Flu is definitely going down, finally. COVID-19 levels are still surprisingly low compared to most other points in the pandemic. Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: Comparison vs. Other Influenza-Like-Illnesses, from the Viral Pathogen Characterization page: In the most recent data (ending 8 March) as reported on 13 March 2025, among influenza-like illness (i.e… Continue reading 2025-03-15 BC
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
2025-03-07 BC
COVID-19 levels are still quite low compared to other points in the pandemic (and insanely high compared to pre-pandemic). Flu mayyybe is starting to taper off. Measles There are new measles cases in BC, in addition to the one we had last month. This article (2025-02-06) reports on the first case; this article reports (2025-02-07)… Continue reading 2025-03-07 BC
2025-03-07 General
COVID-19 Long COVID 🙁🛌 This preprint using data from USA and UK (2025-03-01) reports that people with hypermobility are at increased risk of Long COVID. People with generalized joint hypermobility have a 29% higher risk of Long COVID than controls; people with extreme hypermobility have a 112% higher risk than controls. This higher risk is… Continue reading 2025-03-07 General
2025-03-01 BC
Influenza is still going up! Most indicators say that COVID is still slowly trending down, but the number in hospital (which is what I consider one the most meaningful measures) is slowly going up. Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: Note: don’t get too excited about the approximately zero deaths: there were zero deaths… Continue reading 2025-03-01 BC
2025-03-01 General
Recommended Reading 🐎🤮 Did you know there was a horse flu epidemic in 1872 (also see this Wikipedia section) which crippled the US (and probably Canada)? I didn’t. 🤯 COVID-19 Long COVID 🎉 This older paper (2023-02-07) reports that maraviroc and pravastatin — two HIV treatments — significantly reduced symptoms in Long COVID patients. (Both… Continue reading 2025-03-01 General
2025-02-21 BC
Influenza still hasn’t peaked. It’s not at record levels, but it’s close — and it is still going up. Meanwhile, measles. 🙁 Measles ‼️‼️ ALERT! This article (2025-02-16) reports that there is a measles case in Fraser which came in on Air Canada Flight 66, arriving from Bangkok Feb 11. Reminder: if you were vaccinated… Continue reading 2025-02-21 BC
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 BC
Flu is still going up, but more slowly. RSV is still slowly slowly going down, COVID-19 is holding steady or maybe going down… but there were almost no COVID-19 deaths this week! (Or the Province’s reporting is messed up, that’s always possible.) Charts From the BC CDC Situation Report: Comparison vs. Other Influenza-Like-Illnesses, from the… Continue reading 2025-02-15 BC
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