio. See the risk of the disease and the benefit of the vaccine. If it is beneficial against the disease, even if it has complications, we go with the vaccine. That is why we need to see what is happening with the vaccination of healthy children, who have a very low risk of dying. We think the risk will be minimal, but we don’t know why the time has not passed yet.

“Would you recommend vaccinating the boys?”

“For now, today, September 2021, I would say no.” For several reasons. The mortality of healthy children from covid-19 is 0.17 per 100,000 inhabitants without comorbidities. We do not know the long term risk of the vaccine. Messenger RNA vaccines can cause myocarditis. All the boys have recovered so far, but some have required intensive therapy. Some messenger RNA vaccines can cause what is called the inflammatory or multisystem syndrome associated with covid-19. It could also happen because of the vaccine. There have been few cases, and they are all healthy boys vaccinated. The benefit of the vaccine is therefore not greater than the risk, it does not justify it. In addition, there is the issue of fairness. The world must be vaccinated. The variants that circulate, each of them, affect adults. Those who complete the intensive therapies are adults. Those who are behind the new variants are adults. In Africa, 1% of the adult population is vaccinated. We must end covid-19 around the world and vaccinate the adult population to end the pandemic. There is also equity. Therefore, the UK does not recommend vaccination of healthy children at this time in conjunction with the aforementioned third dose study.

“Does the third dose pose the same ethical dilemma? “

-No. This is the position of the WHO. The WHO did not say not to vaccinate. WHO said expand and space. When we didn’t have the vaccine, in January, we had 1,400 daily deaths and saturation of intensive care beds in Europe and many parts of the world. Now we have a large number of infected with few deaths because we have both doses. But we know that the effect of the vaccine wears off after eight or ten months. An attempt should be made to maintain the immunity of countries receiving the vaccine and to increase production and optimize distribution in countries in need.

In this link, the full interview of Jorge Fontevecchia to Martha Cohen.