#covid-19

[orchidbutch]

Hi everyone, I wanted to share some promising developments about a nasal COVID-19 vaccine:

"THIS IS HUGE! Researchers have developed a nasal COVID-19 vaccine that BLOCKS transmission of the virus. This suggests vaccines delivered directly to the nose or mouth could play a CRITICAL role in containing the spread of respiratory infections. Phase I clinical trials HAVE BEEN APPROVED!"

Link to said study:

Link to thread on Bluesky: /profile/sailorrooscout.bsky.social/post/3kyoj6hgihr2v

[mindblowingscience]

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines can trigger the immune system to recognize and kill cancer, research finds

The researchers found that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines could potentially help patients whose tumors don’t respond well to traditional immun

The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives globally during the pandemic could help spark the immune system to fight cancer. This is the surprising takeaway of a new study that we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature. While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team, led by pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, discovered that mRNA can train immune systems to kill tumors — even if the mRNA is not related to cancer. Based on this finding, we hypothesized that mRNA vaccines designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 might also have antitumor effects.

Continue Reading.

[thoughtportal]

[animal-crossing]

[whetstonefires]

The thing is that the most interesting and novel invention of the MCU is a universe where billions of people turned into dust and then were physically reconstituted on the spot five years later, in a world that had just barely adapted to their absence.

That is wild. That is intense! That is a series of pathos-ridden emotionally complex doorstoppers waiting to happen. Half the entire world! All dead! And somehow we coped with that! And now we have to cope with them all being back?

A whole street of empty houses--surely not everyone there became ash. Some of them moved to better places, now opened by the mass mortality. Some of them died afterward. Who will live there now? Even if inheritances are reversed by resurrection, surely leases aren't renewed. What the fuck happens to everyone who remarried?

What happens to the children snapped back to a world where their parents didn't survive, or the reverse?

But they had to then hastily smooth over this utterly batshit sci-fi premise and get the world mostly back to normal working order as rapidly as possible, without too much emphasis on how literally every person in existence has been placed in a mason jar by a narcissist and shaken twice in five years.

So they could get on with more superhero whack-blam business, which is customarily done against a background of Normality.

This is, tragically, the most Comics thing these movies have ever done.

It is beyond satire that they did this immediately before and during a worldwide pandemic that everyone was pressured to smooth over and 'return to normal' about within 2 years if not sooner.

[shiftythrifting]

That last one being at a thrift store is really funny

this is sure a selection

[covidsafecosplay]

N95 Masks Nearly Perfect at Blocking COVID, UMD Study Shows

Researchers Found Even Lower-Performing Masks Were Protective

From the article:

Any common face mask provides significant protection against the virus that causes COVID-19, but N95 masks are most effective at slashing the amount emitted by infected people, according to a University of Maryland-led study released Wednesday. So-called “duckbill” N95 masks scored highest in the study, which measured the exhaled breath of participants who were tested both masked and unmasked to measure comparative outputs of SARS-CoV-2. The inexpensive masks, which have two head straps and a horizontal seam, captured 98% of exhaled virus, according to the study published in eBioMedicine. The researchers also found that—in what might come as a surprise to many—cloth masks outperformed the specific brand of KN95 mask that was tested. Surgical masks brought up the rear in performance out of the four types, but even they blocked 70% of the virus, the tests showed. (To reflect the general public's use of masks, study volunteers were not fit-tested for their masks or trained how to properly wear them.) “The research shows that any mask is much better than no mask, and an N95 is significantly better than the other options. That’s the No. 1 message,” says the study’s senior author, Donald Milton, a professor of environmental health and a global expert on how viruses spread through the air.

[covid-safer-hotties]

CDC Recommends Multi-layered Protection Against COVID-19 as it recognises SARS-CoV-2 is a Year-round Threat

CDC Recommends Multi-layered Protection Against COVID-19 as it recognises SARS-CoV-2 is a Year-round Threat

The US Center for Disease Control now recommends immunization, hand hygiene, clean air, isolation, treatment, face masks, social distancing

Published July 4, 2024

The US Center for Disease Control now recommends immunization, hand hygiene, clean air, isolation, treatment, face masks, social distancing and testing to prevent and protect against COVID-19 and tells the public there is no sign of SARS-CoV-2 becoming a winter virus.

In this update published on 3 July, the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases warns the public that COVID-19 is likely to remain a year-round threat. This new official advice is at odds with the recommendations of some vocal scientists, who, without evidence, still push the line that COVID-19 will simply attenuate or weaken over time to join the many causes of the common cold, only really affects the vulnerable, or that it will become a winter bug.

The CDC’s new position is a welcome recognition of reality and an acknowledgement that those who expected SARS-CoV-2 to settle into a winter virus pattern were wrong. The advice to adopt multi-layered protection is perhaps a tacit admission that COVID-19 is taking more of a toll on public health than many people expected.

In a study recently published in Science, Peluso et al. provide compelling evidence for two potential contributors to Long Covid: persistent SARS-CoV-2 and aberrant T cell activation, both of which can be found for up to two years after acute infection.

A recent review published in Medical Review sets out the spectrum of disease pathology with COVID-19 and Long Covid and gives some clues about why we’re seeing an increase in long-term sickness and in work disability around the world.

Our recommendation remains the same, take whatever steps you can to protect you and yours from COVID-19. You can find our advice here, or download the US Center for Disease Control’s easy to follow graphic on multi-layered protection.