I’ve had a few questions to this end and it’s a good one.

The first thing to know is that “the flu” isn’t just one thing.

COVID-19 is a specific asshole. Like Steve your next door neighbour.

“Influenza” is a larger category of jerks.
COVID-Steve has a particular weak spot. Without that protein, he’s not nearly as effective. That’s fortunate. It makes him easier to target. Steve also tends to be slower to change (or mutate).

Not every virus has a weak spot like that.
Influenza is a whole category of jerks with lots of different strains. They mutate quickly. They mix and match. They have different proteins on the outside. (That’s part of what the names of them mean: H1N1 refers to the names of the proteins on the virus, as an example).
Now that hasn’t stopped researchers from ‘trying’ to find a common target among all or most flu viruses. The mRNA technology may help with that. We’re not there yet.
Here we go, here’s where we’re at in terms of a “flu vaccine” that isn’t annual. Farther than I thought.
As the good doc describes here, while influenza is a large category of jerks, there’s some things that all jerks have in common. It’s been hard to target that. But it looks like we’re getting closer. Finding the Universal Jerk Target for Influenza.

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More from @WheatNOil

26 Dec
Via @IneffectiveMath, Slater Koekkoek played 3rd pairing minutes for Chicago last year (as he’s mostly done for his career). Last year the team did well in shots and goals with him on the ice. He started a lot in the D-zone & took a lot of penalties.
Via @puckiq, he wasn’t particularly sheltered against elite competition. More middle of the road. In Tampa he played against less elite competition in a more traditional 3rd pair role.
I think it’s fair to say Edmonton signed a pretty solid 3rd pairing defender. He ‘might’ do okay on the 2nd pair but we don’t have a great sample size with him there.
Read 4 tweets
24 Dec
I can see the TV ad now:

Darnell Nurse on screen wearing medical scrubs. “Hi, I’m Darnell Nurse. As a Nurse, I’m here to tell you how the vaccine works. Let’s say there’s a virus.”

(Image of Matt Tkachuk)
“The vaccine sends instructions to our cells to produce a part of the virus.”

Someone gives a new set of instructions to the Oilers merchandise factory. It starts producing Tkachuk bobble heads.
“Now, the bobble heads can’t hurt us. They’re just bobble heads. But our immune system knows it doesn’t belong.”

Zack Kassian enters a room filled with Tkachuk bobble heads. “What... the fuck... is this?”
Read 6 tweets
24 Dec
Relevant notes to questions that people have asked me:
- Slightly less effective in elderly people (who usually have a weaker immune response) but still 86% effective. Not as good as 94% for the general population but still very solid.
Pregnancy: Pregnant women weren’t allowed in the study but 13 women got pregnant during the study. About half in the vaccine group and half in placebo. None of them have given birth yet though. So we’ll see.
Read 5 tweets
22 Dec
These graphs are on the effectiveness of the two mRNA vaccines and they are, in a word, incredible.

Going from left to right is days from the ‘first dose’ of the vaccine.

As you go up, you have more COVID cases.
The red in the Pfizer vaccine is placebo and the blue is the vaccine group. It’s reversed in the Moderna for some reason.

By about day 14-ish after the first dose, the placebo group starts to get more COVID cases than the vaccine group... and then it’s not even close!
By about 3.5 months in, the placebo group is getting pummeled.
Read 4 tweets
21 Dec
To understand mutations, it helps to know how viruses work. First, viruses can’t make more of themselves on their own. Two coronaviruses can’t get together, go on a date, have too much to drink, and have a baby COVID.

They need someone else to make more of them.
COVID gets into our cells (using the asshole protein) & basically hijacks our cells. It’s got a gun to our cell and says “Look at me, I’m the captain now.” So our infected cells spend all day doing the virus’ bidding: copying thousands of viruses & making more of them.
But our cells don’t make more virus by loading up Word, pressing print & turning up the number of copies. It has to write out each virus RNA (it’s genetic code) by hand. Like Bart writing lines in the Simpsons opening credits. Over & over, thousands of times. With no spell check.
Read 14 tweets
20 Dec
One common question I got was “What happens if I get the vaccine and I’ve already had COVID?” Related to that, “Should I get the vaccine if I’ve had COVID?” and “how long am I immune for?”

Strap in friends, we’re going on another “way too long thread”.
So let’s say you got COVID and beat it. Firstly, well done!

Your immune cells saw the virus, figured out some areas to attack, ramped up production, and kicked the bastard’s ass. Maybe it was a short battle or maybe a long one but you came out the other side on top.
And now your memory cells are going to remember. They won’t remember the ‘whole’ virus. They’ll remember the parts they successfully attacked.

That might be the infamous asshole protein. It might be some other part of the virus. Or a few different parts.
Read 12 tweets

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