Covid quickies

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is ready for younger teens, the companies say.

Remember, 99 percent effective isn’t the same as 100 percent effective.

Long Covid might be more common than originally thought (one in seven have it after three months).

Wondering about nasal vaccines? Five of them are in the works; here’s the overview from Smithsonian.

Sunny day, keeping the Covid away…

Scottish researchers figured out that areas with more sunlight have fewer Covid-19 deaths. But what is it about the sun, exactly? Do the UVA rays just kill more of the virus? Or…

“[S]unlight exposure causes the skin to release nitric oxide. This may reduce the ability of SARS Coronavirus2 —the cause of Covid-19 — to replicate, as has been found in some lab studies.”

Why not learn to immunize at the beach?

Classrooms are dark, dreary, and probably not as well-ventilated as they oughta be. The beach, though, that’s the place to take a course, right? Even better, there’s no dress code!

How convenient, then, that GPhA is offering “APhA’s Pharmacy-Based Immunization certificate training” on Sunday, June 20 — at the beach on Amelia Island! It’s in the same location as the Georgia Pharmacy Convention (again, how convenient!), but it’s a separate registration.

If you’re at the convention, why not register for this awesome immunization training? Click here or go to GPhA.org/immunization-2021 — and don’t forget to register for the convention, too!

Stay home in Georgia

Georgia was ranked the #3 state for working from home by WalletHub — only Delaware and North Carolina were better. In fact, it ranked #1 for “Living Environment” — basically the cost and availability of housing and utilities, including high-speed Internet.

The worst states for telecommuting? Alaska, Hawai’i, and North Dakota.

Yeah, you probably should worry a bit

Don’t panic, but keep in mind that the pandemic isn’t over — it’s still a race between vaccinations and variants, with anti-vaxxers helping the enemy. If the wrong variant gets a foothold … well, remember how much fun 2020 was?

The latest real-world data shows that “The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine Is Less Effective Against The South African And UK Variants Than Against The Original Virus”:

[T]he vaccine was eight times more protective against the wild type than the B1.351 variant. Similar studies showed that the vaccine is about 2.5 times more effective against the wild type than it is against the B 1.1.7 (UK) variant.

Oh, and by the way, the number of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has been rising each of past three weeks.

What you do know can hurt you

Could be a lot. Telling a patient he has “hypertension” or has “high normal” blood pressure can do more harm than good. How? Because … psychology.

It seems (Aussie researchers found) that those words are strong enough to give people stress, but not strong enough to actually get them to do anything about it. In fact, it may make them put their fingers in their ears and yell “La la la la la la.”

“Advising people that they are hypertensive or high normal when they have low risk of cardiovascular disease potentially may cause harm rather than engage them.”

(Although it’s worth noting that calling it “hypertension” at least increased their willingness to accept BP-lowering medication.)

So what should you do? Read the story for the researchers’ suggestion.

The future of flu shots?

If you’ve been wondering if the creating of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines might foretell the future of the flu shot, you’re not alone. The answer is yes, for sure. It won’t be as fast, though, in large part because flu shots aren’t having billions of dollars (and euros, and yuan, and rubles…) thrown at them.

Once it’s cracked, even if we still need one every year, development will be a lot faster. And researchers are talking about the first mRNA flu vaccines coming out within a few years.

Opening the door to brain tumors

British researchers have found what could be a huge new treatment for aggressive glioblastoma brain cancers. It’s only in early trials (10 patients), but it seems that a new drug called ipatasertib (an AKT inhibitor from Roche) effectively ‘de-cloaks’ tumors, allowing atezolizumab (the cancer drug) to attack it.

“We believe that our findings open the door to the further development of what could become a gamechanging treatment option for some patients with aggressive glioblastoma brain cancer.”

Five for eating

The folks at the University of Minnesota have identified “six unhealthy eating behaviors” that have emerged during the pandemic.

Well, it’s really five. And even five is stretching it. There’s eating more (mindlessly, eating to cope, and just eating more overall), and there’s eating less (decreased appetite or deliberately cutting food intake for economic reasons).

Which ones are you?

The official list:

• Mindless eating and snacking
• Increased food consumption
• Generalized decrease in appetite or dietary intake
• Eating to cope
• Pandemic-related reductions in dietary intake

And then they count as #6 (?) the fact that there are more eating disorders showing up.

Amber alert (no, not that kind)

The latest example of ‘folk remedies that work’ comes from the Baltic, where amber is the thing:

Even today, infants are given amber necklaces that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people put pulverized amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties

So University of Minnesota medicinal chemists wondered what was up. It turns out that yes, Baltic amber does contain ingredients “that show activity against gram-positive, antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

And if you just have to check out the details, those compounds are abietic acid, dehydroabietic acid, and palustric acid.