Darwin may have gotten the timing wrong, but evolution happens. It looks like the variant coming from South Africa could well be concerning, both for itself and the implications.

Oh, and the British strain may be somewhat more deadly. Granted, they're looking at a difference of 1.3% against 1% in a certain age group, but still. Those three people per thousand could probably do without the honor.

Studies on the British vaccine and the South African strain of Sars 2 haven't been really encouraging. It's getting ever more clear that we're going to have to treat Covid infections like the flu, with vaccines being modified as it evolves. Ah, well.

Yeah, we had... issues... with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But at around the same time as those disappointing test results came out, we apparently had decent test results - for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. So we're rolling that one out to health people (doctors, nurses, etc.) instead.

It's not so much an official vaccine rollout, because technically the vaccine hasn't been fully tested yet. So, technically, all of the health workers getting vaccinated are getting vaccinated as part of a wide-ranging study into the effectiveness of the vaccine. (As a country, we are very, very good at "technically".) It's also Stage 1 of our general vaccination program. (Stage 2 is people with comorbidities or who are over... over 60, I think the cutoff is? The vulnerable people, anyhow. And then Stage 3 is Everyone Else). I think that Stage 2 might need official approval; it definitely needs more vaccine supplies.

Just as a for what it's worth: being deficient in Vitamin D does not seem to be a good idea if you catch a Covid infection. But when studied either the benefits of popping a single high dose supplement on the way into the hospital were subtle, or the benefits of supplementation on hospitalization were quite apparent but the methodology was questionable.

With the proviso that vitamin D is fat soluble and that megadoses can kill you in a very nasty way; it's worth noting that most of us are deficient in vitamin D, and taking it in a multivitamin (with fat containing food) might be helpful if you happen to play host to our current favorite virus (as well as for general health purposes).

I've been seeing stories that the common cold is a much more aggressive virus than Sars-Cov-2; not only will having a cold supposedly block a Covid infection, but getting a cold would drive out a relatively new Covid infection in order to safeguard its turf. Fear the humble rhinovirus.

Oh, and there's talk of a new mutated Sars virus in India that combines two previous mutations. Until there's general herd immunity we can expect to see more viral evolution going forward, so here's hoping nothing comes up that seriously compromises the vaccines before then.