Supply Tl;dr: we have enough supply to vax the world before the end of 2021. I hear a lot of people being very concerned about the global supply, worried that it will be multiple years before we have enough doses to vax the world. I think there is a really good chance that we will… Continue reading 2021-06-13 General
Category: General
2021-06-12 General
Vaccines This paper says that women have a more robust response to vaccination than men do. On 18 May, I talked about how live attenuated virus vaccines seem to rev up the innate immune system. I mentioned in that post that a smallpox vaccination reduced all-cause mortality more than attributable to smallpox deaths; I had… Continue reading 2021-06-12 General
2021-06-11 General
Vaccines The US FDA told Johnson & Johnson that they had to scrap fucking sixty fucking million fucking doses of their vaccine because of fucking problems at their fucking Baltimore plant. This is heartbreaking. This matters outside of the USA because some of those doses went to other countries. For example, Canada has 300K doses… Continue reading 2021-06-11 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
2021-06-09 General
Variants The Delta strain is spreading fast. This could be because it easier to catch (because infected people cough more often, infected people breath out more particles, or fewer virus particles are needed to get you sick, etc.) or because infected people become contagious more quickly. This study says that infected people don’t become contagious… Continue reading 2021-06-09 General
2021-06-08 General
Vaccines There are a fair number of studies about how many antibodies a given vaccine induces the patient to make, but this study seems to say that a lot of the antibodies which a patient produces in response to a vaccine aren’t actually useful at killing the virus. The antibodies you produce after getting a… Continue reading 2021-06-08 General
2021-06-07 General
Vaccines This paper found that antibodies from infection stick around for at least ten months. Given that vaccination is even better at making antibodies, this is a good sign for the vaccinated: it makes it less likely that we will need frequent boosters. According to this web page, Canada has a really low vax hesitancy… Continue reading 2021-06-07 General
2021-06-05/06 General
Vaccinations I love this chart: Yes, Canada has passed 60% of its population with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Treatments Regeneron has gotten FDA approval for a lower-dose, injected (as opposed to transfused) version of its monoclonal antibody COVID-19 treatment, called REGEN-COV. This might be a big deal. The stuff works, but… Continue reading 2021-06-05/06 General
2021-06-04 General
Disease One odd thing about COVID-19 is that patients would show up at the hospital with really, really low oxygen in their blood despite having no trouble breathing. This study has an explanation: red blood cells getting killed, but with some subtlety. Immature red blood cells form in the bone marrow. They have a nucleus… Continue reading 2021-06-04 General
2021-06-03 General
Vaccines In general, I try not to post about things that people SAY are going to happen, preferring to wait until it actually happens. However, I am and have been quite excited about Novavax for a long time, so I am really pleased to hear that they are finally going to announce the results of… Continue reading 2021-06-03 General