Vaccines The National Advisory Council on Immunizations today advised that AZ can be given to people as young as 30. They did also say, however, that mRNA vaccines were preferred. I have talked before about how we are going to have SO. MUCH. VAX in the next year. Today, the famous high-tech powerhouse of Kazakhstan,… Continue reading 2021-04-23 General
Category: Vaccines
2021-04-22 General
Vaccines I’m hearing murmurings about “If I am vaccinated, why can’t I do [X]?!?!?!” Because vaccination is not perfect, and it’s not the most important thing, case counts per capita are. If the efficacy of one shot of a vaccine is 80%, it doesn’t mean that if you are exposed, you have an 80% chance… Continue reading 2021-04-22 General
2021-04-21 General
Variants The “California” variants (B.1.427/B.1.429) are more transmissible and vaccines are less effective against them, but they are less dangerous than B.1.1.7. Don’t lose sleep over them. Vaccines This paper reports that mRNA vaxxes sure seem safe for pregnant women. There is a vaccine, SpFN, developed at Baylor, which they say will protect against SARS… Continue reading 2021-04-21 General
2021-04-20 General
Vaccines Only 32 vaccinated people were among 74,405 COVID-19 patients admitted to UK hospitals between September and March. (Given that they used a lot of AZ, as an AZ recipient, these articles make me very happy!) Transmission A study in Atlanta found that COVID spread in school was first from high-contact sports, then staff meetings/lunches,… Continue reading 2021-04-20 General
2021-04-19 General
Side effects Bad news for anybody who enjoys erections: COVID can cause erectile dysfunction. Vaccines There are starting to be a few reports of inflammation of the heart in young people after getting an mRNA vaccine. This is very early, so it might be nothing… but it also might be something. Aaaannnd this paper talks… Continue reading 2021-04-19 General
2021-04-18 General
Vaccines Yet another to add to the list of does-not-mount-good-antibodies: solid organ transplant recipients. Unlike many of the other patient groups (pregnant, lactating, some cancers, kidney dialysis), even a second shot isn’t good enough to get good antibody response. 🙁 Reminder: antibodies are not the whole story. T-cells are also important, and unfortunately are difficult… Continue reading 2021-04-18 General
2021-04-17 General
Vaccines Buried in this article about Moderna signing a contract with Rovi, a Spanish company, to make ingredients for their vax is something that mentions that Lonza (Moderna’s primary subcontractor) has two manufacturing lines that it expects to become operational in the next few weeks. Currently, only one line is operational. Tripling the Moderna output… Continue reading 2021-04-17 General
2021-04-16 General
Vaccines One might think you’d have to have quite a high vax rate before case counts would come down. Israel currently is basically back to normal, and their vax rate is only about 60%. Want to know more about what scientists think might be behind the AZ clotting issue? The Atlantic has a good article… Continue reading 2021-04-16 General
2021-04-15 General
Vaccines The vaccines are good, but not perfect. In the US (which has had much greater levels of the virus), they had a 0.008% chance of getting COVID (out of 66 million fully vaccinated) 0.00056% chance of being hospitalized (7% of these infections) 0.00001% chance of dying from COVID(7 in 66 million vaccinees) (Chance of… Continue reading 2021-04-15 General
2021-04-14 General
Vaccines Health Canada today said that the AZ vaccine was okay for all ages. Note that this does not mean that provinces can immediately start using AZ for all ages — the National Advisory Committee on Immunizations (NACI) needs to change its advice before the provinces can do that. A company in Seattle making an… Continue reading 2021-04-14 General