General COVID vaccination thread

[MickintheHam]

Citizen, the biggest mistake in this ordeal, of which there are scores, was the suspension of the J&J vaccine rollout. Our march to 70% died that day. People who were leery of vaccines or plain scared of shots were pushed over the edge. After that debacle the vaccination rate dropped. It is only now start to recover. But, it is not because the science changed. It’s because those who are leery or afraid are being forced to walk the plank.

[KeithKSR]

Citizen, the biggest mistake in this ordeal, of which there are scores, was the suspension of the J&J vaccine rollout. Our march to 70% died that day. People who were leery of vaccines or plain scared of shots were pushed over the edge. After that debacle the vaccination rate dropped. It is only now start to recover. But, it is not because the science changed. It’s because those who are leery or afraid are being forced to walk the plank.

The J&J suspension and the Fauci/Biden crusade with mandating vaccines both had a chilling impact on vaccinations.

[blueboss]

I got the booster today… I hope the reaction is a lot less than I had with the 2nd poke.


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[blueboss]

Got up this morning exhausted and achy, laid back down at 7:00 and woke up at 11:00… still a little achy and run down. For me the booster wasn’t nearly as rough than the 2nd Pfizer shot.


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[dan_bgblue]

Covid Will Soon Be Endemic, Thank Goodness
Widespread immunity, vaccinated and natural, will bring control and a full return to normal.


This is taken from the wall street journal. I hate stealing info from legit publications, but past links to the WSJ have prompted a lot of that link does not work for me, so I am doing a copy and paste of this article as it provides a lot of info that I think will be beneficial to my friends here, and also to prompt folks to investigate the subscription prices for this stellar publication.

Covid-19 will soon become endemic—and the sooner the better.

An epidemic causes widespread disease in a region. A pandemic affects multiple countries or continents. A disease becomes endemic when it is manageable—defined, for instance, as not causing an undue burden on hospitals or other healthcare resources—but is unlikely to be eliminated because of the pathogen’s inherent properties.

Australia, China and New Zealand have pursued “zero Covid” policies that aim at elimination (reducing incidence in a region to zero) or even eradication (world-wide elimination). That goal is unrealistic. Smallpox is the only human disease that has ever been eradicated. The smallpox virus has had four properties that made it eradicable: the lack of an animal reservoir, clear and distinctive signs and symptoms, a short period of infectiousness, and both lifelong natural immunity after survival and a highly effective vaccine.

SARS-CoV-2, by contrast, is unlikely to be eradicated. It has animal reservoirs, a high level of transmissibility (especially of the Delta variant), and overlapping symptoms with other respiratory diseases. It has, as well, a prolonged period of infectiousness, caused by its propensity to spread from asymptomatic or presymptomatic carriers.

That’s why reducing the disease from epidemic to endemic is the best case—one that will allow a full return to normal. Many ineradicable infections are controlled by vaccination and treatment. Measles, a highly transmissible respiratory virus, created high levels of immunity among adults who were exposed as children. But until a vaccine was developed in 1963, some nonimmune adults died every year. Pertussis (whooping cough) is caused by a highly contagious bacterium (with syndromes that overlap some respiratory viruses), but it is controlled in the U.S. through vaccination of children, antibiotics and other treatments. (Vaccine hesitancy among parents in the U.S., however, has led to outbreaks of both pertussis and measles over the past decade.)

Officials tried a wide array of measures to control SARS-CoV-2: masks, social distancing, lockdowns, travel restrictions, ventilation, testing, contact tracing. These had varying levels of success but ultimately proved insufficient to control the virus in a sustained way. That will require widespread immunity. Fortunately, safe and effective vaccines were developed for SARS-CoV-2 in record time. These vaccines are the key to turning Covid-19 into an endemic but controlled communicable disease.

Control means the reduction of serious disease, not of asymptomatic or mild cases. Since the vaccines are remarkably effective in preventing severe disease from Covid-19—what made SARS-CoV-2 a global threat—they can serve as the conduit for control.

Antibodies generated by the vaccines will naturally wane, but the vaccines trigger the creation of B cells that get relegated to our memory banks, and these memory B cells produce high levels of neutralizing antibodies if they see the virus again, even in variant form. Memory B cells are long-lasting. A 2008 Nature study found that survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic were able to produce antibodies when exposed to the same influenza strain nine decades later. T cells (also put into cell memory) generated by the vaccines protect us from severe disease and are unfazed by variants.

What would endemic Covid-19 look like? If we can tamp down the virus’s circulation and reduce its ability to cause severe disease through widespread vaccination, the world will be able to return to normal. Outbreaks of severe disease will occur among populations unwilling to be vaccinated, as we see with measles and pertussis, but mandates can help increase vaccination rates.

As circulation of the virus decreases with increasing immunity, Covid-19 will go the way of other respiratory viruses over which we have control. We will test those who arrive at the hospital for a variety of infections—including influenza, Covid-19, respiratory syncytial virus (mainly in children) and bacterial pathogens—and tailor treatments to the infectious agent. Moderate respiratory symptoms of Covid-19 in the outpatient setting may be treated with monoclonal antibodies or outpatient antivirals (under development), and mild symptoms (like other common colds) won’t require treatment.

