February 1, 2021 Health Policy Vaccine/Variant Whack-a-Mole: Concerns raised that slow vaccine rollout, combined with incomplete strategies to prevent infection and spread can lead to a greater risk of further coronavirus mutations and reduced vaccine efficacy.
January 29, 2021 Epidemiology The variant is to model outcome predictions as Asimov’s Foundation series’ Mule was in Hari Seldon’s Psychohistory projections. Extracting six doses per vial instead of five is like Jean Luc Picard being told there are five lights when there are four.
January 28, 2021 Mental Health People need not fear admitting that they are struggling and need help. That is a strength, not weakness. We need to provide rapid access to services once you come forward. Long wait times help no one. #BellLetsTalk
January 27, 2021 Biomedical Engineering After 10 months of daily pandemic segments, @billcarrolltalk and I changed gears and talked about Israeli defibrillator drones with nary a “C” word mentioned.
January 26, 2021 Geriatrics Vaccine shortage has led to Ontario’s plan to delay health care provider’s second dose for some and redirect them to long-term care residents so that by Feb. 5 all will have had at least one dose.
January 25, 2021 Biomedical Engineering Two positive steps forward for treatment and testing of coronavirus.
January 22, 2021 Epidemiology Ontario’s provincial case rate has started to decline for the first time since November. Ontario’s Associate Medical Officer of Health says it is still too early to determine if this represents a true trend.
January 21, 2021 Clinical Research Israeli real-world Pfizer vaccine study reports infection rates dropped by 33% in treatment group of 200K people >60 y.o vs 200K controls after 21 days, less than predicted by proponents of delaying 2nd dose. Stay on schedule until proven otherwise.
January 20, 2021 Allergy/Immunology California investigating why less than 10 people at one specific vaccination site (but not anywhere else) developed possible allergic reactions from specific lot of Moderna vaccine. Was it the vaccine or some other source?
January 19, 2021 Health Policy Too many assumptions and unknowns about about post-infection immunity duration combined with circulating and more virulent strain makes it risky to not vaccinate people who have had COVID-19.
