COVID Transmissions for 12-3-2020
The first vaccine approval
Good morning! It has been 382 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19.
Headlines today, all of them about the deployment of vaccines. We’re finally here, where we have a way of beating the virus.
As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine authorized for use in the UK
Yesterday, on the basis of final clinical trial results, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was given approval for use in the United Kingdom. The BBC has the story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55145696
On the one hand I am glad that a vaccine will soon be available all over the world. On the other hand, I am still asking—where is the publication with the results of the Phase 3 trial? These results have not yet been published. Presumably, they were reviewed in full by the UK medicines’ agency, which means they’ve been written up somewhere. They also need to be published somewhere so that adequate vaccination strategies can be devised in an environment of transparency and understanding.
Vaccine priorities being established in the US
In the US, vaccination protocols are recommended by a committee called the American Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. This committee meets several times a year, and unless you are involved in vaccinology or medicine—or in the protesting of vaccinology or medicine—you’ve probably never known about it.
Recently, ACIP met regarding COVID-19, and established an order of priorities for individuals to receive new COVID-19 vaccines. Unsurprisingly, they recommended that healthcare workers be at the front of the line. They also recommended that residents of nursing homes, who have been at particularly substantial risk of death from the virus, be prioritized. ACIP recommendations are typically followed all over the US, so this is a good sign.
CIDRAP has a story summarizing the meeting: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/12/cdc-panel-moves-health-workers-nursing-home-residents-front-covid-vaccine
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Duck Soup
While I would also recommend the famous Marx Brothers film, I’m actually here to talk about how I used the rest of my Thanksgiving duck. Something that I really like to do with whatever bird I’ve cooked whole is to use the frame and neck to make a stock. I hate the idea of wasteful cooking, and I think it’s disrespectful to raise an animal to be eaten and then throw away useful parts of it.
It’s pretty easy to make soup out of a poultry frame and neck. You’ll have to set aside the next before you roast the bird; it will be used later. When you’ve finished eating your roasted bird, the frame—that’s everything else, like bones and connective tissue—is still available for use.
There’s a lot of good stuff left. Cartilage, boiled slowly for a long time, melts. It adds body to a soup. There are traces of meat and fat left as well. All of that makes for an excellent stock.
As for the neck, it also has a lot of good things for a stock in it. But, since we didn’t roast it (mostly to keep those good things from cooking out), it should be browned quickly before it goes into the stock.
Then, you just boil all that stuff in enough water to cover it, for about 12 hours. That’ll do the job. Using a fine metal sieve, you’ll then want to filter the stock to remove bones and other items you don’t want to eat. There might be some meat in there you want to keep, though, so consider sorting through whatever the sieve catches.
Once you have a stock, there’s a lot you can do with it. Maybe I’ll follow up on this later.
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See you all next time.
Always,
JS