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
Category: Vaccines
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
2021-04-13 General
Mental Health The pandemic has clearly been a mental health disaster for many people. Interestingly, though, the number of suicides has not increased according to this study. Vaccines They have now found some problems with clotting with the J&J vaccine also. The alarm was first raised on Friday (the day this blog was ah impaired… Continue reading 2021-04-13 General
2021-04-12 General
Vaccines This preprint describes some early work on a vaccine which could work against ALL coronaviruses. This preprint found B.1.1.7 wasn’t more able to reinfect people, didn’t give different or longer symptoms, that it was more transmissible, and that lockdown was able to bring Rt below 1 even in the presence of lots of B.1.1.7.… Continue reading 2021-04-12 General
2021-04-11 General
Vaccines A followup on the J&J adverse reactions yesterday says that it was no big deal, but the same thing happened in Colorado. One person had an allergic reaction, but the others basically felt woozy/light-headed. Nine people were treated with juice and water. One possible explanation is that people who don’t like needles are probably… Continue reading 2021-04-11 General
2021-04-09/10 General
Sorry that there was no blog posting yesterday, I got my first shot of AstraZeneca and was wiped out. Vaccines Pfizer has announced excellent results from their clinical trial with adolescents, and has asked the FDA for approval! It is not a surprise that it’s effective in children as well, but it’s great news that… Continue reading 2021-04-09/10 General
2021-04-08 General
Vaccines Medicago, a Canadian vaccine manufacturer (yes! we have one 🇨🇦!) is expanding its Phase 3 trial in Brazil. CureVac says that they expect to get data from their Phase 3 trial in late April or May and is hoping for EU regulatory approval in June. CureVac is interesting because: It’s mRNA with a 2-proline… Continue reading 2021-04-08 General