Vaccines This paper from Qatar says that 2 doses of Pfizer doesn’t actually give kids much protection against Omicron infection, and the protection wanes quite quickly. 🙁 In last week’s General blog post, I gave the disappointing news that two papers found that the bivalent vaccines weren’t that much better than the monovalent boosters. There… Continue reading week ending 2022-11-03 General
Category: Long COVID
week ending 2022-10-27 General
Long COVID This paper from the UK (mostly pre-vax) looked at long-term effects on the heart among people who had been infected with COVID-19. Those who had not been hospitalized had higher risks of heart issues over the study period (32–395 days later), but especially in the first 30 days after infection: 2.74 times the… Continue reading week ending 2022-10-27 General
week ending 2022-10-20 General
Advice A friend of mine in Seattle told me that they’d gotten COVID-19, and asked me what they should do next. What could they do to get better sooner/faster/better? How should she protect their partner? This is the advice I gave: Isolate until you test negative The US CDC says to isolate until five days… Continue reading week ending 2022-10-20 General
week ending 2022-10-13 General
There seem to be an unusually high percentage papers and articles this week which I’m bored with. Things like: Oh look, the pandemic is not over! Huh, boosters actually do work! Yes, vaccines are safe for pregnant women (and COVID-19 is really bad for pregnant women). Myocarditis in young men is a rare, mild side… Continue reading week ending 2022-10-13 General
week ending 2022-09-29 General
Mitigation Measures This press release from the Government of Canada says that all border restrictions — ALL — are dropped as of 1 October 2022. They are also dropping mask requirements on planes and trains. This paper tells how to do mask fit-testing at home. This paper from Nov 2021 says that the death rate… Continue reading week ending 2022-09-29 General
week ending 2022-09-22 General
Vaccines This paper says that there is a blood-olfactory barrier (similar to the blood-brain barrier) and that blood-borne antibodies can’t get to the olfactory epithelium (mucous membrane lining). (Note that SARS-CoV-2 can get to the brain via the olfactory bulb. !!) That suggests that we are never going to get to sterilizing immunity (i.e. you… Continue reading week ending 2022-09-22 General
week ending 2022-09-15 General
Pathology This paper from the USA says that what gut microbes you have affects how badly COVD-19 hits you. (That’s a slight simplification — they looked at population-level frequency of various gut bacteria and compared it to population-level hospitalization rate.) This article from July 2020 says that the amount of fermented food that people eat… Continue reading week ending 2022-09-15 General
week ending 2022-09-08 General
Unwanted Side Effects This paper from Paris found that, while infant head trauma (which is usually caused by child abuse) did not go up in 2020, it doubled in 2021. 😬 Vaccines Good news on the mucosal antibodies front! (Reminder: you want antibodies in the mucous because COVID-19 hits the mucous membranes of the respiratory… Continue reading week ending 2022-09-08 General
week ending 2022-09-01 General
Vaccines This article says that Health Canada approved a BA.1 booster from Moderna today for adults and immunocompromised children over 12. 780K are supposed to arrive in-country tomorrow, with another 10.5M at the end of September. There isn’t good data from random clinical trials in humans yet for the new bivalent vaccines. This preprint from… Continue reading week ending 2022-09-01 General
week ending 2022-08-25 General
Long COVID This article reports on this (difficult-for-lay-people-to-understand) research report which says that Long COVID patients had an imbalance in the clot-promoting and clot-removing proteins in the blood. (Note: in the Recommended Reading section, there’s a link to a long article on clotting and Long COVID.) Pathology This paper says that physical exercise makes your… Continue reading week ending 2022-08-25 General