The province says this is the last weekly data update until Fall (except for wastewater). The Viral Respiratory Outcomes page and the Pathogen Characterization pages will be updated on the first Thursday of the month. Vaccines According to this social media post (2026-05-07), there have been some trouble with the vaccine reservation system. You can… Continue reading 2026-05-08 BC
2026-05-08 General
COVID-19 Long COVID This conference presentation (which I think is from China) (2026-05-03) reports that SIM01, a mix of pre- and probiotics, significantly helped Long COVID patients compared to placebo. SIM01 reduced fatigue, insomnia, memory loss, and shortness of breath. (Unfortunately, there’s very little details or information, so this is only slightly more convincing than… Continue reading 2026-05-08 General
2026-05-01 BC
The province says this is the last weekly data update until Fall (except for wastewater). The Viral Respiratory Outcomes page and the Pathogen Characterization pages will be updated on the first Thursday of the month. Vaccines I have gotten mixed messages about the Spring COVID-19 vaccinations. A friend of mine in Fraser who is over… Continue reading 2026-05-01 BC
2026-05-01 General
COVID-19 Vaccines ❌ The acting head of the US CDC, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, blocked publication of a paper in the US CDC’s weekly (and highly respected) journal. It is hugely unusual for a paper to get blocked like that by a high official (probably unprecedented, though I don’t know all of the US CDC’s history),… Continue reading 2026-05-01 General
2026-04-24 BC
Hospital System I missed it when it came out, but as this press release (2025-12-05) describes, the province is going to centralize certain health care administration tasks. Instead of each Health Authority having their own legal, supply chain, finance and human resources, those are all going to be consolidated into one standalone shared services organization,… Continue reading 2026-04-24 BC
2026-04-24 General
COVID-19 Long COVID This long article (2026-04-21) on transauricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) talks a little bit about how some long haulers experimenting with (non-approved) taVNS self-treatment have found relief from taVNS, but the article talks even more about how it has negative effects for some long haulers. (TL;DR: be careful about your experimenting with… Continue reading 2026-04-24 General
2026-04-18 BC
Health Care System This press release (2026-04-01) from the Ministry of Health says that BC has successfully poached hired 500 health care workers from the USA by now. It also says that: The province has also recently opened new urgent/primary care centres in PoCo (2026-03-18), UBC (2026-03-30), and Surrey (2026-04-10). Charts From the Viral Respiratory… Continue reading 2026-04-18 BC
2026-04-18 General
Multiple Pathogens Hospitals This article (2026-04-16) about this report (2026-04-16) says that the number of hospitalizations for vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases for Canadians more than doubled between 2019 and 2024, from 66 per 100,000 to 142 per 100,000. (BC had 125 vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases per 100,000 in 2024.) There were almost 60,000 vaccine-preventable respiratory hospitalizations in… Continue reading 2026-04-18 General
2026-04-10 BC
COVID-19 Vaccines Other provinces have announced the particulars of their Spring 2026 COVID-19 vaccination campaign, but BC has not said anything yet. Last year, this press release (2025-03-28) announced that the spring campaign would start on 8 April 2025. This year, crickets so far. This article (2026-04-10) reports that childhood vaccination rates have been dropping… Continue reading 2026-04-10 BC
2026-04-10 General
Multiple Pathogens 💊 Metformin seems to be a bit of a wonder drug. It helps Type 2 diabetics, people with polycystic ovary syndrome, and it inhibits weight gain. Studies of using metformin to treat or prevent COVID-19 and Long COVID are mixed, but on balance it tends to help, and it helps some groups with… Continue reading 2026-04-10 General