Vaccines This article reports that Health Canada approved Medicago’s Covifenz, a plant-derived protein subunit vaccine. In trials, Covifenz had 71% effectiveness against Delta infection, and 100% effective against hospitalization. According to their product monograph, it is fridge-stable, but needs to be handled gently. Medicago’s vax is a virus-like particle, what I generally call a “spikey… Continue reading 2022-02-24 General
Category: Variants
2022-02-23 General
As I mentioned before, “everybody” seems to be acting like the pandemic is over. It’s not. Really it is not. I suspect people hear numbers like “60 per day in Canada” and think, “oh, well, 60 isn’t many people in a population of 39M”, but I think people just don’t understand just how rare death… Continue reading 2022-02-23 General
2022-02-19/20/21/22 General
This post might look like it has a fair amount of stuff in it, but it’s four days’ worth (because of the Canadian stat holiday yesterday). I have noticed a big drop in the amount of content to pull from. I’m not even seeing a lot of “how do we transition to post-pandemic” articles now.… Continue reading 2022-02-19/20/21/22 General
2022-02-15 General
Mitigation Measures This article reports that border mitigation measures are being softened. Starting on 28 Feb: People can use a RAT instead of PCR test to get back into the country. (I don’t know how they verify the test date.) There will still be random PCR checks at the border, but if you have to… Continue reading 2022-02-15 General
2022-02-11 General
Transmission Buried in this blog post was something I hadn’t ever known: the volume of air a person inhales/exhales per minute is around ten times larger during exercise than at rest. No wonder DrH closed the gyms. Treatments This article reports that the US FDA has approved a new monoclonal antibody — bebtelovimab — for… Continue reading 2022-02-11 General
2022-02-10 General
I didn’t sleep well last night, then took a long nap today, so this is all you get today, sorry. Vaccines This preprint reports on Phase 1 studies of Patria, the Mexican version of NDV-HXP-S. (If you’ve forgotten, NDV-HXP-S was developed at a med school in New York, uses the 6-proline stabilization, and uses really… Continue reading 2022-02-10 General
2022-02-09 General
Vaccines You know how the mRNA vaccines are f amazing? I want to take a moment to say that I think the next generation of vaccines are going to be even more effective. There have been a rash of papers recently which indicate that we humans still have tricks up our sleeves: Multiple targets: All… Continue reading 2022-02-09 General
2022-02-08 General
Pathology This case studies paper says that they saw four pediatric appendicitis cases with COVID-19. Now, four cases is not many, but it was almost a quarter of their appendicitis patients, while the rate overall was only 8%. They also note that it’s reasonable to expect that COVID-19 could infect the appendix, as it also… Continue reading 2022-02-08 General
2022-02-05/06/07 General
Long COVID This paper and this preprint says that people who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection are at greater risk from heart complications afterwards. The first study followed patients for the next year and found that patients had the following elevated risk of any heart issue in the following year compared to non-infected controls:… Continue reading 2022-02-05/06/07 General
2022-02-04 General
Vaccines This article reports that NACI now says that you should wait three months after getting COVID-19 before you get a booster. It’s not bad, it’s just that three months will give you better protection, they think. Note that they don’t actually have any data on the COVID-19 booster specifically, they are basing that advice… Continue reading 2022-02-04 General