Vaccines for COVID-19. Part 2: And We’re Off!
Marissa Carter - Medical Writing for Clinical Trials
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Vaccines for COVID-19. Part 1: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
There are currently over 140 SARS-cov2 vaccine candidates (here’s the full list). Many of those will likely fail at some point due to lack of funding, poor efficacy, or unacceptable side effects but it is hoped that sufficient number will complete phase III trials and...
We Should Worry About the Omicron Mouse Origin Theory
The news that the Omicron strain of SARS-Cov2 has mouse fingerprints all over it probably didn’t rock your world, but it maybe it should. Let’s first explain the mouse part.Wei et al claim that the molecular spectrum of mutations (i.e., the relative frequency of the...
Guidelines for the End of the Pandemic
I was heartened to finally see a pragmatic guideline come out of the White House and CDC: reducing quarantine from 10 to 5 days. There’s been some pushback from some epidemiologists and unions, but the truth is if we’re ever going to get back to any semblance of...
SARS-Cov2 Omicron Strain: Is This the Light at the end of the Tunnel?
We’ve seen a lot of drama in the past few weeks with the rise of the Omicron strain. Some of it may turn out to be justified. This strain has an interesting lineage (Figure 1) that came from South Africa. South Africa has been a source of other strains that never...
SARS-Cov2 Tests: Everything You Wanted to Know
In this post we’ll cover the different kinds of tests available, some background on the testing principles, what the tests tell us, and a few dos and don’ts. PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests The PCR method was invented in 1985 by Kary Mullis. You will sometimes...
The SARS-Cov2 Endgame: The Road Ahead
In this blog we’ll mostly take a 35,000-foot view of a number of issues (with some exceptions), and take a long, hard look at how the pandemic will progress, and finally end. Basic epidemiology With the delta variant (strain b1617.2), the virus upped its game. It...
The Second Phase of the Pandemic: The Race to herd Immunity
Pandemics are multi-year events that often go in phases. The 1918 flu pandemic had 3 distinct phases of which the second was the deadliest. I have some serious concern that April 2021 through March 2022 will follow that pattern if we don’t reach herd immunity this...
Why You Don’t Want to Be Like Brazil
It’s been about a year for us in the USA since things started to go sideways. Where are we? At the beginning of the year I developed a simple empirical model to project a worst-case scenario in terms of cumulative deaths from SARS-Cov2. Sadly, actual deaths are still...