Treatments This preprint says that injecting REGEN-COV (a monoclonal antibody treatment that you might know by the name of the company, Regeneron) into people who have been exposed to COVID-19 prevents developing a symptomatic infection with efficacy of 92.6%. This is a BFD. Before, they had to give it as an infusion i.e. the patients… Continue reading 2021-08-04 General
Category: Treatments
2021-07-20 General
Vaccines This article had this stunning graphic of the difference in mortality in the UK due to vaccines: This article reports that vaccines might re-activate dormant chickenpox, leading to shingles. If you are over 50, get a shingles shot! Mitigation Measures This article says that some restrictions in long-term care homes have been lifted. Visits… Continue reading 2021-07-20 General
2021-07-14 General
Vaccines This study shows that Pfizer gives really good protection to pregnant women (66%/97% against symptomatic infection with one/two doses). This small study (129 participants) from Hannover, Germany and this other even smaller study (59 participants) from Kiel Germany, showed that in test tubes, AZ+Pfizer is better than AZ+AZ (especially against Beta), and has basically… Continue reading 2021-07-14 General
2021-07-08 General
Vaccines Pfizer says that a third shot boosts antibody levels 5x to 10x against COVID Classic and Beta. Remember that antibodies aren’t the whole story, and that Pfizer has incentive to get as many people as possible to buy their vax. They also said they are working on a Delta-specific booster. The US FDA immediately… Continue reading 2021-07-08 General
2021-07-07 General
Vaccines A few days ago, there was a Israeli Ministry of Health report saying that Pfizer was only 64% effective against the Delta strain, which was far lower than other studies had found. It looks like the study in Israel was against all infection, including asymptomatic infection, while the others were against symptomatic infection. That… Continue reading 2021-07-07 General
2021-07-01 General
Testing You might have heard of “Lateral Flow Tests”. They are a type of rapid test which has been deployed widely in the UK. This study evaluated six different brands of lateral flow tests and found that they are less sensitive than PCR tests, but most of them are still pretty good. Long COVID This… Continue reading 2021-07-01 General
2021-06-19 General
Treatments This preprint might be important. It describes a novel treatment for COVID-19 (and possibly for all viruses). The active ingredient (SLR) activates a molecule called RIG-I, which in turn gooses the production of interleukin-1, which is a cytokine, part of the immune system associated with inflammation. Basically, SLR revs up the innate immune system… Continue reading 2021-06-19 General
2021-06-16 General
Vaccines Oh, ouch! CureVac has really crappy preliminary Phase 3 results: 49%. CureVac is an mRNA vax, and they had made all kinds of partnerships with really big pharma companies to manufacture it. They were supposed to deliver 300M this year and 1B next year. That hurts. A survey says that about one in five… Continue reading 2021-06-16 General
2021-06-15 General
Vaccines A few days ago, I wrote about how the world was going to have more than enough vaccine for everybody by the end of the year, and listed all the vaccines which I thought would be approved in time to help people this year? Well, one that had not even been on my radar… Continue reading 2021-06-15 General
2021-06-08 General
Vaccines There are a fair number of studies about how many antibodies a given vaccine induces the patient to make, but this study seems to say that a lot of the antibodies which a patient produces in response to a vaccine aren’t actually useful at killing the virus. The antibodies you produce after getting a… Continue reading 2021-06-08 General