Public Service Announcement: Get your flu shot! This pre-pandemic paper from Canada (2018-01-18) reports that the risk of heart attack goes up by about TEN TIMES in the week after an influenza B infection compared to the year before and year after. (Influenza B is much less common than influenza A, fortunately.) Other respiratory diseases… Continue reading 2024-09-30 General
Category: COVID-19
2024-09-25 General/BC
About scheduling: I seem to take longer and longer to get this done. Unless anybody says something about it, that’s not likely to change. COVID-19 Long COVID This paper from USA (2024-08-09) reports that 71% of pediatric Long COVID patients have problems with orthostatic intolerance, which basically means they have trouble with maintaining blood pressure… Continue reading 2024-09-25 General/BC
2024-09-15 General
Defies Heading Classification This paper from China (2024-09-04) reports that animals farmed for fur carry a TON of nasty viruses. They looked at 461 fur animals that they found dead (412 from fur and/or livestock farms and 49 from wild settings) from all over China, and found seven coronaviruses, three types of influenza, Japanese encephalitis… Continue reading 2024-09-15 General
2024-09-07 General
COVID-19 Long COVID This paper (2024-09-05) reports that baricitinib and anakinra — relatively commonly used immunomodulatory drugs — can effectively treat lung fibrosis in mice (which can cause the Long COVID symptom of shortness of breath). This paper from USA (2024-08-26) reports that even mild COVID-19 infections can cause increased levels of autoantibodies, and Long… Continue reading 2024-09-07 General
It’s not a Summer Cold, it’s COVID
2024-09-02 If you think you have “a cold” right now, it’s almost certainly COVID-19 and not a cold. Nothing Else is Circulating (Much) There’s very little circulation of any upper respiratory diseases except COVID-19 right now. The BC Pathogen characterization page stopped reporting in April because the trend was going so low, but you can… Continue reading It’s not a Summer Cold, it’s COVID
2024-08-31 General
COVID-19 I’m going to put stars ⭐ next to papers that I think are particularly exciting. My Bad! I have, in the past, referred to the nucleocapsid as the “ball” part of the spiky ball that is a SARS-CoV-2 virion. I was wrong: the “ball” part is called the “envelope”. Inside the envelope is the… Continue reading 2024-08-31 General
2024-08-26 General
This post is shorter than normal because Life. And because I spent a lot of time on the Novavax post. Which the literal next day became irrelevant to Canadians, sigh. Long COVID This older case study (2022-02-07) reports that two women with Long COVID got back like 90% of their pre-Long COVID function by taking… Continue reading 2024-08-26 General
Novavax 2024-08-23
Addendum 2024-08-24: Canada is not going to get any Novavax, per this private communication (not to me) (emphasis mine): Thank you for contacting the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) inquiring about the availability of Novavax’s JN. 1 COVID-19 vaccine in Canada. PHAC is working with manufacturers and provinces and territories to ensure the most… Continue reading Novavax 2024-08-23
2024-08-18 General/BC
This article reports that the World Health Organization has declared mpox to be a pandemic, so I guess I will occasionally cover mpox as well. Honestly, world, can we stop having so many pandemics?!?! This article (2024-08-13) reports that World Health Organisation has added Black Death, H5N1 and mpox to its priority pathogens list. That… Continue reading 2024-08-18 General/BC
2024-08-11 General
Mitigation Measures I have had good results with the Readimask, as mentioned before, but I have also occasionally had trouble with a gap forming under my chin. This post describes another method of sticking it on the face, which testing showed was far far superior. I tried it (though I haven’t done a DIY fit… Continue reading 2024-08-11 General