Why are SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and COVID- 19hospitalizations dropping so rapidly these days in the U.S.? A 2/17/21 story by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic reports that it’s a mix of better social distancing, increased mask-wearing, seasonality, a growing variety of individuals in the U.S. who have developed antibodies after infection with the infection(15%to 30%of U.S. adults), and the growing variety of people in the U.S. who have actually been immunized versus
COVID- 19.” We’re speeding up towards a minute, sometime this spring, when half of American grownups ought to have some kind of coronavirus security, “Thompson concludes.
For a fast dive into essential outcomes from large-scale COVID -19 vaccine studies conducted by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax, Johnson and Johnson, and Gamaleya Sputnik V, see Yale University immunologist Akiko Iwasaki‘s 2/7/21 Twitter threadfeaturing relative tables, made by Yale Medical School trainees. “All the tables here … suggest the # COVID-related death in the immunized as the right-most column (which is NO).” She adds: “With all these vaccines … we can reduce the variety of extreme & deadly Covid. The variations are here, however existing vaccines still protect from extreme illness & vaccines for the versions are coming. We will get through this!”
A 2/16/21 story by Ariana Remmel for Nature includes bar charts that illustrate the frequency of side impacts reported to the U.S. Centers for Illness Control amongst people who have actually received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 People report more side effects to this vaccine and to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine than they do to influenza vaccines, according to an infectious-disease expert at the University of Washington School of Medication, the story states. The piece likewise specifies that the frequency of anaphylactic (severe, allergic, and deadly) reactions to the Moderna vaccine is three per million doses, and it’s 30 per 3 million dosages so far for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston released a 2/14/21 post at her Your Local Epidemiologist site that sums up the current proof for drugs to treat COVID-19 The post is based on a 280- page report on COVID-19 treatment alternatives released 2/11/21 by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. 2 options revealed by studies to work up until now: steroids called corticosteroids (particularly, they protect versus death from severe COVID-19 and reduce how long you have to remain in an extensive care unit), and the anti-viral drug remdesivir (it’s protective for hospitalized patients who need extra oxygen, besides ventilators). The post includes a 12/10/20 chart published in the British Medical Journal that summarizes the experimental outcomes of much of the drugs tested versus COVID-19 The post likewise sums up the proof for “drugs that are making headings,” but it recommends there presently is insufficient evidence to support giving them to COVID-19 patients (e.g. ivermectin, arthritis drug tocilizumab, and asthma drug budesonide).
COVID-19 may have humbled Peter Diamandis, entrepreneur and creator of the X Reward Structure, he suggests in a 2/12/21 blog post Takeaway: despite top quality pre-arrival and day-to-day screening, a gathering of what seems like about 100 individuals for a conference developed into a superspreader event that infected about a quarter of guests. A group of audiovisual and production technicians who kept to themselves and reportedly used masks throughout the event was spared. Diamandis composes: “Masks Work.”
The “authentic nerdy ladies” at Dear Pandemic(particularly, they are an interdisciplinary all-female team of researchers and clinicians who operate in nursing, health policy, and epidemiology to name a few fields) are now publishing Spanish-language COVID-19 information at a Facebook page called Querida Pandemia
The UnbiasedSciPod, a podcast co-hosted by Jessica Steier, a public health scientist and information scientist, and Andrea Love, an immunologist and microbiologist, publishes some handy graphics at its Instagram page, consisting of this one on 2/11/21 revealing updated U.S. Centers for Disease Control suggestions that pertain to people who have actually been immunized and later on exposed to somebody thought to be contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 or to have COVID-19 If you fall within two-weeks and 3 months of receiving your last vaccine dose and have no symptoms following contact with somebody who has the virus or COVID-19, you no longer are needed to quarantine, per the post.
You may enjoy “ I have actually never tried your idea, and now whatever is on fire, and that’s how I know your concept is bad,” by Eli Grober (1/17/21) in McSweeney’s.
This is a viewpoint and analysis article.
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