Testing This article says that COVID-19 in wastewater is going up in many places across Canada. Mitigation Measures This article reports on an Italian study which found that better ventilation reduced COVID-19 cases dramatically in schools. Replacing classroom air 2.4 times an hour gave a 40 percent reduction in infections; 4 times an hour gave… Continue reading 2022-03-23 General
Category: Testing
2022-03-10 General
Mitigation Measures This paper reports on a big study in the US which compared school districts which had mask mandates with those that did not. For every 100 community-acquired cases, districts with universal mask mandates had 7.3 infections, while districts with optionally masks had 26.4. Don’t let anybody tell you that masks don’t work Testing… Continue reading 2022-03-10 General
2022-03-03 General
Vaccines You might be wondering what the holdup is with shots for toddlers and babies. After all, the Pfizer shots were effective (during the Delta regime) for the under-two babies, just not for the toddlers (presumably because the dose:weight ratio was high enough for the babies but not the toddlers). This article about the approval… Continue reading 2022-03-03 General
2022-02-24 General
Vaccines This article reports that Health Canada approved Medicago’s Covifenz, a plant-derived protein subunit vaccine. In trials, Covifenz had 71% effectiveness against Delta infection, and 100% effective against hospitalization. According to their product monograph, it is fridge-stable, but needs to be handled gently. Medicago’s vax is a virus-like particle, what I generally call a “spikey… Continue reading 2022-02-24 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
2022-02-09 General
Vaccines You know how the mRNA vaccines are f amazing? I want to take a moment to say that I think the next generation of vaccines are going to be even more effective. There have been a rash of papers recently which indicate that we humans still have tricks up our sleeves: Multiple targets: All… Continue reading 2022-02-09 General
2022-02-03 General
Variants This is really strange. This article says that in New York City and also in some places in California, they have been seeing strange variants in their wastewater surveillance for the past year — variants they haven’t seen in any people. It wasn’t clear, but I think there are three main lineages (classed as… Continue reading 2022-02-03 General
2022-02-02 General
Happy Twosday! Transmission This article reports on the results of the first human challenge trial (meaning: deliberate infection) of COVID Classic. You’re going WAIT WHAT? HOW COULD THAT POSSIBLY PASS ETHICS REVIEW? This happened in the UK (so different ethics boards), and they did work hard to minimize potential harm to the subjects (like making… Continue reading 2022-02-02 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
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