General COVID vaccination thread

[CitizenBBN]

Honestly, this is the first variant that worries me some.

The degree of mutation in the spike protein is far higher than any before. The more worrisome thing is in the past, those with high numbers of mutations compromised the virus's ability to spread. This virus seems to spread just as well or better than Delta. We should know within the next few weeks whether the virus can evade the vaccines and it's degree of severity.

One more thing, this variant is likely already pretty well spread. It would not surprise me if it is already present in the USA. It is certainly already in Europe and the Middle East (we will likely see stories coming out about this in the coming few days).

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Oh, it's here. Of course it's here. Just like with China we're closing the barn door once the horse is gone b/c by the time we know about these things the level of international travel has assured that it is all over the world.

it still puzzles me so few seem outraged over the fact that the Chinese, apparently with US funding of all things, have unleashed this on the world. Even if that wasn't right you'd think people would want everyone's head on principle.

[dan_bgblue]

No cases of COVID-19 omicron variant identified yet in US, CDC says`

And we all know how dependable and infallible the CDC is

COVID-19 omicron variant: Here’s what we know

9-The WHO met on Friday to determine if the mutation is a variant of interest.

We all know how dependable the WHO is

[dan_bgblue]

Linkage

South African doctor says omicron variant symptoms ‘unusual but mild’

The South African doctor who first alerted authorities to the presence of the COVID-19 omicron variant reported that it presents "unusual but mild" symptoms.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, a board member of the South African Medical Association, first noticed otherwise healthy patients demonstrating unusual symptoms on Nov. 18. "Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before," Coetzee told The Telegraph.

"It presents mild disease with symptoms being sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two not feeling well," Coetzee explained. "So far, we have detected that those infected do not suffer the loss of taste or smell. They might have a slight cough. There are no prominent symptoms. Of those infected some are currently being treated at home."

[CitizenBBN]

Linkage

South African doctor says omicron variant symptoms ‘unusual but mild’

The South African doctor who first alerted authorities to the presence of the COVID-19 omicron variant reported that it presents "unusual but mild" symptoms.

Dr. Angelique Coetzee, a board member of the South African Medical Association, first noticed otherwise healthy patients demonstrating unusual symptoms on Nov. 18. "Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before," Coetzee told The Telegraph.

"It presents mild disease with symptoms being sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two not feeling well," Coetzee explained. "So far, we have detected that those infected do not suffer the loss of taste or smell. They might have a slight cough. There are no prominent symptoms. Of those infected some are currently being treated at home."

That's good news.

[dan_bgblue]

AP's latest report

ARE THE TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS BEING IMPOSED BY SOME COUNTRIES JUSTIFIED?

Maybe.

Israel is banning foreigners from entering the country and Morocco has stopped all incoming international air travel.

A number of other countries are restricting flights in from southern Africa.

Given the recent rapid rise in COVID-19 in South Africa, restricting travel from the region is “prudent” and would buy authorities more time, said Neil Ferguson, an infectious diseases expert at Imperial College London.

But the WHO noted that such restrictions are often limited in their effect and urged countries to keep borders open.

Jeffrey Barrett, director of COVID-19 Genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, thought that the early detection of the new variant could mean restrictions taken now would have a bigger impact than when the delta variant first emerged.

“With delta, it took many, many weeks into India’s terrible wave before it became clear what was going on and delta had already seeded itself in many places in the world and it was too late to do anything about it,” he said. “We may be at an earlier point with this new variant so there may still be time to do something about it.”

South Africa’s government said the country was being treated unfairly because it has advanced genomic sequencing and could detect the variant quicker and asked other countries to reconsider the travel bans.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, commended South Africa and Botswana for quickly informing the world about the new variant.

“With the omicron variant now detected in several regions of the world, putting in place travel bans that target Africa attacks global solidarity,” Moeti said. “COVID-19 constantly exploits our divisions. We will only get the better of the virus if we work together for solutions.”

[CitizenBBN]

So trying to isolate and slow the spread of viruses is now just a lack of solidarity?

