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
Category: Testing
2025-03-01 General
Recommended Reading 🐎🤮 Did you know there was a horse flu epidemic in 1872 (also see this Wikipedia section) which crippled the US (and probably Canada)? I didn’t. 🤯 COVID-19 Long COVID 🎉 This older paper (2023-02-07) reports that maraviroc and pravastatin — two HIV treatments — significantly reduced symptoms in Long COVID patients. (Both… Continue reading 2025-03-01 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
2024-12-27 General
NB: No BC post this week because the are not publishing new data until 3 Jan 2025. This post is kind of short because for some reason there has been less news the past few days. Happy Holidays! Recommended Reading This article from USA (2024-12-26) talks about three issues to watch in global health: H5N1,… Continue reading 2024-12-27 General
2024-12-20 General
Recommended Reading ⭐❗❗This article (2024-12-17) talks about how cats might be an effective “mixing vessel” and transmission vector for the next pandemic. TL;DR: Cats have avian and mammal receptors and get very very close to humans on a regular basis. COVID-19 Long COVID ⭐ This preprint from USA (2024-12-11) reports that people who went on… Continue reading 2024-12-20 General
2024-12-07 General
COVID-19/MERS Long COVID ⭐ ❗❗This paper from Japan (2024-12-02) reported that oral minocycline significantly helped 89% of long COVID patients in what was effectively a big case study, especially when given in the first six months. There was improvement in fatigue, post-exertional malaise, unrefreshing sleep, brain fog, disequilibrium, orthostatic intolerance, and neuropathic pain. (Minocycline is… Continue reading 2024-12-07 General
2024-11-22 General
Vaccines in General ⭐❗❗ I saw a post on teh socials where the author said that they had talked to people who thought that getting a COVID-19 vaccination too soon after an infection or previous COVID-19 vax was dangerous. Having infections or vaccinations “too close” together is not dangerous. It is less effective, perhaps, but… Continue reading 2024-11-22 General
2024-11-16 BC
All indicators say that the levels of COVID-19 are coming down noticeably at the moment. Regarding influenza vaccines, flu rates have ticked up slightly but are still really low. It feels to me like we are about two weeks behind last year’s flu season, so I think that means flu will probably peak in late… Continue reading 2024-11-16 BC
2024-11-03 General
Vaccines ⭐ This preprint from USA (2024-10-12) is about an influenza vaccine study, but it relevant to both COVID-19 and bird flu so I’m putting it at the top. In this study, the researchers used what they call “prime and spike” strategy for influenza where “prime” is an intramuscular injection and “spike” is a nasal… Continue reading 2024-11-03 General
2024-10-14 General
I’m going to try marking snippets with “AGAIN:” if it’s more evidence of something that we already knew, like that COVID-19 infections increase your risk of autoimmune disorders. COVID-19 COVID-Related Excess Sickness and Death It looks like one of the ways that COVID-19 kills people that doesn’t get listed as a COVID-19 death is car… Continue reading 2024-10-14 General