Quick Covid updates

“Covid arm”

It’s apparently a thing after getting a vaccination — enough so that dermatologists are taking note.

Anti-vaxxers might have to stay home

There’s a potential for a “vaccine passport” — some form of travel document that would be proof of vaccination and thus allow you to travel by air. Those shifty Danes are rolling one out, and other countries are considering them … including the U.S. of A.

J&J says it’s ready for prime time

Johnson & Johnson has formally submitted its one-shot, no-freezer-needed vaccine for FDA approval.

If given the green light by the agency, J&J’s vaccine will likely start being used in late February or early March, though initial supplies are expected to be extremely limited.

Vaccine questions

People will have questions after they’re vaccinated. The folks at Fierce Healthcare have some answers you can give them. (Spoiler: Yes, they still need to wear a mask.)

Did you know…

That once opened, insulin can be safety stored for up to a month, even in warm conditions? Now you do.

The research by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders and the University of Geneva showed that a vial of insulin could be stored for four weeks after opening at temperatures fluctuating between […] 77 and 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

A different kind of Jell-o shot

Injecting liquid pharmaceuticals is so 2020. Stanford researchers are working on injectable gels, and they’ve made the first big step to keeping them from turning liquid at body temperatures.

Why gels, you ask? Because they work like patches — releasing the active pharmaceutical ingredient “over a period of months to avoid weekly or daily needle sticks.”

They’ve got a bit of a way to go, though. The current gels use particles derived from polystyrene, “which is commonly used to make disposable cutlery.”

Making good use of Mercedes-Benz Stadium

NFL to Biden: All 30 stadiums* will be available as Covid-19 vaccination sites.

* The headline says 32 stadiums, but the Giants and Jets share one, as do the Rams and Chargers.

Get vaccine answers from DPH

This coming Tuesday, February 9, join a half-hour Covid vaccine Q&A with DPH, “Pharmacists & COVID-19 vaccinations”. It’s 8:00 – 8:30am, 100 percent virtual, but space is limited.

Click here to register for the special Q&A session. And you can even click here to email your questions in advance!

Compounders: Take note!

The FDA really doesn’t think it’s a great idea for you to compound remdesivir, and it’s released an alert explaining why. (Scroll down to “Discussion of Risks” for the important stuff.)

There’s a research center for that

Today I learned that England’s University of Huddersfield has a dedicated Scalp Cooling Research Centre, and since 2019 it’s been investigating how cooling the scalp during chemotherapy can protect against hair loss.

“We were able to measure how much chemotherapy drug goes into the cultured cells from hair follicles and what we have found is cooling actually dramatically reduces the amount of chemotherapy drug being absorbed by the rapidly-diving cells of the hair follicle.”

You can’t hide those lyin’ eyes

Next time you see some chucklehead wearing a mask wrong, take heart — apparently that can tell you how honest they are. Israeli economists did a study, recruiting people who wore their masks properly and improperly. It turned out that the improper-mask wearers were significantly more willing to lie about their score on a test.

This second group as a whole was willing to break the rules when it came to Covid-19 safety, and it was also willing to break the rules in another situation as well.

But wait! What of people who didn’t wear a mask at all? They scored in between the honest and dishonest folks. Make of that what you will.

No, the mask will not make you look like the Lone Ranger.