It's at least very clear that WHO and others have absolutely no medical people in positions of authority, b/c I'm pretty sure the whole approach to combating outbreaks of viruses is to isolate and slow their spread to buy time to figure out what to do with them.

[PedroDaGr8]

So trying to isolate and slow the spread of viruses is now just a lack of solidarity?

It's at least very clear that WHO and others have absolutely no medical people in positions of authority, b/c I'm pretty sure the whole approach to combating outbreaks of viruses is to isolate and slow their spread to buy time to figure out what to do with them.

As usual, a bad quote by a reporter who doesn't understand what they are reading.

They are not wrong that targeted travel bans are useless, my problem is they don't mention what DOES work (which the WHO did mention). For high transmission viruses like this, targeting a limited number of specific countries does pretty much nothing meaningful; it basically delays the spread by a few days at most (which is more or less negligible). The only method which has been shown to have ANY impact on slowing down infections is a total border closure. On top of that, forced multi-week quarantine and testing, as part of a total border closure increases effectiveness.

Having said all of that, as with many things the picture is much more nuanced. Border closures create a strong disincentive to reporting the presence of variants, especially for countries highly dependent on foreign trade and/or tourism. These countries can find their economies heavily impacted which alone creates a perverse incentive to conceal the presence. On top of this, a country which detects a variant and doesn't report it does not get punished (especially if we don't know about it). As such, the "market" in this scenario, strongly pushed for countries to hide the presence of variants. This delayed disclosure or non-disclosure increases the likelihood that the virus spreads around the world before it is mentioned/discovered. This externality alone is an interesting one to consider because even total border closures only work if you have sufficiently early detection. As such, it can theoretically negate the whole purpose of border closures and prevent early screening within countries on top of it.

Disincentivising reporting isn't the only externality to consider. One that we are seeing now, a number of scientists researching Omicron in South Africa are having an extremely hard time getting scientific supplies because almost all flights have been cancelled. Passenger flights are the primary method of delivery for parcel shipments.

[CitizenBBN]

No argument that these tepid closures are meaningless.

Omicron is here. there's a case in Canada, and there will be in the US. Just like original Covid, it was here before we even knew to do anything.

The quote I was referencing I just found funny b/c it's unclear what exactly would constitute "solidarity" in this fight. Sending vaccines abroad would, but for containment I'm not sure what that even means. Certainly a total border closure of South Africa wouldn't be solidarity, nor would a total closure of the US. It's just a meaningless statement in the context of preventing the spread of a virus as there's nothing that can be done that isn't about isolation, the opposite of the implied use of "solidarity" in this case IMO.

[CitizenBBN]

And one would think we would have ways to do things like supply researchers, but this pandemic has made it pretty clear we aren't quite that sophisticated. IN some ways we've responded better than I thought, but in some ways worse.

The current restrictions may slow it by some days, a few weeks at best, but only by limiting having MORE come in, not to prevent it from being here at all. It would just reduce the number of places where it will break out at first. maybe, and that's iffy.

[Padukacat]

To boost or not to boost…that is the question. Oh and with what? I had the J&J some time ago maybe six months, I had covid before that. I’m 44 and pretty healthy fingers crossed but I don’t want to be hard headed and sitting in a hospital. So…do I go ahead and get Vaxed again and if so should I stick with J&J? I’ve admittedly stopped reading up on the topic due to shear disgust with covid so I figure you good folks would know. Sorry if this comment has been covered recently. Also…is the mRNA vaccine going to reconstruct our genome because it’s new tech….rather than me read 20 articles I’ll let you fine folks enlighten a brother.

[PedroDaGr8]

To boost or not to boost…that is the question. Oh and with what? I had the J&J some time ago maybe six months, I had covid before that. I’m 44 and pretty healthy fingers crossed but I don’t want to be hard headed and sitting in a hospital. So…do I go ahead and get Vaxed again and if so should I stick with J&J? I’ve admittedly stopped reading up on the topic due to shear disgust with covid so I figure you good folks would know. Sorry if this comment has been covered recently. Also…is the mRNA vaccine going to reconstruct our genome because it’s new tech….rather than me read 20 articles I’ll let you fine folks enlighten a brother.

