In a case series study released yesterday, the data suggests that even if you’ve had COVID-19 before, full vaccination can further reduce your chance of re-infection by about 2! The vaccine is available to everyone at no cost! Even if you’ve already once been infected, strongly consider getting it again to increase your immunity. EspeciallyContinue reading “Vaccines Reduce Re-infection”
Category Archives: Explain That Data!
Delta in Detail
Delta in Detail! What are the takeaways?🔻 The delta variant is particularly contagious.💉 Vaccines still provide very good protection.😷 Because of the contagiousness, and potential for increase in disease severity, masks are recommended for all when indoors. You may have seen a lot of information being discussed last week about the Delta variant, mostly becauseContinue reading “Delta in Detail”
Prevented Risk >>> Acquired Risk
The risk of COVID-19 that is prevented by the vaccine is much greater than the risk of serious adverse-events that is acquired by the vaccine. Here is the summary adult risk analysis from the latest ACIP meeting on July 22nd. The numbers of prevented COVID-19 related hospitalization, ICU admission, and death significantly outweighs the numbersContinue reading “Prevented Risk >>> Acquired Risk”
Vaccination Decreases Variant Evolution
Variant evolution appears to be declining proportional to total vaccination rate! A recent pre-print (last week) looked at the diversity of SARS-CoV-2 genomes across 183 different countries (total of 1.8 million sequences). The more diverse the lineage, the more mutations it incurred. The more mutations that occurred, the higher the chance of a concerning variantContinue reading “Vaccination Decreases Variant Evolution”
Transplant Recipients – 3rd Dose
Solid-organ transplant recipients have, so far, seen a weak immune response to one or two doses of vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. The main reason for poor response to the vaccine in these patients is because of their strong immunosupression (glucocorticoids, calcineurin inhibitors, mycophenolic acid, mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors, and/or belatacept). This study takes a lookContinue reading “Transplant Recipients – 3rd Dose”
Breakthrough Cases
A new study was published that looked deeper into real-world effectiveness of the two mRNA-based vaccines. What I find most interesting about this publication is the information about the severity and duration of disease in the observed breakthrough cases (infections in vaccinated individuals)! A basic understanding of immunity would lead you to hypothesize that ifContinue reading “Breakthrough Cases”
Evidence of Memory
Heard news that the COVID-19 vaccines may last “forever”? It’s because a study came out yesterday (accelerated preview) taking the first look at directly measuring markers of long-term immunity (from the Pfizer mRNA vaccine) in the form of Germinal Center B-cells (GCB-cells). Ultimately, they found promising levels of GCB-cells all the way out at 12Continue reading “Evidence of Memory”
Delta Variant
Δδ My take on the Delta Variant δΔ ✌🏼 doses provides strong protection against hospitalization and 👆🏼 dose leaves you vulnerable to symptomatic disease. Finish your dosing schedules! The Delta Variant (previously known as B.1.617.2) is relatively new, so data assessing transmissibility, disease severity, and vaccine escape will continue to be refined in the comingContinue reading “Delta Variant”
Spike Protein Engineering
Spike protein conformations! Prefusion and postfusion. Proteins have the ability to change shape in response to the environment or interactions with other proteins. The spike protein is no different. 🔸The vast majority of spike proteins found in the SARS-CoV-2 membrane prior to infecting a cell are in the PREFUSION conformation. It is therefore advantageous toContinue reading “Spike Protein Engineering”
Prison Vaccination Rates
Vaccine acceptance among prison inmates. Why is this important? Prison systems are very high-risk communities that would benefit from herd immunity. Take a minute to absorb this data to understand overall acceptance and group trends. Data from the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was analyzed to evaluate vaccine acceptance trends among inmates. AlmostContinue reading “Prison Vaccination Rates”