Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

Interesting. It's just a mice study, but it looks promising.

JAMA just published a great meta analysis on mask wearing efficacy. Turns out, masks work well.
Merck is supposed to start human trials in March or April, according to some dude on reddit whose post I am not going to find again to post but will totally take on faith. Someone asked why the delay and some wag suggested it's because they don't want Oklahoma to buy 2 million dollar's worth on the first day it gets published.
 
My wife got her first dose last Saturday along with the rest of the staff at her school. Pfizer. Only had a sore arm. She's expecting to be down and out after the 2nd dose.

Dr. Fauci said that he expect April to be open season for any who want it. If I can get both doses before summertime, I will be so happy.

We're approaching 3 months since my parents had covid and I'm trying to plant it in their heads that their immunity could be decreasing so they need to start being careful until they can get vaccinated. Ever since they were cleared, they've been going out, seeing friends - basically back to normal but with masks. They're currently staying with my grandparents (who both had it last month but are recovered) for a week. My dad's been traveling all over the southeast since his company got bought out last month. Can't even imagine how many contacts he's had.
 
My wife got her first dose last Saturday along with the rest of the staff at her school. Pfizer. Only had a sore arm. She's expecting to be down and out after the 2nd dose.

Dr. Fauci said that he expect April to be open season for any who want it. If I can get both doses before summertime, I will be so happy.

We're approaching 3 months since my parents had covid and I'm trying to plant it in their heads that their immunity could be decreasing so they need to start being careful until they can get vaccinated. Ever since they were cleared, they've been going out, seeing friends - basically back to normal but with masks. They're currently staying with my grandparents (who both had it last month but are recovered) for a week. My dad's been traveling all over the southeast since his company got bought out last month. Can't even imagine how many contacts he's had.
No school staff has been vaccinated in CA. It’s supposed to start this month, but...
 
No school staff has been vaccinated in CA. It’s supposed to start this month, but...

California has done a better job with administering than Ohio by measurement of distributed vaccines that have been administered (source), but maybe it's purely a population size issue (CA has administered double the vaccines that OH was even distributed so far).
 
Prior to getting vaccinated, consider taking some vitamins. It should help make the vaccine more effective--particularly C, D, E and Zinc.

As the European Food Safety Authority notes, the vitamins A, B6, B9, B12, C and D and the minerals zinc, selenium, iron and copper are all needed for the immune system to function as it should.

Each of these micronutrients – as well as vitamin E – has been shown to play multiple roles in supporting immune function and reducing the risk of infection. Research has found a link between having an impaired immune system and having low amounts of many vitamins and minerals.

When the immune system isn’t properly fuelled and is impaired, this can then lead to poor vaccine responses. For example, a review of nine studies – together involving 2,367 people – found that individuals deficient in vitamin D were less well protected against two strains of flu after having been vaccinated compared to those who had adequate vitamin D levels.

By contrast, randomised controlled trials of micronutrient supplements (such as vitamin B6, vitamin E, zinc and selenium) in older people have been shown to increase the ability of the immune system to respond to challenges. Furthermore, it appears that to work at its best the immune system needs vitamins C, D and E together with zinc and selenium in excess of amounts that can usually be achieved through diet alone. For example, selenium levels above those typically regarded as optimal have been associated with a better cure rate for COVID-19.

 
More on vaccine equity. Just like richer countries getting the vaccine first, the richest people in the rich countries are getting the vaccine faster than poor people. This also has significant impact on racial disparities in vaccine distribution.

The findings back up, with hard data, anecdotal reports from around the country that wealthy people have been able to gain access to vaccines ahead of low-income people. “We’re seeing individuals who have privilege and access who are edging out the people who don’t,” said Tekisha Dwan Everette, executive director of Health Equity Solutions in Connecticut and a member of the governor’s Covid-19 advisory task force in that state.

 
My doctors office is in a Strip Mall in Salem and I was there for a follow up appointment this morning.

I noticed today the the Sakura Sushi place and a pizza / sub shop are gone.

They removed the Sakura sigh from the front of the building, but it's still clearly visible because the paint of the building front is so much lighter where the letters once were. The windows are boarded up.

In other news, the first case of the South African variant of the Coronavirus was detected in Massachusetts today. It is believed to be spreading through community spread as the person who came down with it has not traveled.
 
Here's more on anaphylaxis cases after vaccine doses. So for every one million people who got the Pfizer vaccine, about 5 people had an allergic reaction; Moderna's rate is half of that, with about 3 people in one million who get an allergic reaction after the vaccine. It seems that the vaccines, at least right now, appear safe; and they are FAR safer than taking your chances with Coronavirus.

During December 14, 2020 through January 18, 2021, a total of 9 943 247 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 7 581 429 doses of the Moderna vaccine were reported administered in the US (CDC unpublished data, February 2021). CDC identified 66 case reports received by VAERS that met Brighton Collaboration case definition criteria for anaphylaxis (levels 1, 2 or 3): 47 following Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for a reporting rate of 4.7 cases/million doses administered, and 19 following Moderna vaccine, for a reporting rate of 2.5 cases/million doses administered. Cases occurred after receipt of doses from multiple vaccine lots.

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A lot of unknown here, but the decline in COVID cases in recent weeks my correlate with the closing of testing sites due to winter weather.
 
New variant that looks really nasty. We don't yet know how wide spread it is or if it's any worse, but it has the potential to be highly contagious and possibly resistant to current vaccines.

Two variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes covid-19 have combined their genomes to form a heavily mutated hybrid version of the virus. The “recombination” event was discovered in a virus sample in California, provoking warnings that we may be poised to enter a new phase of the pandemic.

The hybrid virus is the result of recombination of the highly transmissible B.1.1.7 variant discovered in the UK and the B.1.429 variant that originated in California and which may be responsible for a recent wave of cases in Los Angeles because it carries a mutation making it resistant to some antibodies.

The recombinant was discovered by Bette Korber at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, who told a meeting organised by the New York Academy of Sciences on 2 February that she had seen “pretty clear” evidence of it in her database of US viral genomes.

The implications of the finding aren’t yet clear because very little is known about the recombinant’s biology. However, it does carry a mutation from B.1.1.7, called Δ69/70, which makes the UK virus more transmissible, and another from B.1.429, called L452R, which can confer resistance to antibodies.

“This kind of event could allow the virus to have coupled a more infectious virus with a more resistant virus,” Korber said at the New York meeting.


Read more: Exclusive: Two variants have merged into heavily mutated coronavirus
 
And this is just fun and funny, add some gin soaked raisins to your regime for optimal health. I like that they had to put a disclaimer that the CDC does not recommend this, lol.

A 105-year-old New Jersey woman who survived both the 1918 flu pandemic and a bout with the coronavirus attributed her longevity to her daily ritual of eating nine raisins soaked in gin.

“Fill a jar. Nine raisins a day after it sits for nine days,” Lucia DeClerck told The New York Times.

Gin-soaked raisins are not among the recommended Centers for Disease Control and Prevention treatments for the virus.

 

A coronavirus variant that probably emerged in May and surged to become the dominant strain in California not only spreads more readily than its predecessors but also evades antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines or prior infection and is associated with severe illness and death, researchers said.

In a study that helps explain the state’s dramatic holiday surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths — and portends further trouble ahead — scientists at UC San Francisco said the cluster of mutations that characterizes the homegrown strain should mark it as a “variant of concern” on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.
 
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