JSatoNotes

I like reading negative papers about the BCG hypothesis since they give me another angle to think critically about the BCG hypothesis. Here comes a report analyzing the former East/West Germany testing the BCG hypothesis. Interestingly, this report comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York! STAFF REPORTS The Spread of COVID-19 and the BCG Vaccine: A Natural Experiment in Reunified Germany Number 926 May 2020 Authors: Richard Bluhm and Maxim L. Pinkovskiy https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr926 https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr926.pdf This is a report and not a paper peer-reviewed, but this report is much higher quality than the peer-reviewed paper from Israel . Probably, the authors are econometrics researchers and their analytical skills are much better than Dr. Ferguson or Dr. Nishiura. Don't the authors know the herd(external) immunity effect? This report clearly analyzes the big difference between th

I was so impressed by Dr. Levitt's interview. He is totally right. This epidemic was never exponential, only sub-exponential. His word of "prior immunity" is the key. This is a huge difference and Dr. Levitt pointed out immediately after Dr. Ferguson published his simulation. It's a single-digit mistake. Nobel prize-winning scientist: the Covid-19 epidemic was never exponential - The Post https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/ I tried to tell Dr. Levitt that "prior immunity" can be hugely different from BCG/TB and this may be causing the huge difference by country. But, no response. https://twitter.com/j_sato/status/1256924383974526976 (Added on 28 May) Below is the chart Dr. Miyasaka used in his Facebook post. I totally agree. Today(16 May), I read a very important article by the immunologist, Dr. Miyasaka. He challenges the current herd immunity model that only takes into accoun