Testing This paper found that dogs could be trained to recognize COVID-19 patients by smelling skin swabs with an accuracy of over 90%. This report says that: The percentage of all Canadian blood donors who have been infected with COVID-19 was about 28.7%, with 44.3% among the 17-24-year-olds. 99.57% of Canadian donors had evidence of… Continue reading week ending 2022-05-19 General
Category: Long COVID
week ending 2022-05-12 General
Long COVID This report from the UK found that double-vaxxed people were almost 50% less likely to get Long COVID after Omicron than after Delta, but triple-vaxxed people were slightly more likely to get Long COVID after Omicron than after Delta. A different UK governmental report found that 2.8% of the entire UK population self-reports… Continue reading week ending 2022-05-12 General
week ending 2022-05-05 General
Mitigation Measures This site has links to a boatload of studies on masking. 21 of 24 studies found masks to be effective; one was inconclusive and one found that masks were not effective. Ten of the studies date from Dec 2021 or more recently. Long COVID There were three studies I found last week which… Continue reading week ending 2022-05-05 General
week ending 2022-04-28 General
Vaccines This article says that Moderna has formally filed a request that the US FDA approve their vax for children between 6 months and 5 years, yay! Moderna says the two-dose regime is 51% effective against infection. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is compared to kids without vax (who don’t get sick as… Continue reading week ending 2022-04-28 General
Week ending 2022-04-21 General
Variants This paper shows the increase in average transmission for different SARS-CoV-2 variants relative to COVID Classic: Long COVID This paper says that people can shed COVID-19 RNA in their poo for like seven months after they got infected. They also saw a correlation between the amount of COVID-19 RNA is their poo and gastrointestinal… Continue reading Week ending 2022-04-21 General
2022-04-02/03/04 General
There wasn’t much good general news today. There were some technical papers, but most were either overly technical or said things we already knew (boosters work! Omicron is vax-resistant!). The non-technical materials were mostly OMG BA.2 IS COMING/HERE WHY DOES EVERYBODY ACT LIKE IT IS NO BIG DEAL?!?!?!?! Long COVID This preprint says that using… Continue reading 2022-04-02/03/04 General
2022-03-26/27/28 General
Long COVID I have been seeing anecdotal reports for some time on Twitter that Paxlovid helped Long COVID, but nothing that seemed concrete enough to post here. Well, I can now point to this case study from a few weeks ago which says that Paxlovid completely got rid of Long COVID symptoms in one woman.… Continue reading 2022-03-26/27/28 General
2022-03-24/25 General
Vaccines This article reports that the World Health Organization’s COVAX project declined to approve Medicago’s vax — not because their vax doesn’t work, but because Medicago is largely owned by Big Tobacco, and that’s verboten. This preprint says that a trivalent version of the NDV-HXP-S vax with a mix of Beta, Gamma, and Delta spikes… Continue reading 2022-03-24/25 General
2022-03-23 General
Testing This article says that COVID-19 in wastewater is going up in many places across Canada. Mitigation Measures This article reports on an Italian study which found that better ventilation reduced COVID-19 cases dramatically in schools. Replacing classroom air 2.4 times an hour gave a 40 percent reduction in infections; 4 times an hour gave… Continue reading 2022-03-23 General
2022-03-20/21 General
Vaccines This study found that countries which use the Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) have a higher rate of COVID-19 than those which use the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), which uses a live attenuated virus. OPV is easier/cheaper to administer, but there is a (small) risk of getting polio from the vaccine. Yes, countries which use… Continue reading 2022-03-20/21 General