some health related papers

[mindstalk]

Importance of fit-testing your mask and not relying on "the seal feels good": ~75% of people who failed a fit test, passed a seal check. Jump to Table 3 to save time: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0310057X20974022

Discussion and links about covid and antihistamines; taking stuff like loratadine might help with disease and even with vaccine reactions, and is pretty low risk. https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/805203.html

A long post on Novavax vaccine. Summary: decent evidence it has less side effects, especially as a 'booster'; weak if any evidence that it's better in duration or protection. Even Novavax itself doesn't claim greater durability. Footnote 5 has an interesting digression about tick-induced red meat allergy. https://deplatformdisease.substack.com/p/novavax-has-a-good-covid-19-vaccine

An overview of vaccines and their history; Figure 2 might be of interesting, listing types of vaccine technology and when they were introduced. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00479-7

A post on 'imprinting' and Omicron's spike protein. Summary: Omicron has specific mutations against immunity: less spike protein is produced (lower dose, lower immune response); it can engage a protein that suppresses immune response; and the very short incubation time makes it hard to control (also see next paper.) https://deplatformdisease.substack.com/p/framing-the-imprint-omicron-and-original

And finally, a very long paper on why some vaccines suck and others are one-and-done. Had a lot of new info even for me, even without getting too technical. https://deplatformdisease.substack.com/p/some-vaccines-are-one-and-done-why Some highlights:

• I've been right! Reproduction dynamics are a key part to how good our protection is; if a virus reaches infectiousness faster than our memory B cells respond, we can't control it. Delta was faster than original covid and Omicron even faster.

• The gains from mucosal vaccines might be minimal; given past mucosal infection, intramuscular vaccines already boost mucosal antibodies.

• Ideally we would induce lots of long-lived plasma cells, that produce antibodies for life, but we don't know how. Heck, we can't even identify LLPCs from short-lived ones.

• Deficiencies in antibody production aren't critical; T cells can keep you alive. Likewise deficiencies in CD8 aka killer T cells aren't fatal, antibodies can keep you alive. Deficiencies in CD4 aka helper T cells? You're dead.

• Mucosal anitbodies are short-lived compared to systemic ones, and 'in human challenge studies where the same strain of influenza is used for infection twice, one year apart, a majority of people still develop influenza illness a second time a year later.'