This week’s post is a little short because I performed a rapid unscheduled cranio-planetary docking maneuver while on a bike ride. (I’m fine — helmets are awesome! — but I’m taking it easy for a few days.) Long COVID Two weeks ago, I reported on a case studies paper which found that nicotine patches helped… Continue reading 2023-12-08 General
Category: Transmission
2023-11-10 General
Long COVID This paper from Italy found that people continue to recover taste and smell for at least three years after losing it due to COVID-19 infection. This paper from USA said that children under 5 years old who had been infected with COVID-19 were 40% more likely to get RSV than controls. Vaccines Intranasal… Continue reading 2023-11-10 General
2023-10-27 General
Long COVID This preprint from USA says they used PET scans to look at inflammation in the brains of long haulers, and found more inflammation in long haulers than in controls. This preprint from many places says that they found evidence of reactivation of herpesvirus type 6 in long haulers (mostly a childhood disease, where… Continue reading 2023-10-27 General
2023-10-13 General
Vaccines This paper from Italy reports on Novavax Classic effectiveness during the early Omicron period. In people who had no vaccination previously, after about two weeks post-dose, they found vaccine effectiveness to be: Against infection symptomaticinfection 1 dose 23% 31% 2 doses 31% 50% You might look at this and think, “wow, that’s pretty crappy”,… Continue reading 2023-10-13 General
2023-09-15 General
This week, there have been a TON of articles with “What you need to know” in the headline. “What you need to know about the fall vaccines”, “What you need to know about BA.2.86”, “What you need to know about COVID this fall”, “What you need to know about COVID rapid tests heading into the… Continue reading 2023-09-15 General
2023-09-08 General
Long COVID This paper from USA looked at Long COVID in US veterans over two years. It found: Note, however, that this study did not look at the risk of diagnoses of other illnesses, e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular incidents, neurological impairments, etc. which other studies have found. Also, this study was done on US veterans, an… Continue reading 2023-09-08 General
2023-08-16 General
Okay, I’m done with the things I was super busy with, but I’m still catching up. I’m hoping to pump out several posts in the next week or two. Unexpected Side-effects This paper reports that fertility in the US went up after the first year of the pandemic, the first time births per capita went… Continue reading 2023-08-16 General
2023-06-19 General
I have been busy for the past eight weeks, so am behind on my COVID-19 research. I’m still not caught up, and there’s no real reason to publish today except for f it, I need to publish sometime. So here you go! COVID-Related Excess Death and Sickness This paper using data from Hong Kong and… Continue reading 2023-06-19 General
2023-05-30 General
Long COVID This paper from Germany has some good news: it says that mild to moderate COVID infections in unvaccinated people does not lead to cognitive deficits several months after recovery than in controls. The caveat is that the study had only 223 people in each arm of the study, so it might not have… Continue reading 2023-05-30 General
2023-05-04 General
I had an ugly thought. Maybe it makes a certain sense from the majority’s standpoint, to remove all restrictions because it would level the playing field. If COVID-19 does cause lasting damage, e.g. in increasing the risk of death or disability, then the people who have never had COVID-19 have an advantage over the people… Continue reading 2023-05-04 General