A health and public policy blog
Several recent studies show that not all who get a positive COVID-19 diagnosis by RT-PCR develop antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus or seroconvert. An Israeli group showed that 5% of all their CRead More…
It is more than 18 months since the first case of SARS-CoV-2 infection was diagnosed in the US. Most of us hoped for a vaccine which we believed will end the pandemic. Today we have several vaccineRead More…
It is 18 months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 as a global pandemic. The global deaths now is 8467, more than what was reported in the worst days of April and May 2020. The geoRead More…
In the past months with Covid-19 vaccines available in many countries, implementation programs are rolling out across the globe. The effectiveness of such programs is very important in curbing furtheRead More…
In the past one year we have lost more than half a million Americans to Covid-19. My worst estimate in March 2020 was a quarter of a million in a year. At that time I was very confident we would not Read More…
Different countries have so far approved more than 6 Covid-19 vaccines mostly by Emergency Use Authorizations. With this development a few questions keep popping up. One such question is on how the vRead More…
This post is my attempt to bring the vaccine experience to a larger audience. To do this I polled about 500 vaccine recipients over about 24 days. A prior survey that I conducted suggested that manyRead More…
As America continues to roll out vaccines across the country many questions are coming up. With the limited experience with our current vaccines some of these questions do not have easy answers. OneRead More…
As at January 10th, 2021 the death toll from Covid-19 was about 1.9 million globally and 372,522 in the United States. This is almost as many Americans as died in World War II. In the past week we haRead More…
US Response To Vaccine Implementation As public health authorities in the US roll out the Covid-19 vaccination program many issues beyond immunization logistics are beginning to surface. A receRead More…
Covid-19 What’s going on in the World: 81,126,416 cases worldwide since the start of the epidemic, with 1,771,407 deaths. It is likely we will, despite starting vaccinations, see another increaRead More…
Brief History of mRNA Vaccines The first published human trial of an mRNA vaccines was of a rabies vaccine. CureVac a Dutch Company specializing in mRNA vaccines and scientists at the University Read More…
About a year ago our world was upended when it became clear the respiratory virus spreading through China was not going to be contained locally. China dragged its feet trying to figure out how to hanRead More…
The Boston Smallpox Epidemic For many centuries’ smallpox was the scourge of humanity. It decimated human populations and in the New World wreaked havoc among Native Americans with the influx oRead More…
After almost 10 months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. There are several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines on the horizon, with two approaching FDA approval. As Read More…
Dialysis patients are a group with several risk factors ( advanced age, non-white race, poverty, and diabetes) for contracting SARS-CoV-2 and developing sever COVID-19. Therefore, they form a good grRead More…
My father died in 2014. Without a will! That was a remarkable thing for a well-educated man who always threatened us in childhood that for playing the fool, he was going to take us out of his will! TRead More…
This evening, like a lot of evenings, I sat down to write. Today, I could not. I was overcome with a deep sadness for my adopted home, the USA, and the way she is being devastated by COVID-19. TheRead More…
Many countries have seen their peak in cases of SARS-CoV-2 in the rear view mirror. Unfortunately the United States is still forging ahead in this epidemic. I wrote a previous post about preparing fRead More…
One of the vaccine candidates for COVID-19 at the Phase I stage is the non-replicating adenovirus type-5 (Ad5) vectored COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology (Beijing, Read More…
In the past few days, the internet has been abuzz with the story of a nurse in a hospital in Tula, Russia. She showed up for her shift in the all-male COVID-19 patient ward with no clothing save for Read More…
Since COVID-19 broke out, the data has shown relatively fewer children getting infected or severely ill. 2% of cases described in patients under age 20 (Wu et al. JAMA. 2020). The pediatric deaths frRead More…
Dr. Anthony Fauci said this, “Anything could, but I must say that the degree of efficiency of transmissibility of this virus is really unprecedented in anything that I’ve seen. It’s an extraordinRead More…
Lock down ends. The streets are already beginning to fill again. There is a new item of color on the landscape of faces now: masks. I am learning to recognize people by the pattern on the masks they Read More…
Unlike initially thought, the lungs are not the only victims of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. By combing through the myriad reports out there, it is getting evident that this virus can attack other organ sysRead More…