Saturday Stories: Vaccine Passports, Canadian Vaccine Manufacturing, and Not Delaying Vaccine Boosters For The Vulnerable

Saskia Popescu and Alexandra Phelan, in The New York Times, discuss the unwieldy realities that vaccine passports might face. 

Leslie Boehm and Gregory P. Marchildon, in Policy Options covers the past realities and future needs of Canadian vaccine manufacturing. 

Isaac Bogoch and David Naylor, in The Globe and Mail, present the case for not delaying second shot vaccinations for Canada's most vulnerable. 

Saturday Stories: Africa's Incredible COVID Supply Chain, On AstraZeneca's Vaccine, And Asymptomatic Transmission

Javed Anees, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Reid Wilson, in The Hill, on the world leading way in which Africa approached COVID treatment and prevention supplies. 

David Spiegelhalter, in the Guardian, on why you need not be terribly worried about receiving AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine.

Angie. Rasmussen and Saskia Popescu, in Science, with everything we know about asymptomatic COVID infections and transmission.

Saturday Stories: Vaccines For Longhaulers, EMT Reflections, And Societal Reopening

Akiko Iwasaki, in Medium, on how vaccination might help COVID longhaulers.

Jennifer Murphy, in The New York Times, reflects on her experiences as a NYC EMT during the worst of their pandemic.

Jane Philpott and David Walker, in The Ottawa Citizen, discuss the equitable reopening of society.

Saturday Stories: Windows, Mindestabstandsregelung, And Anti-Racist COVID Responses

Sarah Zhang, in The Atlantic, on the forgotten power of windows in a pandemic.

Luisa Beck, in The Washington Post, on the 1,200 new German words coined for the pandemic.

Aisha Lofter, in TVO, on the need for an anti-racist response to COVID.

Saturday Stories: Vaccines Will Work, The Vaccine Whisperer Hilda Bastian, And The Secret Life of SARs-CoV2

Angela L. Rasmussen, in the New York Times, explains how yes, the vaccines will work to stop the spread.

Julia Belluz, in Vox, interviews the inimitable Hilda Bastian, the scientist who has been right on COVID vaccines every step of the way. 

Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, on the secret life of a coronavirus.

Saturday Stories: Which Vaccine Should You Get, And Summertime

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, in The Guardian, discusses which vaccine you should get.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on what summer might look like (in the US mind you, here in Canada, given our exceedingly slow pace of vaccination, this might not apply)

Saturday Stories: No Herd Immunity Without Vaccines, Hygiene Theatre, And Sleepwalking Into Disaster

Michaeleen Doucleff, in NPR, explains how a small town in Brazil has tragically shown us that without vaccines, herd immunity is impossible.

Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic, on the waste of resources and the disinformation that is hygiene theatre

Brooks Fallis, in The Globe and Mail, on how Canada is sleepwalking into our next disastrous surge.

Photo by By Jesus Solana from Madrid, Spain - Black sheep . Do u also feel different? // la Oveja negra. Tambien te sientes diferente?, CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5050231

Saturday Stories: The Australian Response, The Brazilian Variant, And The Russian Vaccine

Damien Cave, in The New York Times, on how Australia is maintaining near normalcy of life in the time of COVID19

James Hamblin, in the Atlantic, on the Brazilian variant that's currently rampaging through a city that had been thought to be immune due to acquired immunity from a previously brutal wave in April 2020.

Joshua Yaffa, in The New Yorker, on Russia's Sputnik V vaccine and their race to immunity.

Saturday Stories: Vaccines Alone Aren't Enough, Women And Vaccines, Why Every Country Should Be Aiming At #COVIDZero, J&J And Novavax

Angela Rasmussen, in Slate, on how we can't rely on vaccines alone to end this pandemic (this is especially true right now in Canada where our vaccination program is barely off the ground)

Alice Lu-Culligan and Akiko Iwasaki, in the New York Times, on the safety of COVID vaccines for women of all ages

Michael Baker and Martin McKee, in The Guardian, on the 16 reasons why every country should be aiming for #COVIDZero.

Derek Lowe, in Science and Translational Medicine, on the new vaccines on the block - Novavax and J&J

Saturday Stories: Anti-Vaxxer COVID Playbook, A Potentially Scarier Variant, And Ontario's Abysmal Response To Date

Scott Gavura, in Science Based Medicine, on the anti-vaxx campaign to erode confidence in COVID vaccines.

Julia Belluz and Umair Irfan, in Vox, on the new South African COVID variant that may challenge current vaccines.

André Picard and Adalsteinn Brown in conversation with Matt Galloway on CBC's The Current on Ontario's disappointments in our fight against COVID (do give this a listen, and wow, Dr. Brown's frustration is something to hear)

Saturday Stories: The Myths Of Pandemic Fatigue, COVID Is Absolutely Controllable, And On Being A Female Expert

If you're not already following Dr. Popescu, you should be.

Stephen Reicher and John Drury, in the BMJ, on how adherence to COVID recommendations is reliant more on resources and less on motivation or energy.

Gideon M-K, in Medium, with the plain truth - COVID is absolutely controllable through government interventions and if your government isn't controlling it, that's a choice they've made.

Jessica Gold, in Forbes, on the many layers of added nonsense that women who are COVID experts face online and in the media.