Not a problem:

The best booster for a J&J initial dose is one of the mRNA vaccines. Either Pfizer or Moderna will generate substantially more antibodies than a second J&J dose with Moderna potentially generating a bit more than Pfizer.

There is zero chance of the mRNA vaccines being incorporated into our genome. Here is the somewhat bad analogy I used in the past to explain mRNA:

mRNA is an active copy of a gene (think of it as a photocopy of a recipe) which is transferred by cellular machinery (chef's assistants) from the nucleus (the chef's office) to the cytoplasm (the kitchen) of the cell, where it can be used to make proteins (the dish in the recipe) by ribosomes (the cooks). Human cells lack the machinery (chef's assistants) to transfer mRNA (recipe photocopies) from the cytoplasm (kitchen) to the nucleus (chef's office). Additionally, even if the mRNA (the recipe photocopy) could somehow physically enter/re-enter the nucleus (the chef's office), the human body ALSO lacks the machinery (chef's assistants) to transcribe (physically insert) the RNA (the recipe photocopy) into the DNA (the chef's recipe book).

[bigsky]

Are there non mrna dead virus vaccines against covid?

Also, this new decepticon variant is obviously trying to recover the all-spark.

[Catfan73]

By my count, omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, so one would assume they’ve identified 15 variants so far. I’m not sure if that’s good (only 15!) or bad (geez, another one). And what are they going to call them when they run out of Greek letters?

[PedroDaGr8]

Unsurprising to anyone, Omicron detected here in the states:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/healt...ase/index.html

Are there non mrna dead virus vaccines against covid?

Also, this new decepticon variant is obviously trying to recover the all-spark.

No attenuated virus vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 to my knowledge. I had a quick look and it appears that one of the proteins in the virus (CoV E protein) can cause significant cellular stress/damage and removal of said protein results in a virus which is structurally very different from SARS-CoV-2 (resulting in a bad immune response).

As for Omicron, extremely preliminary data from Israel (translated article) indicates the current vaccines may still be effective against infection by Omicron in boosted individuals. Additionally, some very preliminary data indicates that vaccine induced cellular immunity might be still robust against Omicron as well. It is very possible that this variant is even MORE contagious than Delta but is still impacted by the vaccines.

Keep in mind, all of this is the VERY preliminary current picture and could change dramatically in the coming weeks.

By my count, omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet, so one would assume they’ve identified 15 variants so far. I’m not sure if that’s good (only 15!) or bad (geez, another one). And what are they going to call them when they run out of Greek letters?

They have identified far more than 15 variants, try hundreds. The vast majority of these variants don't do anything thing which warrants a name.

As for what they will do when they run out, I would guess they will go to double letters.

[Catfan73]

I should have said 15 variants of import. But that’s another question—what are the criteria for a variant being serious enough to get named?

[PedroDaGr8]

I should have said 15 variants of import. But that’s another question—what are the criteria for a variant being serious enough to get named?

It has to reach the level of Variant of Interest or Variant of Concern.

A Variant of Interest is defined as:
A variant with specific genetic markers that have been associated with changes to receptor binding, reduced neutralization by antibodies generated against previous infection or vaccination, reduced efficacy of treatments, potential diagnostic impact, or predicted increase in transmissibility or disease severity

A Variant of Concern is defined as:
A variant for which there is evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease (e.g., increased hospitalizations or deaths), significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.*

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[Catfan73]

Thanks. I clicked your link but my ADD kicked in lol.

[CitizenBBN]

Sad to hear these vaccines can't re-write my DNA. I mostly took it to get super powers. Really wanted telekinesis or telepathy. Dang.

Frankly I'm becoming disillusioned by science. First this thing won't cause amazing human mutations to give us superpowers, and then I had my blonde GF put her hair up in a pony tail and when she blinks and shakes her head we still don't end up rich on our own private island, despite that being my specific request. It's like scientists have been lying to us all these years, b/c that one goes back decades and clearly isn't working.

