Variants I and a friend have been puzzling together about the drop in VOC cases in BC. One possibility is that COVID Classic is increasing its market share, which seems unlikely. A more likely explanation is that Variants of Interest are circulating but they have not yet been declared Variants of Concern. An obvious suspect… Continue reading 2021-07-14 BC
2021-07-14 General
Vaccines This study shows that Pfizer gives really good protection to pregnant women (66%/97% against symptomatic infection with one/two doses). This small study (129 participants) from Hannover, Germany and this other even smaller study (59 participants) from Kiel Germany, showed that in test tubes, AZ+Pfizer is better than AZ+AZ (especially against Beta), and has basically… Continue reading 2021-07-14 General
2021-07-13 BC
Vaccines This article slags the province for throwing away expired AZ doses. This really surprised me. I watch the supply carefully, noting when we got how many doses of which vaccine, and I don’t think we have much expiring. BC has used 64K less than they have received. The expiry date is either six or… Continue reading 2021-07-13 BC
2021-07-13 General
Vaccination Half of eligible Canadians have gotten their second dose, woohoo! Transmission This study looked at viral loads over time and found three interesting things: The total infectiousness (load integrated over time) was very different between different people. The viral load went up in saliva before it went up in nasal mucous. They suggest that… Continue reading 2021-07-13 General
2021-07-12 BC
Vaccine Clinics Here are graphs of BC’s first and second dose rates by age: Variants I mentioned in yesterday’s General post that the Netherlands is seeing a meteoric rise in cases. There are two things I should have mentioned: The Dutch removed almost all restrictions on 26 June, just five days before BC removed almost… Continue reading 2021-07-12 BC
2021-07-12 General
Vaccines This article reports COVID-19 patients who got a flu shot had significantly fewer complications than patients who did not. COVAX is getting 100M doses immediately from Sinopharm and Sinovac. This is great news. It’s not enough, of course, but double what COVAX has distributed already. (There’s another 390M coming later, which is also great… Continue reading 2021-07-12 General
2021-07-11 BC
Economy This article says that BC’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% in June, down from 7% in May and 7.1% in April. However, full-time work is down.
2021-07-11 General
Immunity This study estimates that immunity to COVID-19 from being infected will last 1,717 days. Variants The Delta variant does not fuck around. From Our World In Data: Border This article says that more people are trying to enter Canada from the US, but they are turning away about half of them, mostly because they… Continue reading 2021-07-11 General
2021-07-10 General
Vaccines This article says that the Sputnik V vaccine is turning out to be a good one, with effectiveness in the 90% range — and not just with Russian data, either. (I still wouldn’t get one because of the quality control problems which Brazil uncovered.)
2021-07-10 BC
Vaccine clinics I’ve been grousing about WHY ISN’T THE PROVINCE VAXXING FASTER, but I think I understand why now. The max day of 82K? That might not have been a the one-day result: it might include doses from previous days which just didn’t get logged properly. (On Thursday, the province logged 93K doses, and it… Continue reading 2021-07-10 BC