The United Kingdom has approved the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine and the very first people in the world have received their first jabs against COVID-19. The end should be in sight of this pandemic. Following previous posts, I’ve been asked a lot in person and online about the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination in general. Here I’ve tried my best to answer them. Hope you find them useful. Please note although I am a doctor I am not involved in any of the trials mentioned.
How does the immune system work?
The human immune system is divided into two parts: the innate and adaptive. We’re born with the innate immune system whilst the adaptive is something we develop. The innate immune system is broad while the adaptive is specialised. The innate immune system consists of cells (phagocytes) which ‘swallow’ and destroy bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing organisms (pathogens). This happens quickly after being infected. These cells break up the pathogens into smaller parts which they then display on their surface. Cells called helper T cells ‘read’ these smaller parts and start the adaptive immune response. Cells called B lymphocytes are activated and turn into plasma cells which start producing antibodies. These are proteins designed to specifically counteract one particular pathogen. They fit around proteins called antigens on the surface of the pathogen. After doing this they stop the pathogen functioning, in the case of viruses this can stop them being able to invade cells, and helps the phagocytes find and swallow them. The helper T cells also activate killer T cells which find and destroy cells which have been infected by the pathogen. The adaptive immune system as a result is slower. But it lasts. Both B and T cells retain ‘memory’ of that pathogen so if we are infected again they can start working immediately to destroy it. …
So, here we are the end of England’s Lockdown 2. Lockdown, the word of the year, was supposed to be a one-off as we ‘learned to live’ with COVID-19 until the white knight of a vaccine arrived over the nearest hill. Yet the second lockdown was near-inevitable due to the nature of COVID-19 and the attempts in the UK to control it. This is why.
“So what do you think should be done about COVID-19?”
Chances are you’ve asked, or been asked, this, probably over Zoom, as your region moved up a Tier or as you contemplated a Christmas without being able to see all of your nearest and dearest. Maybe you were worried about your favourite business or wondering what on Earth a substantial meal is. Or perhaps you’re concerned about University students locked in their halls living off food parcels. …
30 years of hurt are over. Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City have been knocked off their effing perches. Liverpool have their first Premier League title. In case you were in any doubt: This Matters More and You’ll Never Walk Alone. (Unless you’re the staff they attempted to furlough or Liverpool Women neglected to their fate).
There have been and will continue to be plenty of puff pieces on this subject. The world according to Steve McManaman or Jim Beglin. Where Anfield is home to special fans who know football better than others who support a club with history; because no other club has passionate fans or history. A world where Michael Owen is suddenly a Liverpool fan again and thinks that the highest point of Atletico Madrid’s existence was winning on Merseyside. …
“A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes”
Last Saturday saw a protest in London against the COVID-19 lock down. Its architects were global warming denialist Piers Corbyn and David Icke, a man who alleges that the British Royal Family are actually giant lizards. Cue a deep dive into COVID-19 conspiracy theories. No one can agree which conspiracy is the correct one but there definitely is one. Wake up sheeple!
The above tweet from Joe Politics showing anti-lock down protesters caught my attention as it nicely displays the general themes these lies have taken: the virus isn’t real, it’s being used as an excuse by governments and that 5G is behind the whole thing. I thought I’d go through each of the claims made by the protesters in the video and look to see if the science backs them up. In summary it doesn’t. …
Last weekend saw World Gin Day; a chance to celebrate a drink which has exploded in popularity in the UK over the past few years. ‘Gin’ describes a liquor which is at least 40% alcohol by volume derived from grain distillation and primarily flavoured with juniper berries. It is the Dutch word for juniper, genever, which gives us the word ‘gin’. With the warm weather, many of us may be reaching for a relaxing beverage in the form of a gin with its most popular mixer: tonic. …
The United Kingdom is in the throes of a pandemic. A new virus without cure or vaccine kills with frightening speed. The Prime Minister is struck down with fever. His life hangs in the balance. It is September 1918. The Prime Minister is David Lloyd George. History may not repeat but she does love to rhyme.
15th September 1918. David Lloyd George, Prime Minister and leader of the wartime coalition government, although not the leader of his party the Liberals, visits Manchester to receive the freedom of the city. It is the last few months of the bloodiest conflict known to man. By the end of the month the German High Command would telegram the Kaiser that victory was impossible. Peace would soon be in sight. …
A new virus which first appeared in a food market in China has crossed the world in a couple of months and declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation As of 11th March there have been 118 619 confirmed cases of this virus, called COVID-19, worldwide, with 456 in the United Kingdom. Six people in the UK have died. Of those cases in the UK four were all linked to one other infected person who also infected another six, five in France and one in Spain. …
“Sunlight is the best disinfectant”
Louis Brandeis — US Lawyer
Disease feeds on ignorance and misinformation. And yet it is often human nature to conceal or silence due to vested self-interest. George Orwell said, “in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” This is the story of a modern medical truth teller Li Wenliang and his predecessor of nearly two centuries: Ignaz Semmelweis.
To look at a photograph of microscopic life is to see a world of purple and blue. Of swirls and dots. Of course this isn’t the case but actually the result of dyes used to make this invisible world vivid under the lens. Haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) are two such dyes regularly used. Haematoxylin dyes the nuclei of cells (where DNA is stored) blue whilst eosin stains the cytoplasm (the goo which makes up most of the cell) pink. Other structures take on dyes in various amounts to create the remarkable pictures which form the basis of life and disease.
In a previous musing I looked at medieval Medicine and common theories of illness and cure at the time. Medieval Medicine has a reputation for being backward in contrast to the enlightened Renaissance. This is the story of a pre-medieval medicine and a modern day ‘superbug’.
Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first identified in Britain in 1961. Staphylococcus aureus is a very common species of bacteria often found on the human body which, given the opportunity, can cause infections especially in soft tissues like the skin. Staph aureus bacteria have a cell wall which protects them from their environment. They use a number of proteins to build this wall. It’s these proteins to which penicillin antibiotics bind and stop bacteria from making their protective cell wall (hence them being called penicillin binding proteins or PBPs). Without their wall the bacterial cells die. …
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