2021-05-12 General

Variants There is a somewhat worrying report from Qatar saying that the efficacy of only one dose of Pfizer is only 29.5% against infection from B.1.1.7 and 54% against hospitalization. If you only have one dose, maybe don’t go licking doorknobs just yet. However, this report, also out today, from the UK from December to… Continue reading 2021-05-12 General

2021-05-11 General

Secondary Effects A study in the UK says that diabetes diagnosis, management, and mortality have been impacted pretty badly during the pandemic. 🙁 Vaccinations Today, Canada passed the 40% mark in what percentage of its population has gotten at least one dose, and it doesn’t look like the vaccination rate is slowing down at all!… Continue reading 2021-05-11 General

2021-05-08 General

Immunity A huuuge study in Denmark looked for reinfections and from that, figured out the efficacy of getting sick in preventing later infections and found that it was 80·5%, 47·1% for those aged 65 years and older. And yes, mRNA vaccines are like 95% efficient, so yes, the mRNA vaccines are higher efficacy than actually… Continue reading 2021-05-08 General

2021-05-07 General

Drug interactions Apparently some people were worried that Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) would make a COVID infection worse. Not so, says this study. Variants Remember yesterday when I said that B.1.617.2 was not of concern? I was too fast. While it does not seem to have unusually good immunity/vaccine evasion, it does seem to be… Continue reading 2021-05-07 General

2021-05-06 General

My computer is in the shop, and working with my other computers is extremely painful, so these posts are likely to be shorter in the next six days. I particularly am likely to skip posting many “oh look, vaccines again show that they are really effective!” unless it is against a VOC. Variants There was… Continue reading 2021-05-06 General

2021-05-05 General

Vaccines Pfizer has been approved down to age 12, yay!! Moderna has been doing a clinical trial with a booster made to mimic the spike proteins of B.1.351 instead of COVID Classic, and their press release says it works better against B.1.351 and P.1 than a third shot of Moderna Classic. (Note: it “works better”… Continue reading 2021-05-05 General

2021-05-02 General

Vaccines You know how I keep saying we are going to have SO MUCH VAX?From an April 22 Economist article (emphasis mine): “Last week, the billionth dose of covid-19 vaccine was made. It is a sign of how greatly capacity has expanded over the past six months that the next billion could be produced by May 27th,… Continue reading 2021-05-02 General

2021-04-28/9 General

I was busy on 28 April, sorry. I’m also getting bored with articles/papers which say: OMG look at how well vaccines work! People in a group known to have poor immune responses to vaccines have poor response to just one dose of COVID vax, and should be prioritized for second doses! Here’s yet another vaccine… Continue reading 2021-04-28/9 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

2021-04-12 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