2026-04-24 General

COVID-19

Long COVID

This long article (2026-04-21) on transauricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) talks a little bit about how some long haulers experimenting with (non-approved) taVNS self-treatment have found relief from taVNS, but the article talks even more about how it has negative effects for some long haulers. (TL;DR: be careful about your experimenting with unproven treatments.)

Buried in the middle of the article is a reference to an older paper (2013-06-18) about ME/CFS where the author hypothesizes that ME/CFS is caused by a vagus nerve infection. When you get sick, your vagus nerve notices that you are sick, and sends signals to the brain that you should engage in sickness behaviour: sleeping a lot, not eating much, and withdrawing socially. The paper’s author suggests that if the vagus nerve gets messed up (e.g. damaged by a virus), it might never send the “all clear” signal to the brain to let it resume normal activities. (Or perhaps it keeps sending the “you are sick!” message, in which case a stellate ganglion block would keep the vagus nerve from telling the brain it was sick, which would make Long COVID and ME/CFS patients feel better.)

🧬 This paper from Greece (2026-04-08) reports that people with the ADIPOQ rs1501299 “GG” allele have double the risk of Long COVID than people who have a “T” in the allele.

This paper from USA (2026-04-20) reports that software-based brain speed-of-processing training coupled with training on everyday tasks helped people with brain fog significantly more than treatment as usual.

Treatment

💊 This paper using data from Canada and UK (2026-04-22) reports that, while Paxlovid did make people feel better faster, it did not change the hospitalization rate or death rate of vaccinated people over 50. (The initial trials with Paxlovid that showed it was highly effective at reducing hospitalization and death were done with mostly unvaccinated people.)

Vaccines

💉 This report from Germany (2026-04-16) reports that compared to unvaccinated adults, matched adults vaccinated for COVID-19 in Fall 2023, had (before April 2024) had:

  • a 14% lower risk of getting a documented COVID-19 infection;
  • a 57% lower risk of getting Long COVID;
  • a 59% lower risk of being hospitalized for COVID-19;
  • a 22% lower risk of being hospitalized for any respiratory illness (I’m not sure if that includes COVID-19 hospitalizations or not);
  • a 20% lower risk of being hospitalized for a cardiovascular disorder;
  • a 24% lower risk of dying (from any cause);
  • a 43.30€ lower cost per year on average for COVID-19 hospitalizations;
  • a 73.52€ lower cost per year on average for hospitalization for respiratory illnesses;
  • a 220.89€ lower cost per year on average for hospitalization for cardiovascular disorders.

Additionally, unvaccinated people used approximately one extra day of sick leave per year on average for respiratory illnesses. (I would have liked to have seen the all-cause sick leave usages, but the report didn’t give those figures.)

Spying

🪖 This article (2026-04-07) reports that the Canadian military gathered information on Canadians during the early pandemic. Partly it was to boost support for the military, partly to make sure Canadians understood the threat of COVID-19, and partly to figure out how to counter Russian social media propaganda. Those aren’t entirely bad goals, but they fucked up in two distinct ways:

  • they gathered and kept information on people they shouldn’t have (e.g. Black Lives Matter protestors);
  • they did a shit job of it.
    • their operational security sucked — they used personal computers, personal VPNs, and personal social media accounts from their homes;
    • they didn’t seem to have clear orders on what info they should be looking for and why (which is part of why they gathered info on inappropriate people/organizations and/or kept it for too long).

Part of them doing a shit job of it was because the military, like everybody, was making up the work-from-home-thing as they went along, but sheesh, the military is supposed to know better!

Recommended Reading

I talked about this article (2026-04-18) on attempting to treat Long COVID with transauricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS), but I repeat it here because it has a lot of interesting tidbits in it.

RSV

Vaccines

💉🎉 This press release from UK (2026-04-17) about this study from UK reports that giving the mother an RSV shot at least two weeks before giving birth reduces the risk of hospitalization for the baby by 81.3%.

Measles

Transmission

According to the Government of Canada Measles and Rubella Monitoring Report (updated 2026-04-20), in the week ending 11 April 2025, the following jurisdictions had the following number of measles cases:

  • Canada: 82;
  • Manitoba: 50;
  • Alberta: 28;
  • Quebec: 2;
  • Ontario: 1;
  • BC: 1.