Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Covid at home pill treatment


  • Pfizer's experimental oral drug to treat Covid-19 at the first sign of illness could be available by the end of the year, CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday.
  • The drug is part of a class of medicines called protease inhibitors and works by inhibiting an enzyme that the virus needs to replicate in human cells.
  • Protease inhibitors are used to treat other viral pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C.


Saturday, April 17, 2021

CDC: of 75 Million Vaccinated People, 5,800 Got COVID-19, 74 Died

I'm seeing some articles about fully vaccinated people dying from COVID.  The actual number of deaths is about 1 in a million.  So far, the rate of people getting COVID after being fully vaccinated is less than 0.1%.

https://www.businessinsider.com/infected-after-covid-vaccination-cdc-numbers-breakthrough-infections-2021-4

Thursday, April 15, 2021

First interesting mRNA COVID-19 vaccine side effect

From: Larry

herpes zoster....shingles


This last year I got two shingles vaccinations.   It takes two shots, and these are more intense than a flu shot.  

Thursday, April 8, 2021

1st Cases Of Brazil Variant, More Contagious S. African Variant In L.A. – Deadline

Public Health Officials in Los Angeles reported on Wednesday that the county had detected the first cases of the Coronavirus variants originally seen in Brazil and South Africa. While only three instances of the virus strain from Brazil — also known as P.1 — and one instance of the variant from South Africa — known as B.1.351 — were detected, they are likely far from the only cases in the county.

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer noted that, due to the expense, "Very few of our specimens are genetically tested in this way." Statewide, only 5% of tests are run through genomic sequencing, according to California's top health officer. The rate is even less at the county level.




According to the other article I posted, the Pfizer vaccine is 2/3 less effective against the South African Variant and the Moderna Vaccine is 6.4 times less effective.

Sunday, April 4, 2021

How Many Strains of the Coronavirus Are There? About New Variants

Will the COVID-19 vaccines offer protection against the new strains?
You may be wondering if the coronavirus variants have an impact on the effectiveness of our current vaccines.

From what we know so far, it appears that the current vaccines may be less effective for B.1.351, the variant first identified in South Africa. This is currently an area of ongoing, intense research.

Let's look at a snapshot of what some of the data says so far.

Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
Large-scale clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine found a vaccine effectiveness of 95 percent against the original version of the new coronavirus.

This vaccine is currently authorized for emergency use in the United States.

A recent study investigated the effectiveness of this vaccine for test viruses containing the mutations found in B.1.351. To do this, serum from individuals who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was used.

Researchers found that this serum, which contains antibodies, was less effective against B.1.351. In fact, neutralization of test viruses containing all of the mutations present in B.1.351 was reduced by two-thirds.

What about B.1.1.7, the variant first seen in the U.K.?

A study similar to the one we've discussed above found that neutralization of test viruses with the spike protein of B.1.1.7 was only slightly lower than it was for earlier versions of the coronavirus.

Moderna vaccine
The large-scale clinical trials on the Moderna vaccine determined that vaccine effectiveness was 94.1 percent against the original version of the new coronavirus.

Like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna vaccine has been authorized for emergency use in the United States.

A recent study looked into the effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine for the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants. In order to do this, researchers used serum from individuals who had received the Moderna vaccine and test viruses containing the spike proteins from the variants.

It was found that test viruses with the B.1.1.7 spike protein were neutralized in a similar manner to earlier versions of the coronavirus.

However, neutralization of test viruses with the spike protein of B.1.351 was 6.4-fold lower.

Johnson & Johnson vaccine
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the third COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for emergency use in the United States.

Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, it only requires one dose.

This vaccine has yet to be tested against specific variants. However, large-scale clinical trials were performed in places where variants are circulating, such as South Africa and South America.

According to the data released from clinical trialsTrusted Source, the effectiveness of this vaccine 28 days after vaccination is:

66 percent effective overall
72 percent in the United States
66 percent effective in South America, where the P.1 variant is circulating
57 percent effective in South Africa, where the B.1.351 variant is circulating
85 percent effective at preventing severe COVID-19 symptoms across all geographical regions

Biden Makes Easter Plea; U.K. Plans Vaccine Passes: Virus Update - Bloomberg

President Joe Biden issued an Easter message casting vaccinations as a "moral obligation, one that can save your life and the lives of others." Republican opposition to vaccine passports grew as Mississippi's governor said they were not "a good thing to do in America."

The U.S. added almost 65,000 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday and remains on pace for the most weekly infections since the end of February. North Dakota has gone nine days without a Covid-19 fatality, the longest stretch since the first death there.

United States Covid-19 deaths were about 4K per day at the beginning of this year. Now it is about 1K per day. Still, for most of last year, people were complaining when it was 1K per day.