HIV and ID Observations

April 11th, 2021

Poll: Will This Video Change Anyone’s Mind About Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine?

Watch this video. It’s a minute long: I first heard about the video because, as mentioned before, I play in a regular poker game with a group of smart friends. Naturally, the in-person game, which started sometime in the early days of the 21th century, has been on hold since March of last year. One can […]

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April 4th, 2021

More Excellent News on COVID-19 Vaccines — and Baseball Gets a Policy Right

Big announcement this week from CDC, saying that people who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 can safely travel. Of course many didn’t need this permission, as data increasingly show the vaccines not only powerfully protect you, but protect others. But having official endorsement from our cautious federal health agency surely means the data are especially strong. […]

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March 21st, 2021

If You Want Thoughtful and Accurate Predictions About COVID-19, Zeynep Tufekci Has the Answers

The future ain’t what it used to be, said one very wise man. He might have also said, It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, but alas we’ll have to credit that profundity to someone else. Still, both these statements embody the insurmountable difficulty of making accurate predictions — a problem starkly evident during pandemic […]

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March 7th, 2021

Exactly One Year Ago, a Memorable Dinner Before a Memorable Year

On March 7, 2020, right before CROI here in Boston, a bunch of us ID types planned to get together for a pre-conference dinner. A mixture of Bostonians and out-of-towners who hadn’t seen each other for a while. A chance to catch up before our busiest (and most important) scientific meeting. What happened? One person landed in […]

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February 21st, 2021

Why Are COVID-19 Case Numbers Dropping?

We don’t know. That part is easy. Also easy is that case numbers really are falling — it’s not just reduced testing — and it’s happening pretty much everywhere. Urban areas and rural. Red states and blue. Places with broad vaccine rollouts and those with hardly any. North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Even countries […]

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February 7th, 2021

Does Taking Vitamin D Prevent or Treat COVID-19?

Vitamin D supplementation — critical in prevention and treatment of COVID-19? Or does it do nothing — except further enrich the vitamin and supplements industry, which is worth more than 100 billion dollars? The challenge is figuring out which of these is the truth, and after several weeks of thinking about the issue, I find it’s far […]

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January 31st, 2021

Are We Expecting Too Much from Our COVID-19 Vaccines?

There are no absolutes in life. And nothing is perfect. Tom Brady isn’t always in the Super Bowl (hard to believe). Serena Williams occasionally exits tennis tournaments in the early rounds. Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep sometimes appear in movies that are stinkers. I’ve always thought that Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York fits horribly […]

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January 18th, 2021

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions

In case you missed it, over on the New England Journal of Medicine, we now have a list of Covid-19 Frequently Asked Questions. (Why this NEJM Journal Watch site and the actual New England Journal of Medicine use different capitalization rules for this disease is a mystery. And don’t get me started on the Washington Post, […]

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January 4th, 2021

Ivermectin for COVID-19 — Breakthrough Treatment or Hydroxychloroquine Redux?

It’s an indisputable fact that we need better treatments for COVID-19. This is particularly true in the outpatient setting. Let’s count how many we have today, hmm, this shouldn’t take long. That would be zero — the same number we had over a year ago, when the disease first emerged in China. Something safe, easy to take […]

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December 20th, 2020

With Vaccine Rollout, a Mixture of Gratitude, Envy, and Cautious Hope

I. Gratitude Did I think we’d have two vaccines for COVID-19 available for distribution before 2021? Two vaccines with 95% efficacy in preventing disease, and nearly 100% in preventing severe disease? Vaccines that work across different patient populations, including the most vulnerable — especially older people? Not a chance. I’ve probably been quoted half a dozen times […]

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