The UK moved to a first dose first strategy, where they prioritize vaccine uptake over administering second doses. This means that instead of administering the second dose after three weeks, the UK will delay the booster shot to increase the number of people who have been vaccinated at least once. This is probably excellent news. As I’ve written about before, this essentially means we can vaccinate twice as many people in the beginning.
Here is the relevant quote from … more
Michael Minna raises an intriguing possibility in an opinion piece in the New York Times: Instead of giving people two shots of a vaccine, we could give them only one and delay the second dose until enough vaccines are available.
The current vaccines are designed to be administered in two steps. The first step provides the initial exposure of the body to virus antigens. The second is a booster designed to increase and prolong immunity. Here is the chart … more
Interesting article about the geopolitical importance of Taiwan to Japan.
… moreTaiwan is a chokepoint of great utility for blockading Japan. The Taiwan Strait, it notes, is a Japanese maritime lifeline that runs from Europe and the Middle East, and based on PLA [People’s Liberation Army, China’s military] studies, Japan receives 90 percent of its oil imports, 99 percent of its mineral resources, and 100 percent of its nuclear fuel needs from ships that travel across these sea lanes.
Developing a new vaccine and getting it approved is a slow and tedious process. With the current coronavirus vaccines, it seems, it was the careful testing that took longest.
Allegedly, it took the pharmaceutical company Moderna two days in January to develop the vaccine. I am not sure how much we should take this claim at face value. Think about pharma companies that have thousands of potential drug candidates in their data bases. Is it fair to say “we … more
There is a new paper (thanks, Habakuk) that compares psychotherapy to cash transfers in Kenya (direct link). It is witty and interesting to read. And it is brutal. Here is the abstract:
… moreWe study the economic and psychological effects of a USD 1076 PPP unconditional cash transfer, a five-week psychotherapy program, and the combination of both interventions among 5,756 individuals in rural Kenya. One year after the interventions, cash transfer recipients had higher consumption, asset holdings, and revenue, as
