Vaccines An article in the New York Times reports on studies which show that one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine gives good protection. An article in the Washington Post says that the Israeli vaccine rollout — which has now reached 50% of its citizens and almost 90 percent of people over 50 — shows that… Continue reading 2021-03-01 General
2021-03-01 BC
The big news was an immunization briefing, which I covered in a post of its own. AZ vaccine Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended against using the AstraZeneca vaccine in individuals aged 65 years and older, due to insufficient data. Weekend Statistics From today’s press release: Fri/Sat: +532 casesSat/Sun: +508 casesSun/Mon: +438 cases Over… Continue reading 2021-03-01 BC
2021-03-01 Immunization Briefing
The Health Ministry of BC had a briefing to give an update on the province’s immunization status and plan. Here’s the slide deck and the press release. The first plan‘s timeline was delayed a bit due to delays in supply, but things have generally gone according to plan. Note that some news broke at the… Continue reading 2021-03-01 Immunization Briefing
2021-02-28 BC
Religion Apparently, the variance that Dr. Henry gave the three churches who are suing to have services was not good enough for the churches, who did not drop the suit. The Orca has an interesting story about it.
2021-02-28 General
Long COVID There is a good thread by Dr. Iwasaki, a prominent virologist, suggesting possible mechanisms for Long-COVID and a clever vaccine trial which could help shed light on which mechanism it is. The possibilities she lists are: A persistent viral reservoir, i.e. the virus is hiding somewhere (like maybe the Central Nervous System) Inactive… Continue reading 2021-02-28 General
2021-02-27 General
Diagnostics A paper in Blood Advances describes some markers which a machine learning algorithm says indicate how likely a COVID-19 patient is to have a severe case. This is interesting for two reasons: It can tell who should get really aggressive treatment. Which elements of the blood are important can give clues to why COVID-19… Continue reading 2021-02-27 General
2021-02-27 BC
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