geoffrey modest medical blogs

  The Danish government is planning to kill about 15 million minks in >1000 mink farms because of their transmission of a mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus to humans (see  covid mink to human transmission biorxiv2020 in dropbox, or  doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.01.277152.).This story was reported in the NY Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/health/covid-mink-mutation.html  , though the relevant medical article is in pre-print and pre-peer reviewed form.  [ though the formal article was just printed in Science (see  covid mink to human transmission science2020  in dropbox, or  DOI: 10.1126/science.abe5901 ). to my perusal, does not seem that the final publication was significantly different from the pre-print text, though is shorter.]   Details:   -- initial detection of SARS-CoV-2 in mink was on April 23 in 2 mink farms, associated with respiratory signs and increased mink mortality (though minks can also have asymptomatic infections) ...

A trial of a novel SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in Wuhan found that it was tolerable and quite immunogenic ( se e  covid vaccine adenovir lancet2020  in dropbox,  or  https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31208-3.pdf )   Details: -- the vaccine, developed in China, involves a recombinant adenovirus type-5 (Ad-5) vectored Covid-19 vaccine expressing the spike glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus -- 108 participants were randomized to a dose escalation, single center, open-label, nonrandomized, phase 1 trial in Wuhan, between March 16 and March 27      -- all patients stayed in a designated hotel for 14 days postvaccination, to decrease the likelihood of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 during the early stages postvaccination -- patients were 18-60 years old, and allocated to a low, medium, and high dose vaccine, given once intramuscularly. All had negative results of several SARS-CoV-2 tests: serum specific IgG and IgM antibodies, negative PC...