Menu

Primary Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Ebola index
  • MERS Numbers
Show Header Sidebar Content

Virology Down Under

Facts, data, info, expert opinion and a reasonable, occasionally grumpy, voice on viruses: what they are, how they tick and the illnesses they may cause.

Latest posts...

don't forget to signup, login, follow and Like them!

What is “Immunity Debt”?

What is “Immunity Debt”?

Something called “immunity debt” has been in the news quite a bit lately. Most recently, because of what looks like a multicountry Mycoplasma pneumoniae epidemic, but before then, in the Read More ...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia – worth not(ify)ing

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia – worth not(ify)ing

Once upon a time, we grew viruses from sick patients’ samples. This took an age, failed often, had low throughput and was not a good diagnostic tool. Then we developed Read More ...

Variation is key to the SARS-CoV-2 ‘waves’

Variation is key to the SARS-CoV-2 ‘waves’

Just a short note to highlight that viruses changing their ‘look’ through selection and expansion of variants in response to our immune system’s pressure on their evolution has been the Read More ...

Masks matter for more than mandates

Masks matter for more than mandates

The amount of virus per amount of snot, air, monkey or whatever is a way to describe the concentration of virus present in that thing. It might seem intuitive to Read More ...

Thank goodness we did all the work

Posted onJanuary 29, 2022July 16, 20226 Comments

Thank goodness we didn’t hold off on opening up to see what Omicron was capable of. We had to have Christmas. And there were national cabinet agreements. Anyway, how could Read More …

CategoriesAerosols, Communication, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Editorial, Enterovirus, Influenza, Parechovirus, Rhinovirus, SARS-CoV-2, Transmission

Living next door to Alice

Posted onJanuary 3, 2022July 24, 20222 Comments

I mean, who wants to say “living with COVID” amirite? The connotation is that it’s just a necessary thing we have to do. But really, at some point, it kind Read More …

CategoriesCoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Transmission

pexels-photo-5878501.jpeg

Ireland and the vaccinated hospitalised-it ain’t what it looks like

Posted onNovember 6, 2021November 7, 20213 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, Debunking, Vaccines & vaccination

WHO to new PCR users: read the damned manual!

Posted onJanuary 23, 2021January 23, 20218 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, PCR

Putting PCR into real-time

Posted onJanuary 2, 2021January 2, 20216 Comments

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 …

CategoriesLaboratory methods, PCRTagsMicrobiology, Pathology laboratory

The mechanics of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)…a primer

Posted onDecember 28, 2020December 28, 2020

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 …

CategoriesDNA, Laboratory methods, PCRTagsdiagnostics, DNA Down Under (DDU)

The Swiss cheese infographic that went viral

Posted onDecember 26, 2020November 15, 202233 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCommunication, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2

Happy Festive Season to all who read this….

Posted onDecember 24, 2020December 24, 20202 Comments

..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 …

CategoriesEditorial

The “false-positive PCR” problem is not a problem

Posted onNovember 22, 2020December 30, 202058 Comments

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 is useless, Read More …

CategoriesCoronavirus, COVID-19, PCR, SARS-CoV-2

More testing shows more iceberg

Posted onOctober 29, 2020November 3, 20205 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, PCR, SARS-CoV-2

Sigh, yes, the ‘COVID virus’ is real

Posted onOctober 6, 2020November 3, 202024 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, Debunking, PCR, Virus discovery

Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus”

Posted onAugust 4, 2020September 14, 2020113 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCommunication, Debunking, DNA, Laboratory methods, PCR, SARS-CoV-2TagsRT-PCR, RT-rPCR

And another thing…on false positives

Posted onJune 29, 2020June 29, 202025 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCoronavirus, COVID-19, Laboratory methods, PCR

Rhinovirus rampant or testing triumphant?

Posted onJune 27, 2020September 14, 202017 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, Picornavirus, Rhinovirus

We don’t yet know the origin story for SARS-CoV-2

Posted onMay 4, 2020May 4, 202025 Comments

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 …

CategoriesCOVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Virus discovery

Post navigation

← Older posts
Newer posts →

More of VDU

  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google
  • Facebook
  • Mastodon

Recent Posts

  • What is “Immunity Debt”? December 2, 2023
  • Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia – worth not(ify)ing August 27, 2023
  • I’m voting YES to the Voice to Parliament. August 8, 2023
  • Excess deaths align with COVID-19 May 7, 2023
  • Variation is key to the SARS-CoV-2 ‘waves’ May 7, 2023
  • The 2023 southern hemisphere influenza vaccine April 29, 2023
  • ‘Endemic’ covers a lot of biology, but we’re probably not there yet for COVID-19 January 2, 2023
  • Whatever happened to communication? July 24, 2022
  • Masks matter for more than mandates July 7, 2022
  • An early & big flu rise in Australia June 7, 2022
  • BA.2.12.1 is on the rise in New York… May 2, 2022
  • Unexplained hepatitis: severe liver inflammation among young children April 25, 2022
  • Lockdowns had a role: they saved lives April 18, 2022
  • Super-cold or a silly headline? April 15, 2022
  • Arrrrr on the rise (Rhinovirus, RSV and RATs) March 19, 2022

All opinions are my own and do not represent medical advice or the views of any institution.

All graphics made by me are free-to-use. Please just cite the particular page, blog and me. A heads-up would be nice, but that can happen later.

Tags

A/H3N2 anti-vaccination asymptomatic Australia avian influenza China Democratic Republic of the Congo DRC Ebola virus Ebola virus disease epidemic epidemiology EVD Flu flu season genotype H1N1 H3N2 H7N9 HTLV HTLV-1c influenza influenza virus MERS MERS-CoV molecular epidemiology outbreak PCR pneumonia Queensland reporting respiratory virus rhinovirus RT-PCR SciComm science communication seasonal influenza social media SoMe summer transmission United States of America vaccine Wuhan Zaire ebolavirus

More on Twitter

My Tweets

Regular reads…

  • FluTrackers-everything infectious, before it happens
  • Mike Coston’s Avian Flu Diary
  • Crawford Kilian’s infectious disease blog
  • Pathogen perspectives: Ebola and more
  • ProMED mail
  • WHO Disease Outbreak News
  • HealthMap
  • STAT News
  • CIDRAP-timely infectious disease reporting
  • Maia Majumder’s blog
  • Kai Kupferschmidt
  • Martin Enserink
  • EpiRamblings

 

Recent Posts

  • What is “Immunity Debt”?
  • Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Australia – worth not(ify)ing
  • I’m voting YES to the Voice to Parliament.
  • Excess deaths align with COVID-19
  • Variation is key to the SARS-CoV-2 ‘waves’

All opinions are my own and do not represent medical advice or the views of any institution.

All graphics made by me are free-to-use. Please just cite the particular page, blog and me. A heads-up would be nice too but that can happen later.

Mastodon: @[email protected]

Twitter: @mackayim

Copyright © 2023 Virology Down Under. All Rights Reserved.
• The following link is used to verify that I 'own' the domain
for use with Mastodon
Theme: Clean Box Pro
Scroll Up
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Ebola index
  • MERS Numbers