Mitigation Measures This paper looks at the strategy of eliminating vs. mitigating and concludes that eliminating is better. It says that the countries which went for elimination (Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) have done much better than the ones which went for mitigation. Um, notice anything about those countries? None of them… Continue reading 2021-06-22 General
Category: Long COVID
2021-06-17 General
Vaccines The US just donated 1M Moderna doses to Canada. Canada received 330K Johnson & Johnson doses, but it’s going to sit on them right now because of concerns about contamination. Canada will also refuse any more J&J shipments. Today NACI advised Team AZ to get mRNA for the second dose. While I think this… Continue reading 2021-06-17 General
2021-06-10 General
Vaccines AstraZeneca is in the process of developing a booster, AZD2816 (their original one was AZD1222), to do better against new strains. (As you might recall, AZD1222 is shit against Beta.) This paper says that it does well against all the strains in mice and test tubes. This article says there is a different AZ… Continue reading 2021-06-10 General
2021-05-12 General
Variants There is a somewhat worrying report from Qatar saying that the efficacy of only one dose of Pfizer is only 29.5% against infection from B.1.1.7 and 54% against hospitalization. If you only have one dose, maybe don’t go licking doorknobs just yet. However, this report, also out today, from the UK from December to… Continue reading 2021-05-12 General
2021-05-04 General
Vaccines Good news — we should expect immunity to COVID-19 to last a long time. This preprint says that COVID immunity lasts for at least eight months, yay! This paper found antibodies to MERS six years after infection, and this paper found antibodies to SARS after SEVENTEEN years! (SARS and MERS are both closely related… Continue reading 2021-05-04 General
2021-05-03 General
Quarantine This article describes a quarantine loophole for Canada. If show that you had COVID already, you get to quarantine at home instead of at a quarantine hotel. Unfortunately, there’s not a standardized form for positive tests, so it would be easy to forge. Nobody knows if/how many forgeries there are. Vaccines The New York… Continue reading 2021-05-03 General
2021-04-30 General
Vaccines Pfizer has shipped some vax from its US plant to Mexico. This is a big f deal. The US has huuuuuge manufacturing capacity, but the was keeping it all to itself. For all that capacity to now be able to distribute to the rest of the world means that the vax rollout everywhere else… Continue reading 2021-04-30 General
2021-04-01 General
Vaccines There is yet another study showing how good the vaccines are. This one, from Pfizer, shows that the vaccine remains 91% effective for at least six months, and is fully effective against B.1.351. Canada has given regulatory approval to the factory which made the AstraZeneca doses which the US is loaning to Canada! The… Continue reading 2021-04-01 General
2021-03-31 General
Vaccines Great news! Preliminary results say that the Pfizer vax works great in adolescents! This was to be expected, but this means we are methodically getting closer to being able to vaccinate children. More and more studies are showing that vaccines reduce asymptomatic infection by a lot — between about 75 and 95%, depending on… Continue reading 2021-03-31 General
2021-03-23/4 General
Special double-issue today, and I spent all day yesterday doing my taxes. Vaccines Canada might be facing another vaccine drought. First, the European Union said yesterday they would embargo all vaccines from leaving the EU. Note that the EU is mad at AstraZeneca Inc. — the EU says that AZ has been sending vax to… Continue reading 2021-03-23/4 General