Happy Twosday! Transmission This article reports on the results of the first human challenge trial (meaning: deliberate infection) of COVID Classic. You’re going WAIT WHAT? HOW COULD THAT POSSIBLY PASS ETHICS REVIEW? This happened in the UK (so different ethics boards), and they did work hard to minimize potential harm to the subjects (like making… Continue reading 2022-02-02 General
Author: Ducky
2022-02-01 BC
Press Briefing Here is what I found interesting/novel in today’s briefing (video, slides): Paxlovid BC has 4000 doses coming (or here already? unclear), and that’s way fewer than the number of cases. Paxlovid has to be started within five days of symptoms. DrH said they have set up a “hub and spoke” model so that… Continue reading 2022-02-01 BC
2022-02-01 General
Vaccines This study in Israel of people over 60 found that the risk of infection dropped in half after their fourth dose of vaccine; the risk of severe illness dropped by a fourth. Note that this sounds really good, but the study was only in people over 60, and there’s no information on waning. Pathology… Continue reading 2022-02-01 General
2022-01-31 BC
Statistics Fri/Sat: +1,725 cases Sat/Sun: +1,293 cases Sun/Mon: +1,057 cases Over the weekend, approximately +7 deaths, +2,027 first doses, +3,423 second doses, +30,802 other doses per day. Currently 1,048 in hospital / 138 in ICU, 27,454 active cases, 293,124 recovered. first doses second doses third doses of adults 93.1% 90.5% 49.1% of over-12s 92.7% 90.1%… Continue reading 2022-01-31 BC
2022-01-29/30/31 General
Vaccines There’s a great, long Twitter thread which looks at the effect of vaccines. (It summarizes a paywalled article, if you want to see the whole thing.) One of the elements which I found striking was how the risk of COVID-19 relative to the flu has dropped over time. In mid 2020, the infection fatality… Continue reading 2022-01-29/30/31 General
2022-01-31 Booster Recommendation
I am putting this here in a stand-alone document so that I can refer to it easily. People have been asking me which booster they should get, Pfizer or Moderna? For effectiveness, the answer is always Moderna, though it’s not so bad if you get Pfizer. All the studies I have seen say that Moderna… Continue reading 2022-01-31 Booster Recommendation
2022-01-28 General
Variants I don’t like to warn about variants before there’s data. (I didn’t sound alarms about Mu, for example.) Well, I think it’s time to talk about BA.2 — an Omicron variant. (The Omicron variant which sprouted up first is BA.1.) BA.2 doesn’t look like it is lot worse than BA.1 — not like Delta… Continue reading 2022-01-28 General
2022-01-28 BC
Vaccinations This article reports that a BC judge ordered that a child of divorced parents be vaccinated. (One parent wanted vax and the other did not.) Press Briefing This briefing was reeeally dull. DrH opened with, no shit, a retrospective of the pandemic. I guess it was good for reminding us of what obstacles we… Continue reading 2022-01-28 BC
2022-01-27 BC
Mitigation Measures This article says that the Canucks are being pressured to enforce masking when fans are seated. I am confused, because I thought Dr. Henry said that the rule was that you had to be masked when walking around (after a photo of her, unmasked at a Canucks game, surfaced). Did the rules change?… Continue reading 2022-01-27 BC
2022-01-27 General
Pathology This study found that pregnant women were 1.77x as likely to develop preeclampsia if they got COVID-19; women who had not given birth before were 1.89x as likely. They found the risk of a preterm birth for all pregnant women with both COVID-19 and preeclampsia was 4.05x (and 6.26x for women who had never… Continue reading 2022-01-27 General