Vaccines This article says that vaccine effectiveness in England was only about 50-60% against infection in the June/July 2021 period. There’s a stat called the number needed to vaccinate (NNV), which is a measure of how many people you would need to vaccinate to prevent some outcome. The NNV for 80 year olds to prevent… Continue reading 2021-11-02 General
Author: Ducky
2021-11-01 BC
Mitigation Measures This article says that 3,325 health-care workers across the province haven’t been vaxxed and have been put on leave without pay, leading to reductions in services at hospitals in the Interior and Fraser health authorities, plus some surgery postponements. I’m sure Minister Dix will give us incredibly detailed statistics on everything at tomorrow’s… Continue reading 2021-11-01 BC
2021-10-30 to 11-01 General
Vaccines This preprint from Israel says that the vaccine effectiveness of a third dose of Pfizer vs. two doses of Pfizer at least five months ago was: 93% against hospitalization, 92% against severe disease (which I think is equivalent to “ICU” here), 81% against death. This article says that Novavax has finished its rolling review… Continue reading 2021-10-30 to 11-01 General
2021-10-29 BC
Mitigation Measures The province announced that the indoors mask mandate was being extended indefinitely. This article reports that BCers can now get the federal vax passport. Statistics +584 cases, +9 deaths. I’m unsure of the vaccinations, but something like +6,797 first doses, +3,787 second doses, +8,731 other doses. Currently 436 in hospital / 156 in… Continue reading 2021-10-29 BC
2021-10-29 General
Vaccines This article says that NACI recommended boosters for a few more groups: People who got two doses of AZ or one of J&J, on the grounds that those seem to wane over time. People over 70 who could become severely ill from the disease. People from First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities. Front-line health-care… Continue reading 2021-10-29 General
2021-10-28 BC
Today’s dashboard vaccine numbers still don’t make any sense, so still no vax charts. Isolation This article says that there has been a spike in cases among Nanaimo’s homeless, who are having difficulty isolating. Mitigation Measures/Assholes This article reports on a court case which is wending its way through the system. There’s a group challenging… Continue reading 2021-10-28 BC
2021-10-28 General
Treatment This paper says that a single infusion of a new-to-me polyclonal antibody — sotrovimab — is 85% effective at preventing hospitalization when given early to high-risk COVID-19 patients. The FDA already gave an EUA to sotrovimab on 26 May; Canada gave interim approval on 30 July (and bought 10,000 doses on 4 October), so… Continue reading 2021-10-28 General
2021-10-27 BC
Note: the province’s dashboard‘s numbers don’t agree with the press release‘s numbers. Furthermore, the dashboard’s vaccination numbers don’t make any sense (+40 first doses, +0 second doses, +0 other doses???). So today, there will be no vaccination stats or charts. Crime This article says that random stranger attacks are up in Vancouver, and speculates that… Continue reading 2021-10-27 BC
2021-10-27 General
Treatments Yay! This article says that Merck has licensed molnupiravir such that ~100 developing countries can manufacture it at low cost! This is awesome. (It hasn’t been approved by any countries yet, but it will be soon, I’m sure.) Yay yay! This article reports that a cheap mature drug for depression — fluvoxamine — reduces… Continue reading 2021-10-27 General
2021-10-26 General
Pathology/Treatment A really puzzling and important question has been: why do some people get really really sick from COVID-19 while others breeze through? This preprint reports on measuring the hell out of three groups of people — healthy, hospitalized, and ICE — to figure out what was different between them. They found: At least 10%… Continue reading 2021-10-26 General