2021-04-12 General

Vaccines

This preprint describes some early work on a vaccine which could work against ALL coronaviruses.


This preprint found B.1.1.7 wasn’t more able to reinfect people, didn’t give different or longer symptoms, that it was more transmissible, and that lockdown was able to bring Rt below 1 even in the presence of lots of B.1.1.7.

VOCs

A preprint with a small number of cases says they found no increased lethality from B.1.1.7. NB: other studies have, but I’m mentioning this study for fairness.

Treatments

Antibody treatments have been shown to work pretty well, but they are under-utilized because they have had to be given via IV drip, which means sitting an active COVID patient in an infusion centre for a few hours. Most of the patients at infusion centres, however, are cancer patients, getting their immune system trashed by chemotherapy. Bad combo.

This article says that Regeneron given as four shots, instead of as an IV drip, does a bangup job at keeping the disease from progressing and shortens the time they are sick. Awesome!


The US Army is working on a blood filter which takes out COVID-19. Hook up a patient to a dialysis machine, run their blood through the filter, boom, cured!