🤦♀️🇺🇸 If this post feels unusually short, that’s, well, because it is. There has been a really striking lack of news appropriate for this blog this week. The English-language health news has been absolutely overwhelmed with stories of the fusterclucks going on in US health politics. Recommended Reading ⭐️💉 Some people note that kids these… Continue reading 2025-06-27 General
Category: Mitigation Measures
2025-06-20 General
🌊 This article from Singapore (2025-06-14) says that their wave is now peaking, about five or six weeks after their wave started in late April. That feels a bit fast to me — we usually see two months from the start to the peak here. I’m also a bit surprised that COVID-19 growth here has… Continue reading 2025-06-20 General
2025-06-01 General
COVID-19 Variants 🦠🧬 NB.1.8.1 is still causing a lot of cases in Asia and Australia. It has acquired two nicknames: “NimBus” (from the two letters in its designation) and “Razor Blade Throat” because it apparently feels like you’ve been swallowing razor blades. Long COVID 🩸‼️ This preprint using UK participants (2025-05-26) has a potential explanation… Continue reading 2025-06-01 General
2025-05-18 General
COVID-19 COVID cases are still low in BC, but rising slightly. As a heads up, Taiwan (2025-05-13), Singapore (2025-05-13), Hong Kong (2025-05-15) Vietnam (2025-05-14), Thailand (2025-05-10) and Iran (2025-05-12) are noting an increase in cases. Long COVID 🎉🎉🎉 This paper from Italy (2025-04-27) reports that people with Long COVID have more abnormalities (microhemorrhages, dilations, and… Continue reading 2025-05-18 General
2025-04-27 General
COVID-19 Transmission In the 2024-04-04 BC post, I said that I had figured out why the COVID-19 levels were so low right now: because influenza inhibits COVID-19! Aha! Well, that’s bullshit. I don’t have good data going back a long time for flu in BC, but this chart of flu, COVID-19, and RSV levels from… Continue reading 2025-04-27 General
2025-04-04 General
COVID-19 Random 👵🏻 Some people have noted that after COVID-19 infections, people get all kinds of diseases at rates comparable to older people. I also feel like I’m “younger” than my grandparents were at my age. (I absolutely cannot imagine my grandmother going on a 45km bike ride at my age, for example.) Knowing what… Continue reading 2025-04-04 General
General 2025-03-21
COVID-19 Long COVID 🪧 This article (2025-03-15) says that there was a Long COVID protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery on 15 March. I’m bummed that I didn’t know about it ahead of time. 🐕🦺🤧 This older paper (2025-06-15) reports that dogs could be trained to detect Long COVID with high accuracy! They could distinguish… Continue reading General 2025-03-21
2025-03-15 General
COVID-19 📆 There have been a huge number of “it’s been five years since the start of the pandemic” articles. (For example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.) What have we learned? How… Continue reading 2025-03-15 General
2025-03-07 General
COVID-19 Long COVID 🙁🛌 This preprint using data from USA and UK (2025-03-01) reports that people with hypermobility are at increased risk of Long COVID. People with generalized joint hypermobility have a 29% higher risk of Long COVID than controls; people with extreme hypermobility have a 112% higher risk than controls. This higher risk is… Continue reading 2025-03-07 General
2025-02-21 General
Vaccines You might have heard that the USA is having an egg shortage. You might know that 80% of flu vaccines are made with eggs. You might get concerned that egg-based vaccine production would be impacted. Fear not! This article (2025-02-19) reports that chickens who lay vaccine eggs are raised in a “controlled environment”, so… Continue reading 2025-02-21 General