Category: Variants

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VOCs There has been some research lately which pegs the P.1 transmissibility at 2.5x more than COVID Classic. Ulp. The good news is that everything I have seen is that the vaccines work well against it. Scientists have found that mice — just your regular standard lab mice — can get the P.1 and B.1.351… Continue reading 2021-03-20 General