Variants This paper says that the antibody response from a Pfizer vax to B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 is lower, but the T-cell response is just fine. That means there will be a few more cases in a B.1.1.7- or B.1.351-rich environment, but there won’t be severe cases. A lot of people are worried about the B.1.617.2… Continue reading 2021-05-28 General
2021-05-27 BC
Variants B.1.617.2 is now dominant in the UK. This is legit something to worry about, as one dose of vax is only about half as good as two doses. Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of it in BC — yet. Press Briefing Dr. Henry said: We’ve passed 3M doses given, yay! We are changing… Continue reading 2021-05-27 BC
2021-05-27 General
Mitigation Measures Whaddayaknow, masks work. This literature review says so. Variants B.1.617.2 is now dominant in the UK. This is legit something to worry about, as one dose of vax is only about half as good as two doses. Vaccines Some scientists think that COVID-19 immunity from vaccines will last years, if not a lifetime.… Continue reading 2021-05-27 General
2021-05-26 BC
Vaccinations On a COVID Slack channel that I frequent, the question has come up: “Why are we sitting on 127,917 AstraZeneca doses? If we are saving them for second doses, why not use them as second doses?” I think that’s an excellent question, and we’ve come up with the following possible reasons: They are scared… Continue reading 2021-05-26 BC
2021-05-26 General
Treatments This article explains how scientists can now make mini organs — like mini-lungs and mini-hearts — and infect them with COVID-19 to see what happens. This has the potential to make it much faster to try out different treatments. 😲 This paper reports that a nasal antibody spray can help hamsters recover from COVID-19.… Continue reading 2021-05-26 General
2021-05-25 BC
Vaccinations BC is changing the interval between first and second doses from 112 days/16 weeks to 50 days/~7 weeks for Pfizer. That means almost all 70+ will be eligible right away. Unfortunately, a lot of the 70+ yos are not in the system right now. Age Cohort size Registrations (by last week) % registered 70-79… Continue reading 2021-05-25 BC
2021-05-25 General
Mitigation Measures This paper looked at movement restrictions in the US and found the following (independent) reductions in mobility from mitigation measures: Measure Reduction emergency declaration 9.9% social distancing policies 24.5% shelter-in-place 29% Further, they found that a 10% reduction in mobility was associated with a 17.5% reduction in case growth two weeks later. Vaccines… Continue reading 2021-05-25 General
2021-05-24 General
Diagnostics Dear Readers, go get yourself a pulse oximeter. A study showed that frequently people with COVID wait until they are short of breath to go to hospital. Unfortunately, with COVID, frequently you feel like you can breathe fine, but your blood oxygen actually is quite low. If your pulse oximeter is reading low and… Continue reading 2021-05-24 General
2021-05-22/23/24 BC
It was kind of slow over the weekend, so I’m doing three days at once. Mitigation Measures The police cleared out a crowd at English Bay beach on Friday at 10p when the beaches officially closed. Police turned back about 100 cars and fined two at travel-denying checkpoints. Those two just… didn’t stop. Vaccination I… Continue reading 2021-05-22/23/24 BC
2021-05-22/23 General
Yesterday was a bit of a slow news day, plus I uh forgot to hit the Publish button, so today you get a 2-for-1 post! Schools A US CDC report says that schools that required teachers and staff to use masks had 37% lower rates of COVID-19. Schools which improved ventilation had 39% lower rates… Continue reading 2021-05-22/23 General