Vaccines This article has a graph of AZ and Pfizer’s effectiveness over time for old folks. It’s not pretty (but remember that they used a short dose interval, and Canada mostly used a long interval). Even for younger people, it’s not great news: This preprint says that people who have a spare tire around their… Continue reading 2021-09-14 General
Category: Vaccines
2021-09-11/12/13 General
Transmission This report says that seroprevalence of COVID-19 antibodies from infection in Canadian blood donors went up to 4.5%, up from 4.0% in May. (How can they tell the difference? Vaccines only make antibodies to the spike protein, so if there are antibodies to some other part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, then it was acquired… Continue reading 2021-09-11/12/13 General
2021-09-10 General
Vaccines The National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommends a third shot for various types of immunocompromised people. From this tweet, using data from Public Health England: From this tweet, also using data from Public Health England (note that it’s a LOG scale!): This US CDC report says that: the effectiveness against hospitalization was 76% for… Continue reading 2021-09-10 General
2021-09-09 General
Variants A US CDC report found that COVID-19 didn’t cause more hospitalized children to go to the ICU than in pre-Delta times. Vaccines Moderna announced that they have gotten really good results (in mice) from a vaccine which combines COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. This article says that COVID-19 frequently attacks kidneys, and that it really… Continue reading 2021-09-09 General
2021-09-08 General
Vaccines This large study from Scotland from March 2020 to November 2020 found that household members of healthcare workers were less than half as likely to get an infection after the healthcare worker got vaccinated. (Note: don’t forget that some of the household members got infected in the community.) This study of Pfizer found that:… Continue reading 2021-09-08 General
2021-09-04/05/06/07 General
Testing/Transmission This preprint says that getting a swab stuffed waaaay up your nose for a COVID-19 test makes about 20% of people cough or sneeze, which generates aerosols (which are dangerous). Men cough or sneeze significantly more than women do. (Maybe women are more conscientious about holding it in?) Pro tip, y’all: if you need… Continue reading 2021-09-04/05/06/07 General
2021-09-03 General
Vaccines This tweet has this nice graph, made with data pulled from the Public Health England Variants of Concern Technical Briefing 22. Variants This preprint from Denmark says that people who were not fully vaccinated were 2.8x times as likely to get hospitalized for Delta as for Alpha. (For people who were fully vaccinated, there… Continue reading 2021-09-03 General
2021-09-02 General
Schools Go read this Twitter thread, please. Vaccines This Twitter thread pushes back on the “vaccines are waning!” crowd. They point out some of the things I had pointed out about sketchiness in the various studies, plus a few others. Me, I think vaccines do wane in infectiousness some over time, but not as badly… Continue reading 2021-09-02 General
2021-09-01 General
Treatments Good news! This preprint says that baricitinib reduces all-causes mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients by 38.2%! Vaccines Remember how I was saying that I thought we’d see that longer doses were better? It turns out that waaay longer is better. This preprint says that for AstraZeneca, antibody levels were four times higher in people… Continue reading 2021-09-01 General
2021-08-31 General
Vaccines This preprint from Israel says that in the second and third weeks after a third dose of Pfizer, there was a 48-68% drop and a 70-84% drop. This preprint says: Antibody levels are similar in unvaxxed people who get symptomatic and asymptomatic infections. Antibody levels decrease over time. Antibody levels were higher in people… Continue reading 2021-08-31 General