Treatments Okay, this preprint is wild — if I understand it correctly. My understanding is that the authors made a thing — a Therapeutic Interfering Particle or TIP — which looks just like SARS-CoV-2 except it has a vastly stripped-down genome, one that doesn’t have all the instructions needed to make the enzymes and proteins… Continue reading 2021-11-10 General
Category: Variants
2021-11-06/7/8 General
Disease As I mentioned back in May 2020, they discovered a new coronavirus in Malaysia in samples from 2017 and 2018 which appears to have jumped directly from dogs to humans. They found this coronavirus because someone decided to go looking for unknown coronaviruses, and whaddayaknow, there one is! There wasn’t a big fuss because… Continue reading 2021-11-06/7/8 General
2021-10-29 General
Vaccines This article says that NACI recommended boosters for a few more groups: People who got two doses of AZ or one of J&J, on the grounds that those seem to wane over time. People over 70 who could become severely ill from the disease. People from First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities. Front-line health-care… Continue reading 2021-10-29 General
2021-10-23/24/25 General
Transmission In this small study of Italian health-care workers who were tested regularly, all of the people who tested positive but were asymptomatic tested negative the very next day. The mean time for the symptomatic patients to test negative was 11 days. Pathology This preprint says they found SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid of… Continue reading 2021-10-23/24/25 General
2021-10-20 General
Variants As this article says, they are starting to see a new variant in England called AY.4.2 or “Delta plus”. It is gaining ground on Delta, although slowly. It might be a little bit more contagious than Delta, but not hugely. It’s not like the huge advantage over Alpha that Delta had. Recommended Reading This… Continue reading 2021-10-20 General
2010-10-09/10/11/12 General
Mitigation Measures This article says that the US will allow fully-vaccinated Canadians to enter, starting sometime in November. “Fully-vaccinated” has not been clearly defined yet. Vaccines Novavax has published data from their Phase 3 trials in the USA and Mexico in this preprint. I wanted to be snarky and say that maybe this means that… Continue reading 2010-10-09/10/11/12 General
2021-10-06 General
Mitigation Measures This article says that the Government of Canada has come out with new vaccine mandates. All federal employees — including those who work from home or in a different country — have until 29 October to get vaccinated. Everyone over 12 must be vaccinated to take a plane or train inside Canada. Transmission… Continue reading 2021-10-06 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
2021-09-04/05/06/07 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