Vaccines
Pfizer has shipped some vax from its US plant to Mexico. This is a big f deal. The US has huuuuuge manufacturing capacity, but the was keeping it all to itself. For all that capacity to now be able to distribute to the rest of the world means that the vax rollout everywhere else is going to really pick up!
It turns out that US’s contract with Pfizer (and probably other manufacturers?) had a clause that all of it had to go to the US until 31 March. I don’t know why they waited an additional month.
Here’s more details on Brazil’s denying approval of the Sputnik V vax, wrapped in a soap opera of Russian authorities threatening to sue for slander. (Spoiler: they haven’t got a prayer of winning a slander suit.)
This preprint says that the J&J vaccine is 76.7% effective against anything (including asymptomatic infection) after one shot.
There is a company, Providence Therapeutics, which was working on an mRNA in Alberta. The CEO said today that he was tired of the government not giving him free money, and he was going to set up shop in a different country. (They wanted a no-interest loan and/or purchase guarantees.)
Quarantine
Disease science / Long COVID
There is some evidence that COVID is a form of autoimmune disease. Here is a preprint which says that they found antibodies in cerebrospinal fluid which attack both the virus and neural tissue. This might be related to Long COVID.