Yay: my son went in for shot #1 yesterday, and I drove him over so we could visit en route. Boo: the guy gave him his shot in his bicep instead of his deltoid. My boy was so nervous (that he'd be declined) that he didn't notice at the time. But, later that evening, we noticed that his band-aid and puncture wound were at the top of the lateral bicep. I don't think it means anything in terms of efficacy, but I wish there were some way to give feedback to the shot folks (hundreds of them on duty in the Oakland Coliseum parking lot).
But, now we're all either done or got one shot. Nice.
For the new study, Yale researchers used proteomic profilingâa screen for multiple proteins within the bloodâto analyze samples taken from 100 patients who would go on to experience different levels of COVID-19 severity. In all cases, the blood samples were collected on the patients' first day of admission. The researchers also analyzed clinical data for over 3,000 additional patients with COVID-19 within the Yale New Haven Hospital system.
They found that five proteins (resistin, lipocalin-2, HGF, IL-8, and G-CSF) that are associated with neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, were elevated in the COVID-19 patients who later became critically ill. Many of these proteins had previously been associated with obesity but not with COVID-19 or other viral illnesses.
Notably, the elevated neutrophil biomarkers for patients who would go on to experience more serious symptoms were evident before those symptoms appeared. All COVID-19 patients who were admitted or transferred to the ICU had elevated neutrophil activation markers, while these biomarkers remained low for patients who never developed severe illness. None of the patients with lower neutrophil biomarker levels died.
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The study also underscores the connection between COVID-19 and obesity, researchers said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that obesity and severe obesity increase risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Obesity triples the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19, and levels of body mass index has been found to correlate with the risk of death from COVID-19.
Got Moderna shot #2 yesterday. Arm feels like it's been punched pretty hard, but otherwise status quo. Significant other getting her first shot in a week. Makes me wonder whether we should do some traveling during that three months, still following the usual precautions.
Got Moderna shot #2 yesterday. Arm feels like it's been punched pretty hard, but otherwise status quo. Significant other getting her first shot in a week. Makes me wonder whether we should do some traveling during that three months, still following the usual precautions.
I sure would. Beach VC in early April sounds about right.
Got Moderna shot #2 yesterday. Arm feels like it's been punched pretty hard, but otherwise status quo. Significant other getting her first shot in a week. Makes me wonder whether we should do some traveling during that three months, still following the usual precautions.
The Secret Life of a Coronavirus An oily, 100-nanometer-wide bubble of genes has killed more than two million people and reshaped the world. Scientists donât quite know what to make of it.
Last spring, coyotes strolled down the streets of San Francisco in broad daylight. Pods of rarely seen pink dolphins cavorted in the waters around Hong Kong. In Tel Aviv, jackals wandered a city park, a herd of mountain goats took over a town in Wales, and porcupines ambled through Romeâs ancient ruins. As the canals in Venice turned strangely clear, cormorants started diving for fish, and Canada geese escorted their goslings down the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard, passing empty shops displaying Montblanc pens and Fendi handbags.
Nature was expanding as billions of people were retreating from the Covid-19 pandemic. The change was so swift, so striking that scientists needed a new name for it: the anthropause.
But the anthropause did more than reconfigure the animal kingdom. It also altered the planetâs chemistry. As factories grew quiet and traffic dropped, ozone levels fell by 7 percent across the Northern Hemisphere. As air pollution across India dropped by a third, mountain snowpacks in the Indus Basin grew brighter. With less haze in the atmosphere, the sky let more sunlight through. The planetâs temperature temporarily jumped between a fifth and half of a degree.
At the same time, the pandemic etched a scar across humanity that will endure for decades. More than 2.4 million people have died so far from Covid-19, and millions more have suffered severe illness. In the United States, life expectancy fell by a full year in the first six months of 2020; for Black Americans, the drop was 2.7 years. The International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will lose over $22 trillion between 2020 and 2025. Unicef is warning that the pandemic could produce a âlost generation.â
At the center of these vast shocks is an oily bubble of genes just about 100 nanometers in diameter. Coronaviruses are so small that 10 trillion of them weigh less than a raindrop.
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Yet itâs strange that people can push viruses out of the house of life and leave them hanging around the doorstep. Itâs awfully crowded out there. There are more viruses in a liter of seawater than there are human beings on the entire planet. If we could count up all the viruses on Earth, they would outnumber all forms of cell-based life combined, perhaps by a factor of 10. J.B.S. Haldane, a biologist, reportedly once said that God has an inordinate fondness for beetles. If so, then God has a mad obsession with viruses.
The diversity of viruses is also colossal. Some virologists have estimated that there may be trillions of species of viruses on the planet. When virologists find new viruses, theyâre often from a major lineage no one knew about before. Ornithologists and bird-watchers get justifiably excited when they discover a species of bird. Imagine what it would be like to discover birds. Thatâs what itâs like to be a virologist.How can we exile all this biological diversity from life? To exile viruses also means we have to discount the power that they have over their hosts. SARS-CoV-2 has killed millions of people, thrown the economy into chaos and sent ripples across the planetâs ecosystems and atmosphere. Other viruses cause devastation every day to other species.
In the ocean, phages invade microbe hosts 100 billion trillion times a second. They kill 15 to 40 percent of bacteria in the worldâs oceans every day. And out of those shredded bacteria spill billions of tons of carbon for other marine creatures to feast on.
But viruses can also have friendly relationships with other species. SARS-CoV-2 may be killing thousands of people a day, but our bodies are home to trillions of phages even when weâre in perfect health. So far, scientists have identified 21,000 species of phages residing in our guts. More than 12,000 of them came to light in a single study published just this month. (...)
The hope brought by the arrival of the first vaccines in South America is hardening into anger as inoculation campaigns have spiraled into scandal, cronyism and corruption, rocking national governments and sapping trust in the political establishment.
Two ministers in Peru and one in Argentina have resigned for receiving or giving preferential access to scarce vaccines. A minister in Ecuador is being investigated for doing the same.
Prosecutors in those countries, and in Brazil, are examining thousands more accusations of irregularities in inoculation drives, most of them involving local politicians and their families cutting in line.
As accusations of wrongdoing ensnare more dignitaries, tension is building in a region where popular outrage with graft and inequality have spilled in recent years into raucous protests against the political status quo. The frustration could find an outlet in the streets again â or at the polls, shaping voter decisions in upcoming races such as Peruâs elections in April.
âThey all knew that patients have been dying,â said Robert Campos, 67, a doctor in Peruâs capital, Lima, of the countryâs politicians. âAnd they vaccinated all their little friends.â
The anger at powerful line cutters has been amplified by the scarcity of the vaccines. South America, like other developing regions, has struggled to procure enough doses as rich nations bought up most of the available supply. (...)