The burden of disease a country is willing to accept will depend on its priorities: Denmark dropped all restrictions at a 74% vaccination rate and low cases on Sept. 10, and Norway dropped them on Sept. 25 at a 67% vaccination rate. Many U.S. states had an undue burden of hospitalization during the Delta wave, although California is keeping restrictions in place despite low hospitalization and high vaccination rates. We will need to accept that the noneradicable disease is endemic. A low burden of disease should facilitate the transition.

Although SARS-CoV-2 has proved unpredictable, no virus in history has ever continued to evolve to higher pathogenicity. As we learned from HIV, mutations usually incur costs to viral fitness or render the virus weaker. No vaccine-preventable or immunity-inducing infection has ever raged on as a pandemic indefinitely. An endemic virus doesn’t require continuing isolation and other restrictions; defanging SARS-CoV-2 by stripping it of its ability to cause severe disease through immunity will relegate it to the fate of the other four circulating cold-causing coronaviruses. The key to this normalcy is immunity. With a highly transmissible variant driving up immunity in the unvaccinated and bolstering it in the vaccinated, Covid-19 will inevitably make the transition from epidemic to endemic.

Dr. Gandhi is an infectious-disease physician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

[CitizenBBN]

Very interesting read Dan, and I agree. We won't eliminate it any more than we can any other coronavirus variant, but we can control it and prevent it from causing widespread death.

The problem is that, with the lack of vaccination, it will be longer than necessary and will kill more as those who aren't vaccinated gradually get it and either die from it or, hopefully, develop natural immunity.

I haven't seen any projections on when that will happen, but it will happen eventually.

[dan_bgblue]

If I disappear on Sunday afternoon, blame it on the booster Jab. Appointments for the booster here in BG are really limited and if I wanted to get the booster jab at Walgreen, which is where I get stabbed for pneumonia and the flu, it would have to be this Sunday at 1:15 or wait until the day after Halloween.

[bigsky]

Cancer nurse practitioner said “go get two jabs of mrna to go with J&J.” Just don’t know if I’m makin enuff antibodies yet

[blueboss]

Wife got booster yesterday, she’s down today with no energy, and body is achy… not just shoulder pain…Pfizer, same as me last week.


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[CitizenBBN]

OK Pedro, curious as to your opinion.

I apparently am eligible for the Pfizer booster (I'm on Team Pfizer from getting it at the Ky Horse Park the first time). Been 7 months since my 2nd shot.

I'm signed up to get it Monday, presuming they don't reject me for some reason once I get there, but I qualified on their online signup.

Thoughts on getting it? Re-reading your excellent post above I agree it's about whether you're trying to avoid hospitalization or trying to reduce chance of even having Covid, though obviously both are impacted.

I have no desire to have Covid, have tried to be careful despite things easing some, though I was never going to cower either. That's why I got the vaccine as soon as I was eligible, b/c I won't/Can't just stay locked down but I'd like to be able to taste my food for the rest of my life too.

So right now my significant other and I are on board to get it, but open to your opinions/suggestions.

Also if you have the winning lotto numbers, that would be great too.

[PedroDaGr8]

OK Pedro, curious as to your opinion.

I apparently am eligible for the Pfizer booster (I'm on Team Pfizer from getting it at the Ky Horse Park the first time). Been 7 months since my 2nd shot.

I'm signed up to get it Monday, presuming they don't reject me for some reason once I get there, but I qualified on their online signup.

Thoughts on getting it? Re-reading your excellent post above I agree it's about whether you're trying to avoid hospitalization or trying to reduce chance of even having Covid, though obviously both are impacted.

I have no desire to have Covid, have tried to be careful despite things easing some, though I was never going to cower either. That's why I got the vaccine as soon as I was eligible, b/c I won't/Can't just stay locked down but I'd like to be able to taste my food for the rest of my life too.

So right now my significant other and I are on board to get it, but open to your opinions/suggestions.

Also if you have the winning lotto numbers, that would be great too.

If you are trying to avoid infection, then some the data coming out recently definitely supports the booster. In particular the Kaiser Permanente study released a week or so ago was VERY telling. Mainly due to the shear breadth of the data available. The takeaway was extremely high effectively (80-90%+) against severe covid (or worse) but the effectively against mildly symptotic infection (which includes what is commonly called asymptotic, a misnomer) has dropped A LOT.

[blueboss]

Before 01/2020 I would think having congestion, runny nose, and sneezing a head cold/sinus infection. Now that’s exactly what I’m experiencing and even though I’ve had both shots and the booster (10 days ago) I feel like if I don’t get tested for rona I’m being irresponsible.

…so even though, I don’t have an elevated temperature, no aches/pains, no respiratory distress (other than congestion) , still have taste and smell, I guess I’ll drag my butt down tomorrow morning for a covid test. All while masking up and quarantining until test results are returned.


