Category: Treatments

2024-07-07 General

Long COVID This paper from USA (2024-07-03) reports that they find SARS-CoV-2 hangs out in the bodies of people who had COVID-19. They’ve got a technique where they do PET scans with a tracer that can show where in the body T cells are active. They see a lot of activation in Long COVID patients… Continue reading 2024-07-07 General

2024-06-29 General/BC

I only had two pieces of BC-specific news, so I folded them in to the General post. COVID-19 Pathology IMPORTANT! This paper from USA (2024-06-21) reports using that cannabis raises your risk of severe COVID! The study found that people who used cannabis had a 28% higher risk hospitalization and 78% higher risk of ICU… Continue reading 2024-06-29 General/BC

2024-06-19 General

Unsolicited Product Recommendation I realized that I forgot to gush about the Readimasks fully in the last General post. They are a little expensive. HOWEVER, they gave a great seal (though see below) and were EXTREMELY comfortable. I do not have dangerously sensitive skin — I don’t go into anaphylactic shock when I touch latex… Continue reading 2024-06-19 General

2024-06-15 General

COVID-19 The blog has been on hiatus for three weeks and I am feeling overwhelmed. I hope to put out several General postings this week to chip away at the backlog. Personal Story The reason for the hiatus was that I went on vacation to the East Coast of the US for three weeks. This… Continue reading 2024-06-15 General

2024-05-04 General

I’m going to split blog postings into COVID-19 sections and H5N1 sections for now. I might someday split them into separate postings. Psychology Many years ago, I heard this George Carlin joke: “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” It… Continue reading 2024-05-04 General

2024-04-19 General

Pathology Why do kids and old people have such different reactions to COVID-19? This paper from UK (2024-04-15) says that kid and adult epithelial cells (which line mucous membranes) are different. In particular, cells in elderly people had more of the receptors which SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into the cells, and kids’ cells generated more… Continue reading 2024-04-19 General

2024-04-05 General

Long COVID This paper from Sweden (2024-04-04) found that patients with Long COVID didn’t have a worse time after exercise than controls. This is, on its face, a surprising finding because other studies (like this one) have definitely found that post-exertional malaise (PEM) (i.e. crashing after exertion) is a real thing. I have two observations:… Continue reading 2024-04-05 General

2024-03-29 General

Treatments This article from USA (2024-03-25) says that the FDA has approved Pemgarda, a monocolonal antibody, for use as a pre-exposure preventative for immunocompromised people. It will be used sort of like a vaccine. (Evusheld used to be effective for that, but SARS-CoV-2 mutated enough that Evusheld stopped being effective.) This is big news for… Continue reading 2024-03-29 General