Pathology This article reports that a team can predict with 83% accuracy the severity of COVID-19 by looking at three components of blood (mostly TH17, a helper T cell, and immune system cells IL-17 and IFNG). Vaccines Yesterday I referenced a preprint which said that vaccine effectiveness in kidlets was awful. Today, there’s a different… Continue reading 2022-03-01 General
Category: Pathology
2022-02-25 General
Pathology This article suggests that the reason that COVID-19 hits old people so much harder than young people is that old people have more antibodies to important pieces of their own innate immune system, particularly interferons. (In other words, they attack critical pieces of their own immune system.) They found that the proportion of people… Continue reading 2022-02-25 General
2022-02-16 General
Long COVID This preprint and this lay article report on a big US study of mental health effects after COVID-19 which found that people who had had COVID-19 had (compared to controls): 1.35x risk of anxiety disorders; 1.39x risk of depressive disorders; 1.38x risk of stress and adjustment disorders; 1.55x risk of antidepressant use; 1.65x… Continue reading 2022-02-16 General
2022-02-15 General
Mitigation Measures This article reports that border mitigation measures are being softened. Starting on 28 Feb: People can use a RAT instead of PCR test to get back into the country. (I don’t know how they verify the test date.) There will still be random PCR checks at the border, but if you have to… Continue reading 2022-02-15 General
2022-02-11 General
Transmission Buried in this blog post was something I hadn’t ever known: the volume of air a person inhales/exhales per minute is around ten times larger during exercise than at rest. No wonder DrH closed the gyms. Treatments This article reports that the US FDA has approved a new monoclonal antibody — bebtelovimab — for… Continue reading 2022-02-11 General
2022-02-08 General
Pathology This case studies paper says that they saw four pediatric appendicitis cases with COVID-19. Now, four cases is not many, but it was almost a quarter of their appendicitis patients, while the rate overall was only 8%. They also note that it’s reasonable to expect that COVID-19 could infect the appendix, as it also… Continue reading 2022-02-08 General
2022-02-05/06/07 General
Long COVID This paper and this preprint says that people who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection are at greater risk from heart complications afterwards. The first study followed patients for the next year and found that patients had the following elevated risk of any heart issue in the following year compared to non-infected controls:… Continue reading 2022-02-05/06/07 General
2022-02-01 General
Vaccines This study in Israel of people over 60 found that the risk of infection dropped in half after their fourth dose of vaccine; the risk of severe illness dropped by a fourth. Note that this sounds really good, but the study was only in people over 60, and there’s no information on waning. Pathology… Continue reading 2022-02-01 General
2022-01-28 General
Variants I don’t like to warn about variants before there’s data. (I didn’t sound alarms about Mu, for example.) Well, I think it’s time to talk about BA.2 — an Omicron variant. (The Omicron variant which sprouted up first is BA.1.) BA.2 doesn’t look like it is lot worse than BA.1 — not like Delta… Continue reading 2022-01-28 General
2022-01-27 General
Pathology This study found that pregnant women were 1.77x as likely to develop preeclampsia if they got COVID-19; women who had not given birth before were 1.89x as likely. They found the risk of a preterm birth for all pregnant women with both COVID-19 and preeclampsia was 4.05x (and 6.26x for women who had never… Continue reading 2022-01-27 General