Vaccines This preprint says that there were zero children in France who had been fully vaccinated and went on to develop MIS-C. Pathology This preprint says that kids recover pretty well from MIS-C. This speculative preprint wonders if maybe the reason kids have milder symptoms and MIS-C after a delay is because their bodies make… Continue reading 2022-01-19 General
Category: Pathology
2022-01-18 General
Variants This preprint says that a Delta infection (by itself) does provide some protection against Omicron (in mice and test tubes), but an Omicron infection (by itself) does not provide good protection against Delta. However, if you have an Omicron or Delta infection plus a vaccine, then you get good protection against the other variant.… Continue reading 2022-01-18 General
2022-01-14 General
Variants This report says that Omicron is much much more likely than Delta to cause a sore throat, but much much less likely to cause loss of smell. Transmission This article reports on a study which says that 10% of people are still infectious for at least ten days. Genetics This article reports that scientists… Continue reading 2022-01-14 General
2022-01-13 General
Variants Everybody knows by now that Omicron appears to be more mild, but how much of that is because lots of people have partial immunity? This preprint looked at South African Omicron infections and found that when you controlled for vaccination status, Omicron is about 25% as severe. Vaccines This article says that inactivated virus… Continue reading 2022-01-13 General
2022-01-08/09/10 General
Pathology There has been a lot of discussion of Omicron being more mild, and there being a “decoupling” of case rate and hospitalization/death rate, but it was hard to tell because hospitalizations and deaths lagged. It also varies by the demographics of the local population and how much prior (partial) immunity the population has. One… Continue reading 2022-01-08/09/10 General
2022-01-01/02/03/04 General
Happy New Year! Measures In the USA, the US CDC decided that five days was enough time to isolate. Per this tweet, five days later, the number of COVID-19 transmissions in hospitals went up: In BC, we just dropped to five-day isolation (as long as you have no symptoms). It would be interesting to see… Continue reading 2022-01-01/02/03/04 General
2021-12-25/26/27/28 General
Variants There has been difficulty figuring out how badly Omicron is going to hit the hospital system first because it is a lagging indicator, second because Omicron affects vaccinated and unvaccinated people so differently, and third because of poor-quality data around the holidays. Still, there are hints that, as this tweet from New York says,… Continue reading 2021-12-25/26/27/28 General
2021-12-24 General
This is short because Happy Christmas Eve! Testing This paper from October says that there is 1.7x variation in PCR test results over the course of a day, with 2pm being the time when an infected person will have the highest viral load. This article says that it’s not legal for you to redistribute rapid… Continue reading 2021-12-24 General
2021-12-18 General
I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming. I knew this would be bad. I predicted that the health care system might collapse in multiple jurisdictions in the West. I’m still somewhat shocked at the ferocity and this wave. There are lots of people saying that Omicron is milder than previous variants (see… Continue reading 2021-12-18 General
2021-12-08/09/10 General
I was out of town for a few days. I think this mostly catches up. Variants This press release from Pfizer says that three doses of Pfizer will give reasonable protection against infection with Omicron, but two doses isn’t enough. Two doses should still protect against severe disease. This Twitter thread on a report from… Continue reading 2021-12-08/09/10 General