Variants This article says that Delta, while more contagious, does not lead to more severe consequences. It points out that if Delta were more severe, then deaths per case would have increased recently, while it has not. On the other hand, this preprint says that Delta does cause more severe illness in Canada. Ah, science:… Continue reading 2021-07-15 General
Category: General
2021-07-14 General
Vaccines This study shows that Pfizer gives really good protection to pregnant women (66%/97% against symptomatic infection with one/two doses). This small study (129 participants) from Hannover, Germany and this other even smaller study (59 participants) from Kiel Germany, showed that in test tubes, AZ+Pfizer is better than AZ+AZ (especially against Beta), and has basically… Continue reading 2021-07-14 General
2021-07-13 General
Vaccination Half of eligible Canadians have gotten their second dose, woohoo! Transmission This study looked at viral loads over time and found three interesting things: The total infectiousness (load integrated over time) was very different between different people. The viral load went up in saliva before it went up in nasal mucous. They suggest that… Continue reading 2021-07-13 General
2021-07-12 General
Vaccines This article reports COVID-19 patients who got a flu shot had significantly fewer complications than patients who did not. COVAX is getting 100M doses immediately from Sinopharm and Sinovac. This is great news. It’s not enough, of course, but double what COVAX has distributed already. (There’s another 390M coming later, which is also great… Continue reading 2021-07-12 General
2021-07-11 General
Immunity This study estimates that immunity to COVID-19 from being infected will last 1,717 days. Variants The Delta variant does not fuck around. From Our World In Data: Border This article says that more people are trying to enter Canada from the US, but they are turning away about half of them, mostly because they… Continue reading 2021-07-11 General
2021-07-10 General
Vaccines This article says that the Sputnik V vaccine is turning out to be a good one, with effectiveness in the 90% range — and not just with Russian data, either. (I still wouldn’t get one because of the quality control problems which Brazil uncovered.)
2021-07-09 General
VOCs This report from Public Health England says that Delta now makes up 97% of the genotyped cases. This report from Public Health England says that there have been a few cases of Lambda from international travel, but it does not seem to be out-competing Delta and does not seem to be particularly vax-evasive. It… Continue reading 2021-07-09 General
2021-07-08 General
Vaccines Pfizer says that a third shot boosts antibody levels 5x to 10x against COVID Classic and Beta. Remember that antibodies aren’t the whole story, and that Pfizer has incentive to get as many people as possible to buy their vax. They also said they are working on a Delta-specific booster. The US FDA immediately… Continue reading 2021-07-08 General
2021-07-07 General
Vaccines A few days ago, there was a Israeli Ministry of Health report saying that Pfizer was only 64% effective against the Delta strain, which was far lower than other studies had found. It looks like the study in Israel was against all infection, including asymptomatic infection, while the others were against symptomatic infection. That… Continue reading 2021-07-07 General
2021-07-06 General
Vaccines In yesterday’s General blog post, I pointed to a study from Israel that said that Pfizer was only 64% effective. This thread does a takedown of that study. This preprint also says that AZ+Pfizer is a lot better (in test tubes, anyway) than AZ+AZ, and even a bit better than Pfizer+Pfizer. Disease This article… Continue reading 2021-07-06 General