Saturday Stories: Vaccination, Variants, and Lockdowns

Daniela J. Lamas, in The New York Times, reflects as a front line physician on her vaccination.

Julia Belluz in Vox, on the new COVID variants and their implications for vaccinations

Alex Crozier, in The Guardian, on how lockdowns can't work without social supports.

Saturday Stories: Year Two And The New Strain

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, with a typically phenomenal piece (and sadly the last he'll be writing for a while as he finishes up a book) where he discusses the pandemic's year two.

Kai Kupferschmidt, in Science, with what you need to know, and why people are concerned, about the more virulent new strain.

Saturday Stories: Bill Gates' Hopeful Thoughts, COVID Mythbusting, And #COVIDZero

Bill Gates, in his blog GatesNotes, explains the science of why 2021 promises many more advances in the treatment and prevention of COVID and science as a whole.

Gid MK, in Medium, busting 20 myths about COVID

Devi Sridhar, in The Guardian, on how the notion of learning to live with the virus rather than eliminating it is a horrible mistake.

Saturday Stories: Caring For Patients With COVID, Side Effects, And Science

Olivia Veira and Joshua M. Sharfstein, in JAMA, with a roundup of healthcare workers' candid thoughts on caring for patients with COVID.

Maryn McKenna, in Wired, on the importance of talking about the vaccines' side effects.

Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, on how COVID has changed the face of science.

Saturday Stories: How Pfizer's Vaccine Works, School Closures And Life Expectancies, And Your Place In The Vaccination Line

Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, explain how the Pfizer vaccine will work inside of your body.

Melissa Davey, in The Guardian, digs past the alarmist headlines and breathless tweets and speaks with epidemiologist Gid MK to explore that study suggesting school closures shortened kids' life expectancies.

Jordan Kisner, in The Atlantic, on the calculus behind the lineup of when and who should be vaccinated first and last

Saturday Stories: What We Should Be Doing While Awaiting Vaccines, How To Make The Best Of Vaccines, And Our Shameful Failure With Our Racialized Neighbourhoods

Zain Chagla, Sumon Chakrabarti, Isaac Bogoch and Lynora Saxinger, in The National Post, on what we should be doing with vaccines on the horizon.

Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how we might make best use of the vaccines once they arrive.

Jennifer Yang, Kate Allen, and Andrew Bailey, in the Toronto Star, with our shameful failure to protect our racialized neighbourhoods from the second wave.

Saturday Stories: Rapid Home Testing Could Save The Day, Pandemic Winter Rules To Rule Them All, And Yes, Kids Transmit COVID19

Michael Mina, in TIME, on why he thinks cheap, rapid, testing could dig us out of our holes long before vaccines start going into arms. 

Rachel Gutman, in The Atlantic, with the most important rule to follow to protect yourself from COVID this winter. 

Zoë Hyde, in The Conversation, covers what we now know about kids, schools, COVID, and transmission.

My #Movember Alex Trebek Tribute Moustache And Why I Almost Didn't Bother

Plainly, 2020 has been an awful year.

And I know that I haven't been blogging, but it just feels wrong to be writing about nutrition, medicine, or weight management in the face of our tragic new realities.

I do hope this post finds you and yours healthy and spared from the pandemic's impact, but I don't know that any of us have been spared, and for some of you I'm sadly sure, the costs have been beyond horrible.

Consequently I debated whether or not I was going to do Movember this year or send out this post. I'm still not convinced it's the right thing to do as people have given up so much, many have seen their incomes drop dramatically, and if an option, charity can certainly be metered out more locally and urgently (for instance we chose back in March to have a standing monthly donation set up with Ottawa's Food Bank). 

With that said, no doubt charities are hurting too, and the causes they fund haven't gone away which is why in the end I decided to throw my moustache in the ring. Contrary to what some believe, Movember is not simply a prostate cancer charity, and though some of its funds do go to prostate cancer research and treatment, Movember funds multiple men's health initiatives including those involving mental health, suicide, body image, eating disorders, substance use disorders, testicular cancer, and more. 

As a show of respect for Alex Trebek, I've done my best to shape my moustache accordingly, and as a thank you for donating, I'll send the top 3 donors a bottle of my homemade, home-grown, 6 week fermented, mesquite smoked red habanero and carolina reaper hot sauce (pictured below at the start of the ferment and ready to be bottled next weekend).

If you'd like to donate to my Movember efforts, simply click here and it'll take you to my donation page, and of course donations are all tax deductible, can be made anonymously, and every dollar counts.

Thank you and stay safe out there.

Yoni

Saturday Stories: Antarctically Cold Vaccines, Cancelling Thanksgiving, And How Vermont Succeeded

Selinia Simmons-Duffin, in NPR Shots, on why Pfizer's vaccine needs to be kept at temperatures lower than an Antarctic winter.

James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, on honouring the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday by cancelling it this year.

Julia Belluz, in Vox, on how prioritizing supporting the vulnerable has led to Vermont's standout success in controlling COVID.

Photo By TUBS - Own work This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Adobe Illustrator. This file was uploaded with Commonist. This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file: Usa edcp location map.svg (by Uwe Dedering). This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file: USA Hawaii location map.svg (by NordNordWest). This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file: Canada location map.svg (by Yug)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15949669