KFF on YouTube: “Since before the first COVID-19 vaccine became available more than a year ago, the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor Project has tracked the public’s evolving views about and experiences with the vaccines amid the ongoing pandemic. On Feb. 8, 2022 KFF held a web briefing to share insights gleaned from nearly 40 Vaccine… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Medicine
Library Releases Growing Coronavirus Web Archive Collection
Collection Includes 450 Web Archives Documenting COVID-19 Pandemic – “After collecting a wide variety of web content documenting the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years, the Library of Congress is now making its growing Coronavirus Web Archive available to the public. The collection, which now includes 450 web archives, aims to balance government, science,… Continue Reading
We’re Thinking About Endemicity All Wrong
The Atlantic: “This one word has come to imply a single pandemic end point. Actually, we have no idea what happens next.By now, we’ve all heard some version of how this ends. The same story has certainly been told often enough: We missed our chance to wipe the new coronavirus out, and now we’re stuck… Continue Reading
Petabase-scale sequence alignment catalyses viral discovery
Edgar, R.C., Taylor, J., Lin, V. et al. Petabase-scale sequence alignment catalyses viral discovery. [Full text – Free] Nature (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04332-2: “Public databases contain a planetary collection of nucleic acid sequences, but their systematic exploration has been inhibited by a lack of efficient methods for searching this corpus, which (at the time of writing) exceeds… Continue Reading
Free N95 masks are arriving at pharmacies and grocery stores. Here’s how to get yours
WHYY – “Nearly a week after the Biden administration announced it will deploy 400 million free N95 masks to the public, the high-quality face coverings are starting to arrive at pharmacies and local grocery stores. “Every person is allowed up to 3 free masks pending availability,” the Department of Health and Human Services says. The… Continue Reading
Study identities how antibody levels differ between those who suffer long COVID and those who don’t
“Published Tuesday in Nature Communications, the new findings are the first time scientists have identified how antibody levels differ between those who suffer long COVID and those who don’t. By combining the new data with a few risk factors, Boyman and his colleagues have developed a model that can calculate long COVID risk for any patient… Continue Reading
Charting an Omicron Infection
The New York Times: “In less than two months, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread around the globe and caused a staggering number of new infections. Omicron now accounts for more than 99.5 percent of new infections in the United States, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The… Continue Reading
The public library is the latest place to pick up a coronavirus test. Librarians are overwhelmed.
Washington Post: “…As public libraries in the District and across the nation have been pressed into service as coronavirus test distribution sites, librarians have become the latest front-line workers of the pandemic. Phones ring every few minutes with yet another call from someone asking about the library’s supply of free coronavirus tests, often asking medical… Continue Reading
Find a COVID-19 vaccine near you
“Use Vaccines.gov to find a location near you, then call or visit their website to make an appointment. Find COVID-19 Vaccines & Boosters“ Continue Reading
Immune system vs. virus: Why omicron had experts worried from the start
Ars Technica: “Right from omicron’s first description, researchers were concerned about the variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Looking over the list of mutations it carried, scientists could identify a number that would likely make the variant more infectious. Other mutations were even more worrying, as they would likely interfere with the immune system’s ability to… Continue Reading
Starting later this week, some at-risk Americans become eligible for a 4th shot.
The New York Times: “Some people with a weakened immune system can get a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine as early as this coming week, according to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were updated last week. The C.D.C. endorsed a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for… Continue Reading
Psychological Language on Twitter Predicts County-Level Heart Disease Mortality
Eichstaedt JC, Schwartz HA, Kern ML, et al. Psychological language on Twitter predicts county-level heart disease mortality. Psychol Sci. 2015;26(2):159-169. doi:10.1177/0956797614557867. “Hostility and chronic stress are known risk factors for heart disease, but they are costly to assess on a large scale. We used language expressed on Twitter to characterize community-level psychological correlates of age-adjusted… Continue Reading
