COVID-19 levels are pretty stagnant. It is impressive and disheartening to me how little the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 has budged since January (November if you throw out two outliers). Statistics As of 7 March, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 2 Mar there were: +433 reported cases,… Continue reading 2024-03-08 BC
Author: Ducky
2024-03-08 General
Long COVID This paper from UK (2024-03-01) found that the blood of people who just had a COVID-19 infection was measurably different between those that developed/did not develop Long COVID later. Specifically, the ones who later developed Long COVID showed lower levels of blood iron and more inflammation. It’s not that they weren’t eating enough… Continue reading 2024-03-08 General
2024-03-01 BC
I don’t have an easy summary. It feels like most metrics are trending down slowly over the longer term, but this week looks like maybe it’s going up? But maybe that’s noise? The biggest scary thing is what sure looks like a wastewater rise in Fraser Health. 🙁 Other Infections From the BC CDC’s Pathogen… Continue reading 2024-03-01 BC
2024-03-01 General
Pathology This paper from USA (2024-02-07) found that vapes with propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin — with or without nicotine — increased the risk of COVID-19. However, vapes with benzoic acid added didn’t give any higher risk than not vaping. This preprint from China (2024-02-23) found SARS-CoV-2 virus in fluid in the middle ear. (Fluid… Continue reading 2024-03-01 General
2024-02-24 BC
COVID-19 levels in BC are flat or maaaaaaybe dropping a little. Government DoNoHarm BC is an anti-COVID advocacy organization in BC, and probably worth joining (or at least paying attention to) if you want better anti-COVID measures. The BC budget just came out, and this report analyzes how anti-COVID measures fared in the budget. Direct… Continue reading 2024-02-24 BC
2024-02-24 General
Pathology This paper from UK (2024-02-21) found, with careful genetic sequencing of samples of every sample, that a small but surprisingly high number of people had COVID-19 infections for long periods: about 1-3% had infections lasting ~30 days, and 1-5 out of 1000 for ~60 days. They even found one patient who was infected for… Continue reading 2024-02-24 General
2024-02-16 BC
COVID-19 levels look like they aren’t getting worse — but they also look like they aren’t getting any better. I’ll spare you the graphs for other respiratory diseases, but overall they are going down slightly. COVID-19 is very steady, and influenza is declining slightly, RSV is declining, and the “other” bucket of respiratory diseases is… Continue reading 2024-02-16 BC
2024-02-16 General
Government This post says there is a rumour that Dr. Teresa Tam is going to step down, with Dr. Bonnie Henry a leading contender to replace her. This article reports that the Auditor General had some very not nice things to say about ArriveCan. She said that it cost at least CAD$59.5M to produce, wasn’t… Continue reading 2024-02-16 General
2024-02-09 BC
Everything looks stable, or perhaps “becalmed” is a better word. Unchanging. Static. Not getting worse fast, not getting better fast. (Keep your mask on!) Other Respiratory Illness There was slight downtick in respiratory illnesses, both in BC and in the US. From the BC CDC Viral Pathogen dashboard: From the US CDC’s FluView Dashboard: Statistics… Continue reading 2024-02-09 BC
2024-02-09 General
Long COVID This paper from UK (2024-02-07) found that the REGAIN intervention — an eight-week rehab program — helped people with Long COVID more than the usual care (one 30 min session). The REGAIN intervention had roughly one hour per week of light physical exercise and one hour per week most (six) weeks of psychotherapy,… Continue reading 2024-02-09 General