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…
As humans, our first line of defense against viral pathogens is the innate immune response. That includes things like the skin, cytokines, and macrophages. This response tries to hold the line till tRead 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…
Vaccine implementation across the country is giving way to easing of social distancing restrictions. With successful vaccine deployment many are getting ready to transition back to a physical work enRead More…
Yes it is 40 years old now and I can say I have known it most of these 40 years. How does one celebrate a pandemic? As someone who went through my teens in the 80s, I was scared of it. As a medical sRead 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…
Interestingly, two pre-prints were released this week that looked at the same issue. These papers were a comparison of the immune response to the first shot of an mRNA vaccine between those who have Read 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…
There is an anti-COVID vaccine video making the rounds on SM. It stars a black lady called Khalilah Mitchell who claims she works as a registered nurse in Nashvillee, TN. According to her heart wrencRead 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…
As we get closer to November 3rd I keep looking at the steady approval of Trump’s handling of the economy. Over the course of his first year Trumps approval for his handling of the US economy has nevRead 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…
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…