This week, the biggest science story was the news (so far only available in press releases and derived news stories) that both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s experimental COVID-19 vaccines appear to be very effective. We need to see actual, peer-reviewed data of course, and a critical question will be whether these vaccines – both based on the same strategy – confer immunity from infection or only from disease. It’s exciting news in any case.

The big news of the past week, of course, was the promise of competent management returning to the US federal government soon, along with a very preliminary indication that the development of vaccines against COVID-19 is going well. Let’s see what else trickled through to the Filtrate. Still eradicating polio The seemingly endless campaign to eradicate polio grinds on. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed progress a bit, researchers and public health experts hope that a new vaccine design will help the beleaguered effort overcome one of its biggest obstacles.

A few days ago, the World Health Organization caused a stir by saying that antibody tests may not indicate whether someone is immune from SARS-CoV-2. This led to some understandable confusion, and WHO spokespeople have subsequently walked the comments back a bit. While the messaging might’ve been handled better, the public health experts at the WHO were trying to make a very important point. Several prominent politicians have advanced the idea of issuing “immunity passports” to people who’ve recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Here’s something that doesn’t happen often: I disagree with my friend, podcast co-host, and former mentor Vincent Racaniello. He’s generally right about most things. But I have to part ways with his take on public health-related travel bans, which he explained in a recent post on his blog: Why is it important to stop travel out of the [Ebola virus] affected countries? While I’m confident that the US can detect and properly contain imported Ebola virus infections, not all countries will be able to do so.

A new paper in the journal CHEST presents the case of a toddler who went into respiratory distress after receiving a smear of Vicks VapoRub under her nose. To figure out what happened, the researchers replicated the treatment in ferrets, whose respiratory systems are a good model for humans. The results were not exactly consistent with the Vicks “Breathe free” slogan: [VapoRub] stimulates mucin secretion and [mucociliary transport] in the … inflamed ferret airway.