Omni-Testing 😮🩸‼️🎉 This paper (2025-02-21) reports on a method of sequencing the genomes of T-cells and B-cells from a patient’s blood sample which allows them to diagnose with great accuracy what pathogens the patient has been exposed to. Apparently B cells and T cells don’t have the genome of the rest of the body, but… Continue reading 2025-04-18 General
Category: Transmission
2025-04-11 General
Measles A reader pointed out that you can get a blood test to tell you how good your measles immunity is, so you know if you need another shot. The someone said that it might be useful for people who got a (possibly ineffective) vaccine in the 1960s. This is absolutely true, however, the cost/hassle… Continue reading 2025-04-11 General
2025-04-04 General
COVID-19 Random 👵🏻 Some people have noted that after COVID-19 infections, people get all kinds of diseases at rates comparable to older people. I also feel like I’m “younger” than my grandparents were at my age. (I absolutely cannot imagine my grandmother going on a 45km bike ride at my age, for example.) Knowing what… Continue reading 2025-04-04 General
2025-03-28 General
COVID-19 US Politics I avoid talking about 🇺🇸US politics too much; I try to focus on what is relevant for BC. But as this article (2025-03-25) reports, the Trump administration has cancelled USD$11.4 billion (with a B) in US CDC funds for COVID-19 testing, vaccination, community health workers, initiatives to address Covid health disparities among… Continue reading 2025-03-28 General
General 2025-03-21
COVID-19 Long COVID 🪧 This article (2025-03-15) says that there was a Long COVID protest at the Vancouver Art Gallery on 15 March. I’m bummed that I didn’t know about it ahead of time. 🐕🦺🤧 This older paper (2025-06-15) reports that dogs could be trained to detect Long COVID with high accuracy! They could distinguish… Continue reading General 2025-03-21
2025-03-15 General
COVID-19 📆 There have been a huge number of “it’s been five years since the start of the pandemic” articles. (For example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.) What have we learned? How… Continue reading 2025-03-15 General
2025-02-21 General
Vaccines You might have heard that the USA is having an egg shortage. You might know that 80% of flu vaccines are made with eggs. You might get concerned that egg-based vaccine production would be impacted. Fear not! This article (2025-02-19) reports that chickens who lay vaccine eggs are raised in a “controlled environment”, so… Continue reading 2025-02-21 General
2025-02-15 General
I have been avoiding saying much about the chaos in the US government health sector, but it’s been difficult. COVID-19 Long COVID AGAIN 🧪This paper from Australia (2025-01-13) reports that people with Long COVID and ME/CFS both have bigger left hippocampal subfields than healthy controls. Furthermore, the size of the left hippocampal subfield correlated with… Continue reading 2025-02-15 General
2025-01-31 General
It is still a little harder finding good articles / papers than a few weeks ago. In addition to all the chaff from Trump in the health sites I monitor, there are now a ton of news articles saying, “Today is the five year anniversary of the first COVID case appearing in <jurisdiction>, what have… Continue reading 2025-01-31 General
2025-01-25 General
Health news was harder to find this week. A lot of my sources were overrun with articles about what trouble the new US president is fomenting, leaving little room for articles about COVID, mpox, or H5N1. ☹️ You might have noticed that I sometimes mark snippets with “AGAIN”. Why do I bother showing studies that… Continue reading 2025-01-25 General