Variants
This article talks about a lot of things, but says:
- Breakthrough cases appear to be increasing for Delta. However, they don’t give any “before” numbers, and it’s not clear if it’s just because the number of vaccinated people is increasing.
- The absolute number of breakthrough cases is still low.
- The average age of a breakthrough death in Oregon (which is one of the only places which keeps track/reports) is 83.
Mitigation Measures
This article calculates/models the hydrodynamics of hand-washing. The bottom line to me is that faster hand motions are better than slower.
Treatments
They just found an antibody which is effective against all the strains. This is a big deal: they can turn it into an effective monoclonal antibody!
Origin
This article argues that SARS-CoV-2 most likely came from trading in animals susceptible to bat coronaviruses. It mentions that there was a shortage of pork in 2019 due to culling herds, to halt African swine fever virus, so consumers might have bought more wild meat to compensate.
Vaccines
This article models whether it is better to hoard or share vaccines. Spoiler: sharing is better.
This is a great article which goes through and explains why the vax effectiveness is NOT waning in Israel, despite the worrying numbers which have been reported. Most people are fine and DO NOT NEED A BOOSTER. Spoiler: it’s Simpson’s Paradox.