Variants Huh. I hadn’t paid attention to the Variants of Concern report in a while, and it turns out that the percentage of cases which are Delta is actually falling in BC. Not just the raw case count, but the proportion. I didn’t think that was supposed to happen! Gamma is rising, but Gamma isn’t… Continue reading 2021-06-21 BC
Author: Ducky
2021-06-20 General
Variants I have been scaremongering about Delta, saying it is more transmissible, causes more severe cases, and is transmitted more in schools. I apparently need to back off a little bit. Delta is more transmissible, that’s uncontestable. This very interesting tweet thread says that the data does not support there being more transmission in schools.… Continue reading 2021-06-20 General
2021-06-19/20 BC
Vaccination Clinics There are pop-up vax clinics in the Interior for first doses. A vax-a-thon in Surrey over the weekend gave 7000 shots! This is an interesting article about vaccine hesitancy in Richmond. While the vax rate is now on par with the rest of the province, it was significantly lower for a while. The… Continue reading 2021-06-19/20 BC
2021-06-19 General
Treatments This preprint might be important. It describes a novel treatment for COVID-19 (and possibly for all viruses). The active ingredient (SLR) activates a molecule called RIG-I, which in turn gooses the production of interleukin-1, which is a cytokine, part of the immune system associated with inflammation. Basically, SLR revs up the innate immune system… Continue reading 2021-06-19 General
2021-06-18 BC
Vaccination Clinics I got my second shot today (wooohoo!) at the Convention Centre, escorted by my beloved spouse. This is what I observed: There were about three greeters at the door to the outside of Canada Place. One asked me if anyone in my bubble had been sick, but I think that was the only… Continue reading 2021-06-18 BC
2021-06-18 General
Mitigation Measures This article says that PM Trudeau is sticking to his guns: he wants 75% of Canadians partially / 20% fully vaxxed before re-opening the border, as Canada extended the border closure until July 21. Good on him. NB: My husband and I have lots of family in the US, so I am not… Continue reading 2021-06-18 General
2021-06-17 General
Vaccines The US just donated 1M Moderna doses to Canada. Canada received 330K Johnson & Johnson doses, but it’s going to sit on them right now because of concerns about contamination. Canada will also refuse any more J&J shipments. Today NACI advised Team AZ to get mRNA for the second dose. While I think this… Continue reading 2021-06-17 General
2021-06-17 BC
Mitigation Measures This article says that the province expects schools to open in September to “near-normal”. They expect there will still be daily health checks, with sick students and teachers staying home, but no more cohorts and learning groups. It sounds like they haven’t fully decided about masks. Press Briefing Today, they said: NACI said… Continue reading 2021-06-17 BC
2021-06-16 General
Vaccines Oh, ouch! CureVac has really crappy preliminary Phase 3 results: 49%. CureVac is an mRNA vax, and they had made all kinds of partnerships with really big pharma companies to manufacture it. They were supposed to deliver 300M this year and 1B next year. That hurts. A survey says that about one in five… Continue reading 2021-06-16 General
2021-06-16 BC
Vaccinations More vaccination appointments have opened up, which might mean that the big Moderna shipment (of 392K doses) has arrived. If you have already booked, you might be able to move up by doing the following: Find your confirmation email with your booking confirmation number (the email message will be from BCVaccDoNotReply@hlth.gov.bc.ca). (You can also… Continue reading 2021-06-16 BC