While COVID cases are thankfully falling in the US, omicron, despite being “milder,” continues to kill more people per day in the US than the worst day of the delta surge. Why is this happening? Omicron is "milder" than delta, but that doesn't mean it'
Arguments about vaccines are often rife with logical fallacies. Many logical fallacies, at their root, are oversimplifications. They are appealing because they make something complex, like vaccine safety or the efficacy of vaccines, into something very simplistic that is easy to understand. However, that oversimplification often leaves out important details,
This morning I awoke to luciferase trending on twitter. Since the pandemic, I suppose I have grown to expect once niche molecular biology topics to become the focus of mainstream discourse, but it still is rather odd to me when it happens. When I was studying molecular biology, I never
Recently an article entitled “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States” was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology. This article has been used to argue that higher levels of vaccination are not associated with lower levels of
With the introduction of the COVID vaccine mandates, one common question has arisen: if vaccination works, then why should the vaccinated care if others don’t get the vaccine? If I’m vaccinated, then aren’t I protected? Why do I need my neighbor to be vaccinated, too? This line
This week’s CDC announcement came with a new revelation about delta: it’s even more contagious than we previously realized. The Washington Post reported the details of an internal CDC document which included new data on the R0 estimate for delta. R0 is a measure of how contagious a
Today is ‘World Ivermectin Day,’ a day to celebrate one of the most important antiparasitic drugs used to treat neglected tropical diseases, and the controversial drug many claim is an effective treatment for COVID-19. So here is a crazy story for World Ivermectin Day: one of the largest randomized-controlled trials
COVID
Delta is here and headlines are reporting the rise in new cases and hospitalizations, including some who have been fully vaccinated. What does this mean? Does the fact that some vaccinated people are getting sick mean the vaccines aren’t working? Some breakthrough infections are expected Thankfully, no. Even if
COVID
One of the reasons false information and pandemic rumors can be so confusing and exhausting is the high degree of self-contradiction. Granted, not everyone believes every rumor simultaneously, but overall self-contradiction is often a hallmark of inaccurate information, and exposure to many different self-contradicting narratives (often with lots of emotion
Rumors have been circulating claiming that the COVID vaccines have killed thousands of people. These claims are often based on reports to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), a system designed to track ongoing safety of all vaccines and assess for side effects that were too rare to be
COVID
A friend of mine recently asked me how I respond to people who have opposing views about scientific issues like vaccines, and as evidence they cite people with credentials (i.e. PhDs, MDs) who agree with their position. This is a great question, and something I encounter all the time.
COVID
Interview with Dr. Eric Storch, PhD While this blog is usually focused on COVID-19 and helping debunk misinformation, this post is a different. For this post, I wanted to dive into one of the other major health crises caused by the pandemic: the profound impact on mental health. I had