Vaccines
This long and highly technical preprint also says that the MMR vaccine gives some protection against and that the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccine does. The authors did two things:
- They took T cells from blood which had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (either from infection or vaccination) and added either MMR or Tdap vaccines, and saw if the T cells attacked the antigens in the vaccine. They then compared with T cells from blood which did not have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, and they found that the SARS-CoV-2-positive blood reacted more.
- They did a big electronic records search of people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and looked up if they got MMR or Tdap vaccinations. The ones who did were less likely to get hospitalized (38% reduction for MMR and 23% for Tdap) and ICU or death (32% reduction for MMR and 20% for Tdap). Reminder: this does not translate into the vaccine effectiveness numbers that we know and love because these people were all ones who already tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
This preprint says that Delta and Beta are farther apart from each other than from COVID Classic, which is an argument against changing the default formulation to use Delta: that would make it less effective against Beta.
This press release says that Novavax and Serum Institute of India (who will manufacture it) have applied for approval from the World Health Organization. FINALLY.
Novavax finished its trials in June, with really good results, and just… sat on the submission. I don’t know why.
Treatment
This paper is from a year ago, but it suggests that Low Dose Naltrexone (yes, the opiate neutralizing drug!) might be a useful treatment for COVID-19. In addition to neutralizing opiates, it is an anti-inflammatory and anti-cytokine.
Recommended Reading
This paper came out in June, but I don’t think I mentioned it before. It is a heavily-cited review article of all the possible things that could possibly cause Long COVID. If Long COVID is your interest area, this is for you.