Other indicators are difficult to interpret, but wastewater COVID-19 levels are sharply, unmistakably down this week. Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: In the week ending Oct. 26, among confirmed cases, there were Reminder: the graphs below don’t tell how many cases there were, but how many cases… Continue reading 2024-11-03 BC
2024-11-03 General
Vaccines ⭐ This preprint from USA (2024-10-12) is about an influenza vaccine study, but it relevant to both COVID-19 and bird flu so I’m putting it at the top. In this study, the researchers used what they call “prime and spike” strategy for influenza where “prime” is an intramuscular injection and “spike” is a nasal… Continue reading 2024-11-03 General
2024-10-26 BC
The hospitalizations per week and ICU admits per week charts look like they are going down, but I don’t believe them: the in-hospital chart looks like it is going up, and the hospitalizations per week and ICU admits per week pretty much always get adjusted upwards later. Meanwhile, the number of cases and the positivity… Continue reading 2024-10-26 BC
2024-10-26 General
COVID-19 Long COVID ⭐ This paper from Sweden (2024-10-16) reports that many Long COVID patients have cardiovascular problems. 41% had microvascular endothelial dysfunction — basically, messed up blood vessels. Another 20% had a poor reactive hyperemia index — IIUC, something that measures the ability of the cardiovascular system to self-regulate. In addition, the patients who… Continue reading 2024-10-26 General
2024-10-18 BC
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has unmistakenly gone up since August, and there is a small but very real rise in the number of COVID-19 cases that they have seen. Positivity, however, hasn’t really moved all that much (and wastewater is hard to interpret), so I don’t know what to tell you… Continue reading 2024-10-18 BC
2024-10-18 General
COVID-19 Pandemic Side Effects It’s not a surprise that a lot of cancer diagnoses didn’t get made in 2020 — everything was hectic. The strange thing that this paper from USA (2024-10-14) shows is that those missing cases never showed up again! 127,931 cancer cases are still missing and they aren’t sure why. Some of… Continue reading 2024-10-18 General
2024-10-14 General
I’m going to try marking snippets with “AGAIN:” if it’s more evidence of something that we already knew, like that COVID-19 infections increase your risk of autoimmune disorders. COVID-19 COVID-Related Excess Sickness and Death It looks like one of the ways that COVID-19 kills people that doesn’t get listed as a COVID-19 death is car… Continue reading 2024-10-14 General
2024-10-12 BC
Politics This article (2024-10-06) reports that the Conservative candidate for BC Premier, John Rustad seems to be open to the idea of punishing — possibly harshly — public health officials, doctors, police, and politicians for implementing various COVID-19 mitigation measures (particularly vaccinations). This is some dark and scary shit. However, in this video, Rustad says… Continue reading 2024-10-12 BC
2024-10-05 BC
Note: I urged people recently in several forums to get a flu shot. I should have qualified a little. I think you should get a flu shot THIS SEASON, but I don’t think you need to get it TODAY. Sure, if you want to get it done now so you don’t forget, fine. But I… Continue reading 2024-10-05 BC
2024-10-05 General
COVID-19 Long COVID One strange thing about human DNA is that there is DNA for viruses (called human endogenous retroviruses, HERV) embedded in our genome, presumably left over from ancient viral infections. Usually they stay there, but every once in a while they get loose. This paper from Spain (2024-07-31) reports that the levels of… Continue reading 2024-10-05 General