Vaccines This preprint from the UK found that boosters help against symptomatic infection, but also wane: dose1&2 dose3 VE at 2-4 weeks VE at 5-9 weeks VE at >10 weeks AZ+AZ Pfizer 62-65% 48% 32% AZ+AZ Moderna 62-65% 56% N/A Pfizer+Pfizer Pfizer 65% 49% 31% Pfizer+Pfizer Moderna 70% 57% N/A However, protection against severe disease… Continue reading 2022-01-07 General
Author: Ducky
2022-01-06 BC
Testing The province has opened up a mass vax clinic at the Vancouver Convention Centre, and whatever they are doing is working: the province gave just over 50K doses yesterday. That’s good. HOWEVER, the Vancouver Convention Centre was really snarled today, according to first-hand reports and also this article. There was a 20 minute wait… Continue reading 2022-01-06 BC
2022-01-06 General
Variants This preprint looks at the effectiveness of a COVID-19 infection (as opposed to a vaccination) against future COVID unpleasantness: Variant against infection against hospitalization or death Alpha 90.2% 69.4% Beta 84.8% 88.0% Delta 92.0% 100% Omicron 56.0% 87.8% This preprint says that most people have a quite good T-cell response to Omicron after a… Continue reading 2022-01-06 General
2022-01-05 BC
Statistics +3,798 cases, +0 deaths (yay!), +2,885 first doses, +1,593 second doses, +36,895 other doses. Currently 317 in hospital / 83 in ICU, 29,967 active cases, 237,195 recovered, 26.1% positivity. first doses second doses third doses of adults 92.4% 89.7% 23.1% of over-12s 92.0% 89.3% 21.5% of over-5s 88.3% 83.0% * of all BCers 86.0%… Continue reading 2022-01-05 BC
2022-01-05 General
Vaccines Studies of the effectiveness of boosters against Omicron in humans (as opposed to test tubes) are starting to come out, and they are not as encouraging as one would like. This preprint from the UK says in people who got AZ, a Pfizer booster is 89.1% effective against symptomatic infection and for those who… Continue reading 2022-01-05 General
2022-01-01/02/03/04 General
Happy New Year! Measures In the USA, the US CDC decided that five days was enough time to isolate. Per this tweet, five days later, the number of COVID-19 transmissions in hospitals went up: In BC, we just dropped to five-day isolation (as long as you have no symptoms). It would be interesting to see… Continue reading 2022-01-01/02/03/04 General
2022-01-01/02/03/04 BC
Press Briefing It was kind of a dull briefing, it didn’t tell me much that I didn’t know. Highlights which were new: Transmission is so high right now that businesses really need to focus on business continuity. Figure out now what you are going to do when a third of your staff is out sick.… Continue reading 2022-01-01/02/03/04 BC
2021-12-31 BC
Press Briefing There was a press briefing today that I missed because my lazy ass was still in bed. From Twitter, apparently the high points were: They are dropping the age part of the booster eligibility priority queue (mostly) and are going to go strictly on time-based, with everybody at 6 months since their second… Continue reading 2021-12-31 BC
2021-12-31 General
It was a slow news day. Everything was more of the same: Omicron is milder, with half as many hospitalizations per case; cases are doubling every 2-4 days depending on the jurisdiction, hospitals are straining in many jurisdictions, health care workers are losing their minds. Recommended Reading This article talks how, frustrated with the slow… Continue reading 2021-12-31 General
2021-12-30 BC
Mitigation Measures This article says that American anti-vaxxer and media personality Joe Rogan cancelled a show in BC, presumably because Canada won’t let him onstage without a vaccine. (Go Canada!) Statistics Today: +4,383 cases, +1 death, +3,475 first doses, +1,750 second doses, +25,646 other doses. The positivity rate was 28.6% (although note that they are… Continue reading 2021-12-30 BC