Vaccines If someone you know says that mRNA vaccines are too new and/or got rushed into production, point them at this article from 2018 which shows that there were five mRNA vaccines which had already completed trials, with five more in progress: — This is a really nice graphic showing the value of vaccinations (from… Continue reading 2021-07-24/25/26 General
Category: Variants
2021-07-23 General
Vaccines This article says that data from Israel shows that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against infection (not against severe disease!) might be waning. Take that with a big grain of salt, however. There are a number of reasons why this should not be scary to you, even if you got the Pfizer vax.… Continue reading 2021-07-23 General
2021-07-22 General
Variants This article suggests that one reason why Quebec is seeing so few Delta cases compared to other provinces is because they’ve got more of something else: A.2.5, first seen in Central America. It’s not a VOC yet, but they are keeping their eye on it. Vaccines This study of Pfizer found that neutralizing antibodies… Continue reading 2021-07-22 General
2021-07-16 General
Vaccines This preprint found that antibody levels wane over time, moreso for AZ than Pfizer, and less so in women. (BNT162b2 is Pfizer; ChAdOx1 is AZ.) Reminder: antibodies are only one element of protection, and the body should be able make more if the B-cells are well-trained. This article says that vaccines for kids 6… Continue reading 2021-07-16 General
2021-07-15 General
Variants This article says that Delta, while more contagious, does not lead to more severe consequences. It points out that if Delta were more severe, then deaths per case would have increased recently, while it has not. On the other hand, this preprint says that Delta does cause more severe illness in Canada. Ah, science:… Continue reading 2021-07-15 General
2021-07-12 General
Vaccines This article reports COVID-19 patients who got a flu shot had significantly fewer complications than patients who did not. COVAX is getting 100M doses immediately from Sinopharm and Sinovac. This is great news. It’s not enough, of course, but double what COVAX has distributed already. (There’s another 390M coming later, which is also great… Continue reading 2021-07-12 General
2021-07-11 General
Immunity This study estimates that immunity to COVID-19 from being infected will last 1,717 days. Variants The Delta variant does not fuck around. From Our World In Data: Border This article says that more people are trying to enter Canada from the US, but they are turning away about half of them, mostly because they… Continue reading 2021-07-11 General
2021-07-09 General
VOCs This report from Public Health England says that Delta now makes up 97% of the genotyped cases. This report from Public Health England says that there have been a few cases of Lambda from international travel, but it does not seem to be out-competing Delta and does not seem to be particularly vax-evasive. It… Continue reading 2021-07-09 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
2021-06-22 General
Mitigation Measures This paper looks at the strategy of eliminating vs. mitigating and concludes that eliminating is better. It says that the countries which went for elimination (Australia, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) have done much better than the ones which went for mitigation. Um, notice anything about those countries? None of them… Continue reading 2021-06-22 General