Author Archives: jbakerjrblog

A WHO team led by Peter Ben Embarek said today they failed to find evidence that the virus that causes COVID-19 was produced in or released from a Chinese laboratory. However, he was unable to resolve other questions about the beginning of the pandemic and could not definitively say whether the virus was infecting peopleContinue reading “The WHO concludes that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus did not come from a Chinese laboratory, but other questions remain.”

My uncle is the most technically savvy human being I have ever met. I remember watching him as a child as he repaired people’s televisions by examining their circuits and replacing their tubes (yes, TV’s ran on vacuum tubes). As technology advanced, he was often the first adopter of transistor radios, high end stereos, andContinue reading “The obscenity of the web-based appointment systems for COVID-19 vaccines”

COVID-19 cases keep falling dramatically in the United States. The drop in the number of new cases per day over the past few weeks has been remarkable, and over the past three to four days new cases have decreased well below 150,000/day. We have not quite reached the new infection levels that were observed beforeContinue reading “Good news on U.S. COVID-19 cases, but again, bad news on AstraZeneca.”

An editorial today in the New York times appropriately questioned why we have so little data about the COVID-19 vaccination program in the United States. They point out that it’s very difficult to improve a program when you don’t even understand what’s currently happening.  For once, this failing was not solely attributed to the prior administration andContinue reading “The New York times and I finally agree on an editorial topic!”

Israel has been the most aggressive country in the world in vaccinating their population. They paid a premium to obtain the Pfizer vaccine early on and used it initially for their elderly population, 60 years of age and older. The results are now just being observed and are impressive. They truly indicate that vaccination willContinue reading “Israel’s vaccine success is the best news of the pandemic!”

Johnson and Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine is submitted to the FDA. The pharmaceutical company has applied to the FDA for emergency use authorization for its one dose coronavirus vaccine. Their application came after the publication of their successful clinical trial this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. It showed that the vaccine was 66% effectiveContinue reading “Three important updates to end the week”

Yesterday a new paper surfaced in a non-peer reviewed form on a Lancet website. It was from AstraZeneca and Oxford University scientists and claimed additional new information from the phase three U.K. trial of their COVID-19 vaccine. The paper also suggested that this vaccine appeared to be effective in preventing transmission of COVID-19. Once again,Continue reading “AstraZeneca screws things up again!”

When one looks back over the past 10 months of the pandemic, several things are apparent. The overall response to the pandemic had fits and starts, and there were many missteps in recommendations about wearing masks, disease testing, and contact tracing.  However, while these measures impacted the number of people who became infected, none of theseContinue reading “The primary reason so many people have died from COVID-19”

Today, the results from an analysis of a large-scale clinical trial published in the British medical journal the Lancet showed that the Russian Sputnik V, two-shot vaccine was 91.6% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19 and offered complete protection against severe cases. The paper also reported that there were no serious side effects and no deathsContinue reading “Sputnik is launched!”

Being February 1st, it seemed to be a good time to see what is happening in terms of COVID-19 infection trends in the United States.  The good news is that the number of new COVID-19 infections in the US has dropped significantly over the past two weeks.  Overall new infections have fallen consecutively over theContinue reading “COVID-19 good news/bad news to start February”