Religious Gatherings There are three churches which have been suing BC for not letting them gather to worship. Their basic argument is, “why is it okay to shop for balloons when it’s not okay to worship?” (Spoiler: because you don’t spend an hour shopping for balloons and you don’t sing or chant while you are… Continue reading 2021-02-27 BC
BC Vaccination Staffing Needs
I wondered: How many people will BC need to hire for their mass vaccination program? tl;dr: I came up with 734. From the BC Immunization Plan, the mass vaccination clinics (Phase 3 and Phase 4) will vaccinate five-year age cohorts at 172 community sites. From the 22 January 2021 presentation on the plan (see p.12),… Continue reading BC Vaccination Staffing Needs
2021-02-26 BC
Daily Statistics From today’s press release: +521 cases, +7 deaths, +6,889 first shots, +5,651 second shots. Currently 232 in hospital / 63 in ICU, 4,665 active cases, 8,040 under monitoring, 73,188 recovered. Charts Variants of Concern People connected to another three schools in Surrey, B.C., have tested positive for a COVID-19 variant of concern, according… Continue reading 2021-02-26 BC
2021-02-26 General
Vaccines Canada approved the AstraZeneca vaccine and a version made in India! This is good news. Canada has ordered 20M doses from AstraZeneca and 2M from Serum Institute of India (which makes the AZ under license), 500,000 doses of which are supposed to arrive on Wednesday 3 March. I have heard people grumbling that they… Continue reading 2021-02-26 General
2021-02-25 General
Vaccines Great news! Moderna has vaccines against B.1.351 ready to for Phase 1 trials! They are going to do a test with three different arms, with two shots of the COVID Classic (as normal) and then a half dose of either: a vax against B.1.351 and only B.1.351, a vax that’s a mixture of the… Continue reading 2021-02-25 General
2021-02-24 General
Vaccines The AstraZeneca vaccine is more effective when there’s a three month delay between dose 1 and dose 2. Unfortunately, the effectiveness drops quite a bit after the fifth week, from 84% in the fifth week to 58% after the seventh. Moderna is doing a long-term study of its vaccines, but is having a problem… Continue reading 2021-02-24 General
2021-02-25 BC
Press Briefing of 23 Feb 2021 From today’s press briefing: +395 cases, +10 deaths, +3,409 first shots, +5,549 second shots. Currently 228 in hospital / 62 in ICU, 4489 active cases, 7931 under monitoring, 72781 deaths. On Monday 1 March 2021, the briefing will feature further details about the vaccination program. Things that Dr. Henry and… Continue reading 2021-02-25 BC
2021-02-24 BC
Daily Statistics From today’s press release: +456 cases, +2 deaths, +2,809 first doses, +3,712 second doses. Currently 237 in hospital / 64 in ICU, 4,668 active cases, 7,924 under monitoring, 72,219 recovered. Charts
2021-02-23 General
Variant of Concerns Californa There is a strain in California which appears to be more contagious, the B.1.427/B.1.429 strain, which has a single interesting mutation (L452R). It is not in a specific part of the spike protein called the Receptor-Binding Domain (RBD). According to the un-peer-reviewed information, the variant appears to be more contagious: people… Continue reading 2021-02-23 General
BC Press Briefings
Many of my posts will be about press briefings; here I will describe the briefings I am talking about. The Ministry of Health presents, via video, information about the COVID-19 pandemic in BC. They feature Adrian Dix, the Minister of Health for British Columbia, and Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Provincial Health Officer of British Columbia.… Continue reading BC Press Briefings