COVID-19 Vaccines 💉😡🇺🇸 This article (2025-04-25) reports that the Trump administration has issued stop work orders for GeoVax and Castlevax, joining Vaxart (which got a stop work order in February). Both GeoVax and CastleVax say they expect funding to disappear but that they are going to keep working on it anyway. 💉🇺🇸 RFK Jr giveth… Continue reading 2025-05-03 General
Category: Treatments
2025-04-27 General
COVID-19 Transmission In the 2024-04-04 BC post, I said that I had figured out why the COVID-19 levels were so low right now: because influenza inhibits COVID-19! Aha! Well, that’s bullshit. I don’t have good data going back a long time for flu in BC, but this chart of flu, COVID-19, and RSV levels from… Continue reading 2025-04-27 General
2025-04-18 General
Omni-Testing 😮🩸‼️🎉 This paper (2025-02-21) reports on a method of sequencing the genomes of T-cells and B-cells from a patient’s blood sample which allows them to diagnose with great accuracy what pathogens the patient has been exposed to. Apparently B cells and T cells don’t have the genome of the rest of the body, but… Continue reading 2025-04-18 General
2025-04-11 General
Measles A reader pointed out that you can get a blood test to tell you how good your measles immunity is, so you know if you need another shot. The someone said that it might be useful for people who got a (possibly ineffective) vaccine in the 1960s. This is absolutely true, however, the cost/hassle… Continue reading 2025-04-11 General
2025-03-28 General
COVID-19 US Politics I avoid talking about 🇺🇸US politics too much; I try to focus on what is relevant for BC. But as this article (2025-03-25) reports, the Trump administration has cancelled USD$11.4 billion (with a B) in US CDC funds for COVID-19 testing, vaccination, community health workers, initiatives to address Covid health disparities among… Continue reading 2025-03-28 General
General 2025-03-21
COVID-19 Long COVID 🪧 This article (2025-03-15) says that there was a Long COVID protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery on 15 March. I’m bummed that I didn’t know about it ahead of time. 🐕🦺🤧 This older paper (2025-06-15) reports that dogs could be trained to detect Long COVID with high accuracy! They could distinguish… Continue reading General 2025-03-21
2025-03-15 General
COVID-19 📆 There have been a huge number of “it’s been five years since the start of the pandemic” articles. (For example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.) What have we learned? How… Continue reading 2025-03-15 General
2025-03-07 General
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
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