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
Category: Vaccines
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
2021-07-06 General
Vaccines In yesterday’s General blog post, I pointed to a study from Israel that said that Pfizer was only 64% effective. This thread does a takedown of that study. This preprint also says that AZ+Pfizer is a lot better (in test tubes, anyway) than AZ+AZ, and even a bit better than Pfizer+Pfizer. Disease This article… Continue reading 2021-07-06 General
2021-07-03/04/05 General
Seroprevalence This study from 18 June 2021 found that at the end of the second wave, between 5 and 6% of Canadians had antibodies to COVID-19, up from 2% after the first wave. Vaccines This study (done in Ontario) says that Moderna scores best against all the variants, and that Moderna does well against Delta… Continue reading 2021-07-03/04/05 General
2021-07-02 General
Mitigation Measures Trudeau put in writing that the border stays closed to foreign nationals entering from anywhere but the United States until 75% of the population (not the adults, not the eligible) are fully vaxxed. The “anywhere but the United States” is interesting, I think it basically bans air travel. Foreign nationals entering from the… Continue reading 2021-07-02 General
2021-06-30 General
Vaccines/Innoculation This paper poses an interesting idea: maybe masks and distancing help not just in preventing spread but also from lowering the number of virus that one is exposed to to a level where people got micro-innoculations from sick people! They base it on the observation that many countries in Europe had increased cases without… Continue reading 2021-06-30 General
2021-06-29 General
Note: It was hot again today, so today’s postings are going to be short. I’ll try to catch up in the next few days Deaths This report suggests that COVID-19 deaths in Canada were wickedly undercounted. NB: I haven’t had time to do a deep dive into it yet, but I would like to. So… Continue reading 2021-06-29 General
2021-06-26/27/28 General
It has been aggressively hot for the past few days, such that I have not wanted to have a hot laptop on my lap. Updates are going to be a bit behind for a few more days. Origins This Twitter thread (from 17 May) is interesting. It from someone who describes the changes from bat… Continue reading 2021-06-26/27/28 General
2021-06-25 General
Vaccines Apparently there’s some people being concerned about mRNA vaccine ending up in the ovaries. This Twitter thread takes that idea down. Tl;dr: the lipid envelopes which contain the mRNA migrate around, and a small amount ends up in the ovaries (as it does to lots of organs, most notably the liver), but such a… Continue reading 2021-06-25 General
2021-06-24 General
Vaccines This Research Letter says that vaccines do not decrease sperm production. There was actually an increase in sperm production, but that might be due to increased abstinence time before the second sample collection. This preprint from India says that the Delta strain is more resistant to antibodies in vitro, transmit from health care worker… Continue reading 2021-06-24 General