Author: Ducky

2021-04-23 General

Vaccines The National Advisory Council on Immunizations today advised that AZ can be given to people as young as 30. They did also say, however, that mRNA vaccines were preferred. I have talked before about how we are going to have SO. MUCH. VAX in the next year. Today, the famous high-tech powerhouse of Kazakhstan,… Continue reading 2021-04-23 General

2021-04-23 BC

Measures Today, Minister Farnsworth issued new Orders designed to reduce the spread of COVID-19. For the next five weeks, people doing non-essential travel between regions will fined $575. The regions are: Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Authorities Northern and Interior Health Authorities Vancouver Island Health Authority One of my friends pointed out that this is… Continue reading 2021-04-23 BC

2021-04-22 BC

Press Briefing IMHO, this was the least interesting press briefing that we’ve had. Dr.H gave provisional stats, then didn’t really say much aside from telling people that things sucked in hospitals now and exhorting people to Do The Things: stay away from people, mask up, don’t travel, register to get vaccinated, etc. Surgeries postponed Dix… Continue reading 2021-04-22 BC

2021-04-22 General

Vaccines I’m hearing murmurings about “If I am vaccinated, why can’t I do [X]?!?!?!” Because vaccination is not perfect, and it’s not the most important thing, case counts per capita are. If the efficacy of one shot of a vaccine is 80%, it doesn’t mean that if you are exposed, you have an 80% chance… Continue reading 2021-04-22 General

2021-04-21 General

Variants The “California” variants (B.1.427/B.1.429) are more transmissible and vaccines are less effective against them, but they are less dangerous than B.1.1.7. Don’t lose sleep over them. Vaccines This paper reports that mRNA vaxxes sure seem safe for pregnant women. There is a vaccine, SpFN, developed at Baylor, which they say will protect against SARS… Continue reading 2021-04-21 General

2021-04-21 BC

Vaccinations There was some confusion in the pharmacies about whether eligibility was based on age or year-of-birth. For example, if you turn 40 in November 2021, are you eligible? It’s year-of-birth, so yes. Apparently there have been 39 cases of the B.1.617 (Indian) variant in BC as of April 4. Not much is known about… Continue reading 2021-04-21 BC

2021-04-20 BC

Hospitalizations Buried in yesterday’s slides (on p.15) was information about hospitalizations: there were 1014 cases from December and 862 cases from March.  The slides said that the month was when the case was reported, not when the patient was hospitalized, which means that I can compare against the number of cases reported that month! In… Continue reading 2021-04-20 BC

2021-04-20 General

Vaccines Only 32 vaccinated people were among 74,405 COVID-19 patients admitted to UK hospitals between September and March. (Given that they used a lot of AZ, as an AZ recipient, these articles make me very happy!) Transmission A study in Atlanta found that COVID spread in school was first from high-contact sports, then staff meetings/lunches,… Continue reading 2021-04-20 General

2021-04-19 General

Side effects Bad news for anybody who enjoys erections: COVID can cause erectile dysfunction. Vaccines There are starting to be a few reports of inflammation of the heart in young people after getting an mRNA vaccine. This is very early, so it might be nothing… but it also might be something. Aaaannnd this paper talks… Continue reading 2021-04-19 General