[UKFlounder]

I received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, but no booster and just tested positive for the virus today. I have a runny nose, a cough and general fatigue, but hopefully the vaccine keeps it from getting worse.

[CitizenBBN]

I received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, but no booster and just tested positive for the virus today. I have a runny nose, a cough and general fatigue, but hopefully the vaccine keeps it from getting worse.

It should mitigate the symptoms. Hows your sense of taste/smell?

Hopefully it will just be an annoying cold. I know a couple that she was not vaccinated (worried b/c there were some sterility concerns early on) and he was, both got it, both had a basic 3 day cold from it. then of course we lose Keith in just a few days. This seems to be about the most random virus I can think of.

[Darrell KSR]

I would think you'd be ok, Flounder, but thoughts and prayers are with you.

I'm dropping you a private message here in a minute about the contest games and more, just fwiw.

[UKFlounder]

My smell snd taste are both fine. My appetite is a bit gone but I can afford that LOL

[KentuckyWildcat]

Prayers Flounder!

[PedroDaGr8]

Good luck and prayers for a speedy recovery Flounder!

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[KentuckyWildcat]

Went to schedule my third shot. My options were "1st shot", "2nd shot", "3rd shot for the compromised" and "booster". Booster was the 4th option.

What is the difference in the 3rd shot and the booster? I personally do not feel I am immune compromised, but I some say I might be. I think the CDC would say I am not.

[PedroDaGr8]

Went to schedule my third shot. My options were "1st shot", "2nd shot", "3rd shot for the compromised" and "booster". Booster was the 4th option.

What is the difference in the 3rd shot and the booster? I personally do not feel I am immune compromised, but I some say I might be. I think the CDC would say I am not.

For Pfizer, there is no difference between a 3rd shot and a booster. For Moderna, the 3rd shot is a full strength shot (100µg) versus the booster shot which is 1/2 stength (50µg). Additionally, those having a third shot maybe eligible for a booster dose 6months after their 3rd shot.

The criteria for a 3rd shot is very specific requiring someone to be moderately or severely immune compromised. The examples are as follows:

• Been receiving active cancer treatment for tumors or cancers of the blood
• Received an organ transplant and are taking medicine to suppress the immune system
• Received a stem cell transplant within the last 2 years or are taking medicine to suppress the immune system
• Moderate or severe primary immunodeficiency (such as DiGeorge syndrome, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome)
• Advanced or untreated HIV infection
• Active treatment with high-dose corticosteroids or other drugs that may suppress your immune response

[KentuckyWildcat]

For Pfizer, there is no difference between a 3rd shot and a booster. For Moderna, the 3rd shot is a full strength shot (100µg) versus the booster shot which is 1/2 stength (50µg). Additionally, those having a third shot maybe eligible for a booster dose 6months after their 3rd shot.

Thank you


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[BigBluePappy]

Flounder, get better real quick, brother! There is no other option.

Pedro, thanks for the info.

[bigsky]

I received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, but no booster and just tested positive for the virus today. I have a runny nose, a cough and general fatigue, but hopefully the vaccine keeps it from getting worse.

If you can, go get monoclonal antibodies! I say this because it was insisted by my cancer doc at MD Anderson that I line this up in advance in case I get covid.

It’s not voodoo or fake news.

[Padukacat]

Sad to hear these vaccines can't re-write my DNA. I mostly took it to get super powers. Really wanted telekinesis or telepathy. Dang.

Frankly I'm becoming disillusioned by science. First this thing won't cause amazing human mutations to give us superpowers, and then I had my blonde GF put her hair up in a pony tail and when she blinks and shakes her head we still don't end up rich on our own private island, despite that being my specific request. It's like scientists have been lying to us all these years, b/c that one goes back decades and clearly isn't working.

Disappointed as well I had several million strands of dna that I was hoping to revise with a hot dose of Moderna. Was thinking I might go for some Kevin Durant features but I think I have a better shot of being RIP from Yellowstone.