Covid-19 Updates | Jeff McNeill

Updated 28-Jun-2024

See all Covid-19 articles:

Contents

Most recent updates

This is meant to show latest news and updates to Covid-19. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather suggestive and providing some recent information that might not fit elsewhere or may be the first place before other resources are updated.

05 September 2021

Covid-19 affects liver function in a significant number of cases. This is problematic for several reasons: decreased liver function does not necessarily present itself easily, with pain, etc., and the large number of Covid-19 cases may signal a future large influx of people with liver disease.

30 August 2021

Various new findings over the past week or so.

Delta infections cause more than 2x more hospitalizations and emergency service use vs. Alpha The Lancet
CDC: An Unvaccinated Teacher Took Off Their Mask to Read Aloud. Half the Class Got COVID
In Thailand, Pfizer is being used for a third booster shot on those with two Sinovac inoculations, and also for foreigners in the high risk category. It is now widely available for those groups, including in Chiang Mai.
Fitness trainer declined vaccine after recovering from Covid-19. He later contracted it a second time, with devastating effects

23 August 2021

Mix and match vaccines of different types appear to offer a better overall immune response, as they activate different immune response pathways (B-cell and T-cell), says an article in Nature, and a broader discussion in the same journal. In this case it was the AstraZeneca which activated the T-cells and an mRNA which activated the B-cells.
Similarly, Immunitybio founder Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has focused on a T-cell booster shot, and is in third phase trials.
- Soon-Shiong also indicated that masking indoors is also wise and that we do it not only to protect ourselves (the vaccinated are much more protected) but also to protect others, which is important.
At the same time, the WHO warned individuals to not mix-and-match, or decide individually on what they would get on a second, third, or fourth dose, but that agencies could make these decisions. In these cases, the WHO should just keep quiet, I think. They just add more noise to the situation. They were not adding any relevant information, and who knows who their audience for this warning was supposed to be.
COVID-19 Guidance for Safe Schools American Academy of Pediatrics

22 August 2021

Children are definitely getting sick with Covid-19 and in the US the Delta Variant is causing the highest levels of hospitalization and death, topping previous surges. In particular, based on a large study in Canada, children are much more infectious than other age groups, the youngest being the most infections and adolescents being the second most infections out of all age groups. This is especially important for children returning to school, and implies a needed mandate for the use of masks in schools.
Some research on recovered SARS cases who have been vaccinated show very high levels of protection against infection, with doctors suggesting this might lead to a third generation vaccine that would be effective against all coronaviruses (including those we still have not encountered).
In the US they are offering mRNA vaccine boosters to those who have had vaccination 8 months or longer ago. This might also apply to the J&J vaccine, though it has not been used earlier than April, 2021 in the US, therefore 8 months have not yet passed.