2026-10-02 BC

Flu A and COVID-19 levels are both definitely going up. COVID levels have accelerated quite a bit. I guess COVID-19 is not going to peak in early October like it did for the past few years. Pity. Vaccines The province’s fall vaccination campaign has started — sort of? I heard on Oct 1 that they… Continue reading 2026-10-02 BC

2026-10-02 General

COVID-19 COVID-Related Excess Death and Sickness 🧠 This preprint from Israel (2026-09-23) reports that COVID-19 infections increase your risk of a stroke in the next two years: NB: It wasn’t clear if the lower risk of stroke among people vaccinated four times was because the vaccine made people more resistant to stroke, or just because… Continue reading 2026-10-02 General

2026-09-26 BC

🎉 The province has switched to their fall/winter reporting schedule, which means that they are reporting data every week now. This means I will be publishing a BC post every week. Flu season has definitely started, much earlier than it has in previous years. I suspect it’s because the southern hemisphere is having a very… Continue reading 2026-09-26 BC

2026-09-26 General

COVID-19 Long COVID This paper from USA (2026-09-21) looked at health care workers and Long COVID. They found that 11.3% of the healthcare personnel reported persistent Long COVID symptoms. Different groups had different risks: I found the clinical/non-clinical split surprising. In the discussion, the authors theorize that the clinical people probably had better masks/better fit… Continue reading 2026-09-26 General

2026-09-19 General

Multiple Pathogens Recommended Reading This post by Biobot (2026-09-01) discusses exactly how they normalize their wastewater readings to account for variations in the wastewater stream. TL;DR: they use a combination of the pepper mild mottle virus concentration (which changes over time, as apparently peppers have outbreaks too) and the quantity of water in a week… Continue reading 2026-09-19 General

2026-09-12 General

I don’t have much news for you this week. COVID-19 levels seem to be increasing around us. COVID-19 COVID-Related Excess Death and Sickness This report from Canada (2026-09-10) reports that people who self-reported having had a COVID-19 infection had a much higher risk of developing a new medical condition compared to people who said they’d… Continue reading 2026-09-12 General

2026-09-05 BC

COVID-19 levels are definitely going up, but are still pretty low compared to previous waves. Charts From the Viral Respiratory Outcomes page (updated 3 September 2026 with data through 29 August): From the Viral Pathogen Characterization page with data up to 1 July, as reported on 6 August: Most pathogens are at a really low… Continue reading 2026-09-05 BC

2026-08-29 General

COVID-19 Pathology 🤰😬 This paper from USA (2026-08-12) reports that pregnancy-related death — for both mothers and babies — is higher if the mother catches COVID-19 while pregnant, that the risk varied with variant, and that it was much higher (especially for the mothers) than for mothers who don’t catch COVID-19. Compared to women who… Continue reading 2026-08-29 General

2026-08-21 General

COVID-19 Vaccines 💉 This paper from USA (2026-07-31) reports that brain surgery patients who got a COVID-19 vaccination (92% of which were mRNA) within 100 days before surgery had a median post-surgery survival time that was about twice as long as the median for people who did not get a COVID-19 vaccination survived. Influenza vaccines… Continue reading 2026-08-21 General