Legal This article says that the Supreme Court of BC ruled that evidential discovery could still be done over videochat, even though the plaintiff argued that in person examination was once again the default mode of examination. The court basically said (paraphrasing heavily!), “so what, we saw it worked, no reason to dump Zoom calls… Continue reading 2023-10-27 BC
2023-10-27 General
Long COVID This preprint from USA says they used PET scans to look at inflammation in the brains of long haulers, and found more inflammation in long haulers than in controls. This preprint from many places says that they found evidence of reactivation of herpesvirus type 6 in long haulers (mostly a childhood disease, where… Continue reading 2023-10-27 General
2023-10-20 BC
It sure looks like COVID-19 levels peaked and are heading down. Why? Beats me. Health Care System This article says that 48% of BC health care aid workers want to quit. Other Viruses I hear people say, “oh, it’s not COVID, it’s just a cold”? Check out the proportion of COVID in the BC CDC’s… Continue reading 2023-10-20 BC
2023-10-20 General
Other News These aren’t COVID-19 pieces, but I think they are important. I had thought that RSV vaccinations weren’t available in Canada yet because NACI and the province had not figured out the parameters, but they are! My flu shot vaccinator said that they have RSV on hand. It costs a bunch (almost $300), but… Continue reading 2023-10-20 General
2023-10-13 General
Vaccines This paper from Italy reports on Novavax Classic effectiveness during the early Omicron period. In people who had no vaccination previously, after about two weeks post-dose, they found vaccine effectiveness to be: Against infection symptomaticinfection 1 dose 23% 31% 2 doses 31% 50% You might look at this and think, “wow, that’s pretty crappy”,… Continue reading 2023-10-13 General
2023-10-13 BC
Everything: cases, hospitalizations, wastewater — says that cases have peaked and are on the downswing. (Probably because school started. /sarcasm.) I find it odd that hospitalizations and cases peaked at the same time. Usually hospitalizations lag cases by two weeks. I don’t think it’s from the vax rollout — you could imagine that care homes… Continue reading 2023-10-13 BC
2023-10-06 BC
It’s looking bad, folks. We are now above the Delta-level of hospitalizations (and above the Delta-level of COVID-19 in wastewater, too). Statistics As of 5 Oct, the BC CDC situation report says that in the week ending on 30 Sept there were: +877 reported cases, +228 hospital admissions, +25 ICU admissions, +24 thirty-day all-cause deaths*.… Continue reading 2023-10-06 BC
2023-10-03 BC
Transmission It seems like almost all public health doctors talk about COVID-19 as being part of “respiratory season”, and that cases go up “as we congregate indoors”. Some people talk about cases going up when school is in session. But looking at the historical data for BC, I see no evidence for that. I have… Continue reading 2023-10-03 BC
2023-10-03 General
Long COVID Huge news! — if it pans out. This paper from USA found that a protein called WASF3 f’s with mitochondria, and that it was elevated in people with ME/CFS. (Here’s a lay article explaining/describing the paper.) The authors also made mice with excess WASF3, and found the mice acted fatigued. This might be… Continue reading 2023-10-03 General
2023-09-15 BC
I really don’t have much for y’all today. There’s not much BC-specific news this week. Wastewater The wastewater levels seem to have plateaued for no reason that I can think of. Maybe because kids are in school? (<- That’s a joke.)