Vaccines This study in Sweden of mix&match effectiveness against symptomatic infection found that a second dose of mRNA was better after a first of AZ than a second dose of AZ: 1st Dose 2nd Dose Effectiveness AZ AZ 50% AZ Pfizer 67% AZ Moderna 79% Pfizer Pfizer 78% Moderna Moderna 87% This article says that… Continue reading 2021-10-16/17/18 General
Category: Vaccines
2021-10-15 General
A friend kept ragging on me about using the trade names for various vaccines. I held firm because it was more correct and accurate. He complained that nobody knew the names, but I pointed out that people got used to Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. I now give up. Nobody and I mean nobody but… Continue reading 2021-10-15 General
2021-10-14 General
Vaccines Someone is live-tweeting the La Jolla Immunology Conference, and during a panel about an important paper from May that I’ve already talked about, they said something which I missed: that inter-individual variations in antibody responses are larger than the variations between responses to different variants. I’ve talked about the two-proline (2P) and six-proline (6P)… Continue reading 2021-10-14 General
2021-10-13 General
Diagnosis / Equity This Twitter thread suggests that the reason darker-skinned people have higher fatality rates from COVID-19 is because, well, they have darker skin: pulse oximeters, which are used to judge how serious a case is, don’t work on dark-skinned people. Economic effects This video from January 2021 makes the economic case — not… Continue reading 2021-10-13 General
2010-10-09/10/11/12 General
Mitigation Measures This article says that the US will allow fully-vaccinated Canadians to enter, starting sometime in November. “Fully-vaccinated” has not been clearly defined yet. Vaccines Novavax has published data from their Phase 3 trials in the USA and Mexico in this preprint. I wanted to be snarky and say that maybe this means that… Continue reading 2010-10-09/10/11/12 General
2021-10-07 General
Long COVID This study from the UK found: there were subtle differences in T cells which correlated strongly (but not perfectly) with having Long COVID; giving histamine receptor antagonists made 72% of them better (!!!); something which the histamine receptor antagonists never helped was dysautonomia, which suggests that there is some different mechanism causing that.… Continue reading 2021-10-07 General
2021-10-06 General
Mitigation Measures This article says that the Government of Canada has come out with new vaccine mandates. All federal employees — including those who work from home or in a different country — have until 29 October to get vaccinated. Everyone over 12 must be vaccinated to take a plane or train inside Canada. Transmission… Continue reading 2021-10-06 General
2021-10-02/03/04/05/06 General
It is going to take me time to catch up, be patient. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to understand how various non-coronavirus vaccines could provide some protection against COVID-19. I failed yesterday, but I will keep working on it (and posting other news). Vaccines This preprint says that people over 50 (i.e.… Continue reading 2021-10-02/03/04/05/06 General
2021-10-01 General
Vaccines Today, during a BC Ministry of Health press conference about something else, Dr. Henry got a question about when little kids’ vaccinations (ages 5-11). Dr. Henry said that Pfizer had submitted (or was about to submit?) data for the study, which had a new formulation: 1/3 of the adult active ingredient (10 mg vs.… Continue reading 2021-10-01 General
2021-09-30 General
Pathology This preprint made a model which predicts positive PCR tests based on seven symptoms: loss or change of sense of smell, loss or change of sense of taste, fever, new persistent cough, chills, appetite loss, and muscle aches. This can possibly replace tests in places where tests either are not available or when someone… Continue reading 2021-09-30 General