COVID effects A study in the UK found that about a third of COVID survivors were diagnosed with neurological disorders, with about a quarter of the total COVID patients getting their first-ever neurological diagnosis. (My interpretation says that this is things which happened during their first bout and Long COVID — they didn’t separate them.)… Continue reading 2021-04-06 General
Category: Vaccines
2021-04-04/5 General
Vaccines Great news! There’s a next-gen, (probably) really effective, easy to make, cheap COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon! The COVID19 spike sidles up to the ACE2 receptor, and when the spike docks, it changes shape. Many of the vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J) use a modification (the two proline, or 2P, modification) to the spike genome… Continue reading 2021-04-04/5 General
2021-04-01 General
Vaccines There is yet another study showing how good the vaccines are. This one, from Pfizer, shows that the vaccine remains 91% effective for at least six months, and is fully effective against B.1.351. Canada has given regulatory approval to the factory which made the AstraZeneca doses which the US is loaning to Canada! The… Continue reading 2021-04-01 General
2021-03-31 General
Vaccines Great news! Preliminary results say that the Pfizer vax works great in adolescents! This was to be expected, but this means we are methodically getting closer to being able to vaccinate children. More and more studies are showing that vaccines reduce asymptomatic infection by a lot — between about 75 and 95%, depending on… Continue reading 2021-03-31 General
2021-03-30 General
Vaccines Yet another paper which finds that, surprisingly, antibodies against COVID Classic work much better against P.1 than against B.1.351. A paper says that AstraZeneca is 70% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID from B.1.1.7 and only 29% effective against asymptomatic COVID from B.1.1.7, ouch. The paper says that it is 82% effective against symptomatic illness… Continue reading 2021-03-30 General
2021-03-29 General
Vaccines Good news! The US CDC has released a report which says that the mRNA vaccines prevent infection well, not just symptoms. In other words, if you get a vaccination, you’re unlikely to be a carrier and get other people sick. Not only that, but the mRNA is 80% effective after just one dose, yay!… Continue reading 2021-03-29 General
2021-03-26 General
Vaccines It’s a little bit confusing, but I think the UK said that they can’t ship AZ from Britain to the EU (like the EU says they should) because the UK AZ supply chain includes a subcontractor’s plant which the EU has not given regulatory approval to. (They didn’t give regulatory approval because AZ did… Continue reading 2021-03-26 General
2021-03-25 General
Vaccines Pfizer is starting trials of really young children. VOCs This article remarks that SARS-CoV-2 actually is not mutating that much, and that the different VOCs seem to be coming up with the same mutations over and over again in convergent evolution. This suggests that there might not be that much more that the viruses… Continue reading 2021-03-25 General
2021-03-23/4 General
Special double-issue today, and I spent all day yesterday doing my taxes. Vaccines Canada might be facing another vaccine drought. First, the European Union said yesterday they would embargo all vaccines from leaving the EU. Note that the EU is mad at AstraZeneca Inc. — the EU says that AZ has been sending vax to… Continue reading 2021-03-23/4 General
2021-03-22 General
Vaccines A big Phase 3 trial of AZ in the US just finished. While their previous trials has some ah irregularities, this one seemed to be done well.. Fortunately, this trial showed good results in the general population and in old people. (And no blood clotting issues.) Except… there was a highly unusual announcement from… Continue reading 2021-03-22 General