The news has been slow, I think in part because the US has a long weekend, but also because COVID-19 is generally receding as a major issue, certainly in the US but also somewhat in Canada. Variants On Thursday, Dr. Henry nonchalantly announced that they were dropping the dose interval from 16 weeks to 8… Continue reading 2021-05-30/31 BC
Month: May 2021
2021-05-31 General
Vaccines I have been very excited about NDV-HXP-S, which uses a 6-proline substitution (which makes the spike protein more stable) of the spike protein called Hexapro. Well, today a preprint came out with preliminary results that have two really good results in mice modified to have a human immune system. First, they developed an awesome… Continue reading 2021-05-31 General
2021-05-29 BC
Transmission This article says that BC CDC is doing a study of transmission of COVID-19 from cats to humans. Vaccines It’s now okay to use AZ for a month past its posted expiry date. Some provinces have doses expiring on 31 May. (Dr.Henry has said that ours expires at the end of June.)
2021-05-29 General
Vaccines If I understand this paper correctly, scientists found spike protein in the blood of mice after vaccinating them with AZ. (See previous discussion of why that matters in the 26 May General blog posting.) There have been a number of papers which say that you are much less likely to transmit COVID if you… Continue reading 2021-05-29 General
2021-05-28 BC
Vaccinations BC continues to vax like crazy, with a record 73,458 doses today! That’s 1.4% of all BCers vaxxed in a day. Here’s what the age breakdown for women looks like: Men are a little bit behind, especially younger men: Statistics +317 cases, +2 deaths, +69,303 first doses (!!!), +4,155 second doses. Currently 292 in… Continue reading 2021-05-28 BC
2021-05-28 General
Variants This paper says that the antibody response from a Pfizer vax to B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 is lower, but the T-cell response is just fine. That means there will be a few more cases in a B.1.1.7- or B.1.351-rich environment, but there won’t be severe cases. A lot of people are worried about the B.1.617.2… Continue reading 2021-05-28 General
2021-05-27 BC
Variants B.1.617.2 is now dominant in the UK. This is legit something to worry about, as one dose of vax is only about half as good as two doses. Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of it in BC — yet. Press Briefing Dr. Henry said: We’ve passed 3M doses given, yay! We are changing… Continue reading 2021-05-27 BC
2021-05-27 General
Mitigation Measures Whaddayaknow, masks work. This literature review says so. Variants B.1.617.2 is now dominant in the UK. This is legit something to worry about, as one dose of vax is only about half as good as two doses. Vaccines Some scientists think that COVID-19 immunity from vaccines will last years, if not a lifetime.… Continue reading 2021-05-27 General
2021-05-26 BC
Vaccinations On a COVID Slack channel that I frequent, the question has come up: “Why are we sitting on 127,917 AstraZeneca doses? If we are saving them for second doses, why not use them as second doses?” I think that’s an excellent question, and we’ve come up with the following possible reasons: They are scared… Continue reading 2021-05-26 BC
2021-05-26 General
Treatments This article explains how scientists can now make mini organs — like mini-lungs and mini-hearts — and infect them with COVID-19 to see what happens. This has the potential to make it much faster to try out different treatments. 😲 This paper reports that a nasal antibody spray can help hamsters recover from COVID-19.… Continue reading 2021-05-26 General