2026-06-19 General

Reminder: there’s no BC-specific post this week because the province is only providing most data on the first Thursday of the month.  The wastewater chart is in the General post when there is no BC post.

Bundibugyo

Recommended Reading

😬 This interview with the head of the World Health Organization (2026-06-13) is really sobering. He says that people on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo (which has most of the Bundibugyo cases) just don’t care. Bundibugyo kills far fewer people than the armed conflict and fewer than malaria, so they are kind of indifferent to outsiders who are all worked up about Bundibugyo. They (correctly, IMHO) see outsiders as only being concerned about Bundibugyo because the outsiders are afraid it could sicken/kill them (the outsiders) too.

This interview makes me much, much more pessimistic about this outbreak being at contained.

COVID-19

Long COVID

🧠 This paper from USA (2026-06-08) reports that a type of PET-CT scan on Long COVID patients found that 72% — especially patients with neurocognitive symptoms — had significant underutilization of glucose in very specific parts of their brain. Their brains just weren’t “eating” enough food. (The paper didn’t say if it was because their brains’ “eating” components were damaged or because the “food” couldn’t get to the right spot.)

The authors noted that this type of scan could be used to diagnose Long COVID more definitively.

🧠 This paper from Japan (2026-04-21) reports that patients with memory issues had significantly lower antibodies to the spike protein than controls did. This might be a good diagnostic test for Long COVID.

This study from Mexico (2026-06-15) reports that for children over 8 years old, ones with a history of reinfection were almost ten times more likely to get Long COVID than those who did not. For children under 8 y/o, reinfection doubled the risk, and boys were almost five times more likely to get Long COVID than girls.

Vaccines

💉 This paper from USA (2026-06-15) reports that the 2024/2025 COVID-19 vaccine worked moderately well. Its Vaccine Effectiveness for days 7 to 299 days post-vax was:

AgainstVE
Emergency Department/Urgent Care26%
COVID-related hospitalization35%
COVID-related critical illness41%

Remember that the comparison arm includes people who got some immunity from COVID-19 infections, so the numbers will look worse than you might expect.

AGAIN 💉 This paper from USA (2026-06-15) reports that a COVID-19 vaccination plus an influenza vaccine cuts the risk of a COVID-19 related major cardiac event by about half in people over 75 y/o compared to people who only got an influenza vaccine. There was no benefit for people under 75 y/o.

They also looked at all-case events — not just events in people who had a diagnosed COVID-19 infection — and found that the vaccine was protective there, too! Compared to people who did not get a vaccine, those who did had:

  • 23% lower risk of MACE;
  • 30% lower risk of hospitalization;
  • 16% lower risk of death.

Is there something intrinsic to the vaccine that protects you? One of the authors of the study, as quoted in this article (2026-06-15), doesn’t think so. He said that it was likely that they had been infected with COVID-19 but just didn’t realize it.

💉 This paper from Germany (2026-06-13) reports that one dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine reduced the likelihood of developing Long COVID by 63%.

Treatments

💊 This paper from Singapore (2026-06-03) reports that sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) and metformin reduce the risk of Long COVID among people with type 2 diabetes:

  • Compared to diabetics who did not take SGLT2i or metformin, ones who took SGLT2i had a 40% lower risk of persistent neurological symptoms and a 37% lower risk of cognitive impairment;
  • Compared to diabetics who did not take SGLT2i or metformin, ones who took metformin had a 23% lower risk of persistent symptoms;
  • Compared to diabetics who took metformin but not SGLT2i, the ones who took both had a 19% lower risk of persistent neurological symptoms.

COVID-Related Excess Deaths and Sickness

🚗 There were a number of studies that showed that fatalities from automotive accidents went up significantly at the start of the pandemic. This was true, but according to this report (2026-04), they have gone down in the US.

This reduction in fatalities might be due to improved driving assist features (like adaptive cruise control, alerts that tell you if you are about to pull in front of another car, etc.), but maybe people have gotten used to their new normal.

BC Wastewater

BC is doing extra wastewater measurements during the World Cup, to watch for pathogens that tourists might bring in. COVID-19 is still really low, but it’s bouncing around a little bit.

💩💧 From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet with data through 2026-06-10:

COVID-19 / Influenza

Pathology

This slightly older paper using data from five countries in Eastern Europe/Central Asia (2026-04-16) reports that the relative virulence of COVID-19 was higher (usually a lot higher) than for influenza. Compared to influenza, the higher relative risk for COVID-19 was was:

Time periodResultRelative risk
6 December 2021–18 December 2022severe outcome (hospitalization?)+80%
19 December 2022–9 July 2023severe outcome+94%
10 July 2023–6 August 2024severe outcome+63%
6 December 2021–18 December 2022death+180%
19 December 2022–9 July 2023death+4%
10 July 2023–6 August 2024death+125%
XBB 1.5 showed up in 2022

Shingles

Vaccines

💉 This paper from USA (2026-06-16) reports that people in nursing homes who got a Shingrix vaccination had a 24% lower risk of getting dementia in the next four years than nursing home residents who did not get a Shingrix vax.

Measles

Transmission

According to the Government of Canada Measles and Rubella Monitoring Report (updated 2026-06-15), in the week ending 6 June 2025, the following jurisdictions had the following number of new measles cases:

  • Canada: 8;
  • Quebec: 3;
  • Manitoba: 4;
  • Alberta: 1.