I recently went to two Christmas parties. Not a single person was wearing a mask.
And it was okay, because there’s no epidemic where I live. Western Australia has managed to sustain zero COVID for nearly 2 years.
Eliminating COVID-19 was always possible. The world chose not to.
This got people talking. Good. But the point isn’t Christmas parties or Western Australia. It’s that elimination is the only long-term strategy for ending the pandemic. I’m not someone who typically praises China, but the government there understood this. bmj.com/content/375/bm…
But elimination doesn’t require draconian measures. There are many tools in the toolbox that we’re not yet using (or not using widely), such as ensuring everyone has a better mask. People need masks that can block aerosols. Better ventilation is also key. masks4all.co/faqs-on-better…
I don’t know how much longer Western Australia will continue to sustain zero COVID. Decisions made by governments elsewhere in the world will affect that. But globally, we would all be in a better position if we worked together to eliminate COVID-19. bmj.com/content/371/bm…
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People vaccinated with 2 doses of the Pfizer-BNT vaccine likely have no protection against infection with the omicron strain. Protection after 3 doses has likely taken a big hit as well.
Antibodies collected from people vaccinated with 2 doses of the Pfizer-BNT vaccine fare poorly against the omicron variant, although vaccinated people with a previous infection fared better.
A study analysing the health records of people with COVID-19 has found that those who were taking SSRI antidepressants were less likely to die from the virus.
There was an 8% reduction for any SSRI, 28% for fluoxetine, & 26% for fluoxetine or fluvoxamine. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
The researchers tried to match people taking antidepressants with a group of control patients, based on age, sex, ethnicity, and medical history.
However, this wasn’t a randomised controlled trial, and it’s possible that other unmeasured factors affected the results.
That said, it’s plausible that SSRI antidepressants do reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19, because they have both anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
The AY.33 sub-lineage of the delta variant might not be readily detectable with current PCR or rapid antigen tests. These can be updated, but in the interim, cases may go undetected.
This is one reason why Australia’s plan to end hotel or home quarantine is premature.
This isn’t the first time variants have caused testing issues. One of the reasons the alpha variant was noticed was because tests for the spike gene returned false negatives.
Fortunately, the tests also looked for other parts of the virus, which had not changed significantly.
A variant also emerged in France that was difficult to detect. Viral loads in the upper (but not lower) respiratory tract were often below the detectable limit in people infected with the B.1.616 variant. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Long COVID is real, and we need to protect children from it. In Israel, long COVID clinics for children are busy. The clinic at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva has about 150 patients and hundreds more are waiting for treatment. 🧵 haaretz.com/israel-news/th…
Liat Ashkenazi-Hoffnung, a clinic doctor says that in some children long COVID "appears as a direct continuation of severe illness but in very many of the children, there is a severe illness, followed by a lull of several months and only then do the symptoms of long COVID begin."
Many children fully recover, but it can take time.
Ashkenazi-Hoffnung says "we had a boy here who was a competitive swimmer and came down with long COVID and was very anxious and in pain. After half a year he went back to swimming and even broke a personal record."
A new study of weekly testing of children and staff at a Belgian primary school shows what we’ve always suspected: if mitigation measures aren’t in place, transmission is common between children and adults at school, and it spills over into households. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…