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[CitizenBBN]

It's annoying. there's a head cold going around. A few of the staff have had it including myself. We all got tested to be safe, but it's just a head cold.

[CitizenBBN]

If you are trying to avoid infection, then some the data coming out recently definitely supports the booster. In particular the Kaiser Permanente study released a week or so ago was VERY telling. Mainly due to the shear breadth of the data available. The takeaway was extremely high effectively (80-90%+) against severe covid (or worse) but the effectively against mildly symptotic infection (which includes what is commonly called asymptotic, a misnomer) has dropped A LOT.

Thanks Pedro.

My view is I've taken two shots, no issues, and this will definitely up my resistance, esp. since as you point out the effectiveness against getting it has dropped a lot, though its effectiveness for making it a milder case is still good.

I figure it won't hurt any more than the other two, and if it keeps me from getting it at all I'm good with that.

Though I have this suspicion that, like other viruses before it, this will eventually just be something everyone gets in some variant or another.

[dan_bgblue]

Shot yesterday, minor pain in arm this morning. Otherwise as fit as a 67 year old should feel. Not tired, taste buds still work, coffee actually tastes a bit better this morning. no stuffiness. etc.

[kingcat]

Shot yesterday, minor pain in arm this morning. Otherwise as fit as a 67 year old should feel. Not tired, taste buds still work, coffee actually tastes a bit better this morning. no stuffiness. etc.

[PedroDaGr8]

Thanks Pedro.

My view is I've taken two shots, no issues, and this will definitely up my resistance, esp. since as you point out the effectiveness against getting it has dropped a lot, though its effectiveness for making it a milder case is still good.

I figure it won't hurt any more than the other two, and if it keeps me from getting it at all I'm good with that.

Though I have this suspicion that, like other viruses before it, this will eventually just be something everyone gets in some variant or another.

Damn, I clearly edited that message on my phone a bit too much. I know it is obvious for you, but to be clear effectively=effectivity. Also, "...asymptotic, a misnomer" should have been "...asymptotic, often a misnomer".

Anyways, hope that you were able to get your booster shot.

My wife got hers yesterday evening. So far, she just has a sore arm and notable swelling/tenderness in the lymph nodes under the arm.

Shot yesterday, minor pain in arm this morning. Otherwise as fit as a 67 year old should feel. Not tired, taste buds still work, coffee actually tastes a bit better this morning. no stuffiness. etc.

Glad you were able to get your booster. It is hitting the wife a bit less hard than last time so far but she hasn't hit 24hours yet. For shot 2, 24 hours was when the bottom fell out.

[CitizenBBN]

Pedro, it was all clear to me, and much appreciated.

Yes, got my booster and they did my flu shot at the same time. They said it was fine together, otherwise I have to wait 2 weeks. Hope they are right. CDC says they are, I looked, but those guys are kinda shifty.

Arm hurts, starting to get a headache, but so far that's it. All good so far.

[PedroDaGr8]

FDA approves boosters for Moderna and J&J. They also approved the mixing and matching boosters. CDC-ACIP meets tomorrow and will likely approve the same.

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[bigsky]

Early adopter. This week I Added a mrna shot to my winter J&J.

[PedroDaGr8]

Currently waiting to get my booster.

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[MickintheHam]

Tremendous article in WSJ for those with subscription, on Moderna and BioNTech and how the vaccines came to be. Credit made to Operation Warp Speed.

[PedroDaGr8]

Currently waiting to get my booster.

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So overall, the adverse effects were less severe but lasted a bit longer when compared to Dose 2.

[kingcat]

So overall, the adverse effects were less severe but lasted a bit longer when compared to Dose 2.

Had the Moderna booster yesterday afternoon. A little soreness at the injection site but minor compared to the second shot.

Today a little listless and feel like I could lay down where I stand and go to sleep. No bad symptoms otherwise. Mild headache and muscle soreness at times.

[Catfan73]

I got my Pfizer booster 3 weeks ago and got my flu shot at the same time, one in each arm. Still didn’t have any real side effects but these hurt like the dickens going in, like they ran out of the little needles or something.

[bigsky]

I have had the shots but for all intents and purposes I am not vaccinated. For anything. Hopin that pfizer pill and the monoclonal antibody treatment work!

[dan_bgblue]

I am now fully vaccinated unless I decide to take a trip to Borneo or some other lovely, exotic, disease infested locality. I got zapped with the pneumonia vax yesterday, and like always it hurt like the dickens going in but once she was done pumping the liquid in my arm, there are no lingering issues.

[KentuckyWildcat]

I got zapped with the pneumonia vax yesterday, and like always it hurt like the dickens going in but once she was done pumping the liquid in my arm, there are no lingering issues.

Is that yearly? And what age do they recommend that?

[bigsky]

News about Keith really brings this home. He had great info, he paid attention, and he got vaxxed. And our little community suffers a big loss despite all that.

[Catfan73]

Kind of puts everything into perspective doesn’t it. This is going to be a sad weekend no matter what the football and basketball teams do.