I didn’t sleep well last night, then took a long nap today, so this is all you get today, sorry. Vaccines This preprint reports on Phase 1 studies of Patria, the Mexican version of NDV-HXP-S. (If you’ve forgotten, NDV-HXP-S was developed at a med school in New York, uses the 6-proline stabilization, and uses really… Continue reading 2022-02-10 General
Category: Vaccines
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
2022-02-08 General
Pathology This case studies paper says that they saw four pediatric appendicitis cases with COVID-19. Now, four cases is not many, but it was almost a quarter of their appendicitis patients, while the rate overall was only 8%. They also note that it’s reasonable to expect that COVID-19 could infect the appendix, as it also… Continue reading 2022-02-08 General
2022-02-05/06/07 General
Long COVID This paper and this preprint says that people who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection are at greater risk from heart complications afterwards. The first study followed patients for the next year and found that patients had the following elevated risk of any heart issue in the following year compared to non-infected controls:… Continue reading 2022-02-05/06/07 General
2022-02-04 General
Vaccines This article reports that NACI now says that you should wait three months after getting COVID-19 before you get a booster. It’s not bad, it’s just that three months will give you better protection, they think. Note that they don’t actually have any data on the COVID-19 booster specifically, they are basing that advice… Continue reading 2022-02-04 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
2022-02-01 General
Vaccines This study in Israel of people over 60 found that the risk of infection dropped in half after their fourth dose of vaccine; the risk of severe illness dropped by a fourth. Note that this sounds really good, but the study was only in people over 60, and there’s no information on waning. Pathology… Continue reading 2022-02-01 General
2022-01-29/30/31 General
Vaccines There’s a great, long Twitter thread which looks at the effect of vaccines. (It summarizes a paywalled article, if you want to see the whole thing.) One of the elements which I found striking was how the risk of COVID-19 relative to the flu has dropped over time. In mid 2020, the infection fatality… Continue reading 2022-01-29/30/31 General
2022-01-31 Booster Recommendation
I am putting this here in a stand-alone document so that I can refer to it easily. People have been asking me which booster they should get, Pfizer or Moderna? For effectiveness, the answer is always Moderna, though it’s not so bad if you get Pfizer. All the studies I have seen say that Moderna… Continue reading 2022-01-31 Booster Recommendation
2022-01-28 General
Variants I don’t like to warn about variants before there’s data. (I didn’t sound alarms about Mu, for example.) Well, I think it’s time to talk about BA.2 — an Omicron variant. (The Omicron variant which sprouted up first is BA.1.) BA.2 doesn’t look like it is lot worse than BA.1 — not like Delta… Continue reading 2022-01-28 General