The media have again become fixated on the higher number of COVID-19 fully-vaccinated people in Irish hospitals and ICUs – but when you apply a little mathematics, it’s clear that Read More …
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published (14th Dec 2020, then updated 20th Jan 2021) a piece of advice for laboratories testing for SARS-CoV-2 using PCR. The advice boils down: Read More …
Three letters have been very busy in 2020: P. C. and R. The Polymerase Chain Reaction. It’s a tiny, thermally controlled, cyclical, enzyme-driven, chemical reaction which lets scientists identify the Read More …
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique for copying a piece of DNA a billion-fold. As the name suggests, the process creates a chain of many pieces, in this Read More …
A visual representation of how to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 struck a chord with many in 2020. I won’t rehash all that has already been written about the Swiss cheese Read More …
..whatever your shape, colour, gender, sex, size, beliefs, weight or disposition, I wish you a safe and happy festive season. May 2021 be a better year for those of us Read More …
If you haven’t seen all the chatter that states PCRs using more than thirty-something (someone even suggested 25 to me!) cycles will suffer from false positives, and so are useless, Read More …
COVID-19 case numbers are rising quickly in many parts of the northern hemisphere. Already some totals have outstripped the peaks seen in the first wave of the pandemic. Europe and Read More …
There has been talk out thar in the wildlands of Twitter from people who don’t believe the evidence that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is real. Has Read More …
I was asked to write some comments for a fact check article about some of the myths going around about PCR-based testing and whether PCR tests can detect “the COVID Read More …
Sometimes the full story can’t fit into a media article. A lot of words can be said during an interview with a journalist but sometimes it’s just really hard to Read More …
Turns out, this physical distancing thing actually works as advertised. Who would have thought that keeping the things viruses need for their survival – hosts full of cells – far Read More …
By Katherine E Arden, PhD & Ian M Mackay, PhD The existence of a coronavirus related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) was first hinted at by a researcher Read More …
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the use of the words “kit” and “reagent”. I completely feel for you if you still have no real idea of what is meant by Read More …
Our borders have been shut to non-citizens for about a week and despite being regularly admonished for being terrible at obeying confusing, constantly changing or poorly communicated new rules, the Read More …