As an ex-molecular biologist (changed fields), my thinking has been for some time that the 21st century is the century of viral diseases. Continuing COVID Transmissions with a focus on emerging viral diseases and treatments, including vaccine development, would be very informative. My vote would be to continue publication on a less frequent and less onerous schedule. Thanks for doing this for all of us.
Hi Joel! Thank you for this feedback. This is very similar to what I am thinking of doing. I am really encouraged by the fact that there is interest in that.
In relation to your question - I'd love to see this newsletter continue but maybe also add in information about other virus-based infections in the US, like flu and other more novel things that might be developing, and also any new research in anti-virals and combating manifestations of virus-borne diseases.
I also just saw some data from PBS that only 1 child in this flu season has died from the flu in the US so far, as opposed to hundreds in more recent yrs. I'd love to see the current focus on mask-wearing when feeling ill, staying home/working from home more often especially when not feeling well, and general hygiene of washing hands and wiping down surfaces and updating HVAC systems to continue - hundreds to thousands of lives can be saved yearly (and even more morbidity can be avoided) just from these somewhat simple measures being kept in the public consciousness after this pandemic dies down.
I really hope we don't go back to 'business as usual' till we have another pandemic on our hands.
Thanks Jim--I think I was already leaning toward something like what you describe here, and as I mentioned to Joel above, it's really encouraging to see that others like what I had in mind. I agree with you that going back to "business as usual" after this would be a tremendous mistake.
Why does Australia want the (not very effective) AZ vaccine in the first place? Wait 2 months and they can order the far better, far more convenient Janssen vaccine.
I think this is a terrible study for various reasons. I'd be interested in your opinion.
I agree with you, that obesity study sounds woefully confounded. It doesn't consider that more developed countries tend to have both better healthcare surveillance as well as more obesity, and it also doesn't consider that the US is a huge outlier in terms of death counts.
I don't think I would characterize the AZ vaccine as "not very effective." Remember that it's hard to cross-compare these vaccines with no head-to-head trials, and as far as I know all of them crashed rates of severe disease and death.
Yoji Kondo is not someone I was familiar with but I'm very impressed to learn of any other scientist who has also authored science fiction works. I see that he also used a pen name. I'll have to learn more about him.
The AZ vaccine seems to be useless against Variant of Concern 501Y.V2, which is what I was thinking of. (I was just telling someone about how hard it is to compare any current vaccines directly, since they were all tested at different times [and thus against different variants] and generally in different populations, often with different criteria of success. And by "just" I mean half an hour ago.)
Yoji was amazingly humble, helpful, and fun to talk to. Great person.
I wish I'd met him. I'll have to settle for reading some of his work.
I'm not 100% sold on the data available suggesting the AZ vaccine is ineffective against that variant (I tend to call it B.1.351, but both names are fine), at least not on those data that I've seen of it. The last information I saw was that which led the South African government to suspend use of the AZ vaccine, where there were a small number of disease cases in a generally younger population that had been vaccinated. It didn't seem very rigorous to me, but it did seem concerning. I'd like to imagine that faced with an outbreak of that specific variant, the Australian government would then boost anyone who received the AZ vaccine with one of the newer vaccines being developed specifically for that variant of concern.
As an ex-molecular biologist (changed fields), my thinking has been for some time that the 21st century is the century of viral diseases. Continuing COVID Transmissions with a focus on emerging viral diseases and treatments, including vaccine development, would be very informative. My vote would be to continue publication on a less frequent and less onerous schedule. Thanks for doing this for all of us.
Hi Joel! Thank you for this feedback. This is very similar to what I am thinking of doing. I am really encouraged by the fact that there is interest in that.
In relation to your question - I'd love to see this newsletter continue but maybe also add in information about other virus-based infections in the US, like flu and other more novel things that might be developing, and also any new research in anti-virals and combating manifestations of virus-borne diseases.
I also just saw some data from PBS that only 1 child in this flu season has died from the flu in the US so far, as opposed to hundreds in more recent yrs. I'd love to see the current focus on mask-wearing when feeling ill, staying home/working from home more often especially when not feeling well, and general hygiene of washing hands and wiping down surfaces and updating HVAC systems to continue - hundreds to thousands of lives can be saved yearly (and even more morbidity can be avoided) just from these somewhat simple measures being kept in the public consciousness after this pandemic dies down.
I really hope we don't go back to 'business as usual' till we have another pandemic on our hands.
Thanks Jim--I think I was already leaning toward something like what you describe here, and as I mentioned to Joel above, it's really encouraging to see that others like what I had in mind. I agree with you that going back to "business as usual" after this would be a tremendous mistake.
Why does Australia want the (not very effective) AZ vaccine in the first place? Wait 2 months and they can order the far better, far more convenient Janssen vaccine.
I think this is a terrible study for various reasons. I'd be interested in your opinion.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/04/coronavirus-overweight-global-report/
Note: I'd rather go Yoji Kondo(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoji_Kondo) than Marie. Still miss him.
I agree with you, that obesity study sounds woefully confounded. It doesn't consider that more developed countries tend to have both better healthcare surveillance as well as more obesity, and it also doesn't consider that the US is a huge outlier in terms of death counts.
I don't think I would characterize the AZ vaccine as "not very effective." Remember that it's hard to cross-compare these vaccines with no head-to-head trials, and as far as I know all of them crashed rates of severe disease and death.
Yoji Kondo is not someone I was familiar with but I'm very impressed to learn of any other scientist who has also authored science fiction works. I see that he also used a pen name. I'll have to learn more about him.
The AZ vaccine seems to be useless against Variant of Concern 501Y.V2, which is what I was thinking of. (I was just telling someone about how hard it is to compare any current vaccines directly, since they were all tested at different times [and thus against different variants] and generally in different populations, often with different criteria of success. And by "just" I mean half an hour ago.)
Yoji was amazingly humble, helpful, and fun to talk to. Great person.
I wish I'd met him. I'll have to settle for reading some of his work.
I'm not 100% sold on the data available suggesting the AZ vaccine is ineffective against that variant (I tend to call it B.1.351, but both names are fine), at least not on those data that I've seen of it. The last information I saw was that which led the South African government to suspend use of the AZ vaccine, where there were a small number of disease cases in a generally younger population that had been vaccinated. It didn't seem very rigorous to me, but it did seem concerning. I'd like to imagine that faced with an outbreak of that specific variant, the Australian government would then boost anyone who received the AZ vaccine with one of the newer vaccines being developed specifically for that variant of concern.