Threads, please don’t censor COVID
CDC.gov is not the answer to all vaccine questions.
COVID
What’s going on with COVID right now?
You may have heard rumblings in the news, but COVID wastewater levels are starting to pick back up again. COVID tests aren’t the greatest metric (especially now), and more and more we’re relying on levels of COVID circulating in wastewater to track how it’s spreading in the
BA.5: What do you need to know?
BA.5 is now the dominant COVID variant circulating in the U.S., bringing a wave of reinfections with it. Why are so many people sounding the alarm over BA.5? What makes BA.5 different from previous variants? First, an explanation of COVID terminology: Omicron is a COVID variant
Where do new variants come from?
BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, BA.5… while we’re all getting lost in an alphanumeric soup, it’s important to understand why we continue to see new variants. Some have speculated this is evidence of engineering — that “someone” keeps putting these new variants out. Others blame
How does COVID impact the brain?
Although COVID is primarily thought of as a respiratory disease, we’re learning that COVID’s impact extends well beyond the lungs. COVID infection can damage the heart, intestines, kidneys, and —perhaps most alarmingly— the brain. By causing blood to clot more easily, COVID can trigger major clotting events like
Ninety five percent. NINETY FIVE PERCENT!
This is part 2 in a series covering the story of the COVID vaccines in the US, looking back at how well they have worked and why the communication around them has been confusing. Read part 1 here. It was late November 2020, and we were just about to start
COVID vaccination during pregnancy
Guest post by Sana Zekri, MD, a board-certified physician in Family Medicine with Obstetrics. Rumors about COVID vaccination and alleged impacts on fertility have been circulating since before the vaccines were even available. Because the initial vaccine trials did not study pregnant women specifically, when the vaccines were first authorized,
How well do the COVID vaccines work? (and why has this been so confusing?)
The COVID vaccines are undoubtedly among the most impressive medical feats in history. One model estimated they have saved millions of lives in the United States alone. As a physician-scientist, watching the scientific world come together to produce not one but multiple vaccines in a matter of months in the
In the US, “milder” omicron is killing more people per day than the worst of delta
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'
10 logical fallacies used in vaccine arguments
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,
Is there really no correlation between vaccination rate and the spread of COVID?
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
If you’re vaccinated, why does it matter if I am not?
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