Pfizer vaccine doesn’t need to be that cold after all

You would think this would be a bit more prominent: Pfizer says its Covid-19 vaccine does not need to be stored in ultra-cold freezers. Typical pharmaceutical freezers (-13° to 5° F*) will do fine for two weeks, and the company is asking for official FDA approval of that labeling.

* Or -25° to -15° C in that quaint metric system

One and done?

It seems that, in the real world, a single dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is about 85 percent effective. That raises the question: Should we prioritize getting more people their first doses, rather than holding back the vaccine for the second shot?

And if you’ve had Covid-19…

Yes, you should still get vaccinated. But you only need a single shot.

[T]he research suggests that for these people just one dose of the vaccine is enough to turbocharge their antibodies and destroy the coronavirus — and even some more infectious variants.

Good news for asthmatics

Common sense would seem to say that someone with a lung condition like asthma have more to fear from a respiratory disease like Covid-19. But guess what? Aussie researchers found that people with asthma had a 14 percent lower risk of getting Covid-19 “and were significantly less likely to be hospitalized with the virus.”

What’s the deal? Deals, actually — plural.

“Chemical receptors in the lungs that the virus binds to are less active in people with a particular type of asthma and some studies suggest that inhaled corticosteroids – commonly used to treat asthma – can reduce their activity even further.”

Screen time is fun time (for boys)

If your 11-year-old boy is spending all his free time playing video games, fear not. Researchers at the University College London found that his risk of depression is lower. (Caveat: Assuming that he otherwise had a sedentary lifestyle, and that the game requires social interaction.)

BUT! If your 11-year-old girl is spending all her free time on social media, the opposite is true.

What about girls who play video games? No effect (the study says).

Taken together, the findings demonstrate how different types of screen time can positively or negatively influence young people’s mental health, and may also impact boys and girls differently.

The picture of happiness

Snail power

If you woke up today and thought, “Is there any good use for cone snail venom?” — good news! Apparently (per the folks at Florida Atlantic University) it can be used to treat malaria.

I know what you’re thinking: “What about the persistent cyto-adhesion of infected erythrocytes?” Apparently, the snail’s conopeptides can “disrupt protein-protein and protein-polysaccharide interactions that directly contribute to the disease.”

(I will leave it to people smarter than me to decide if that last paragraph makes any sense.)

Bottom line: The FAU people think those peptides could have a wide range of applications — “the potential to treat countless diseases using blockage therapies.”

It looks a lot prettier before it stings you.

The Long Read: side effects

You might think that the long, long list of potential side effects in drug ads covers everything. But in reality, common, debilitating side effects aren’t always clear: “What Americans Don’t Know About Their Medications”.

Shocker out of Michigan

“Irregular Sleep Connected to Bad Moods and Depression, Study Shows”

[P]eople whose waking time varies from day to day may find themselves in as much of a foul mood as those who stayed up extra late the night before, or got up extra early that morning,

ICYMI

A bill to keep Georgia on standard time all year has passed a state senate committee. That is all. (Almost all. Fun fact: Federal law prohibits states from going to 100 percent Daylight Saving Time.)