Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

[Jeremiah1212]

Virgin's CEO was on GMA this morning saying they plan to require all guests to be vaccinated. They are 18+ only so perhaps a little more clean decision for them to make.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Jeremiah1212

[TeeRick]

18 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

Some further thoughts on the situation in Europe:

 

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?abVariantId=0&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210316&instance_id=28100&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=76537048&segment_id=53490&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F5d4445f2-e78d-5bf1-93a2-9d2b2e0a3ac0&user_id=241f8588b53e2154ccd27c09adff2933

Yes a good article.  I do not see this situation improving if the AZ/Oxford vaccine is put on hold for no good medical reason.  

[Fouremco]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

Yes a good article.  I do not see this situation improving if the AZ/Oxford vaccine is put on hold for no good medical reason.  

While Europe heads in one direction, Canada heads in another:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/astrazeneca-naci-65-recommendation-1.5951305

[TeeRick]

6 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

While Europe heads in one direction, Canada heads in another:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/astrazeneca-naci-65-recommendation-1.5951305

This is very good news.  And an example of not letting hysteria get in the way of the science.  Congrats Canada!

Edited March 16, 2021 by TeeRick

[TeeRick]

19 hours ago, Tigrou said:

I wondered if it was a 'dirty tricks campaign' by other pharmaceutical companies wanting a greater share of the market, but for the moment at least surely there's plenty of business to go around. 

Amazingly the large pharmaceutical companies are actually working together to manufacture COVID vaccines.  Merck with J&J.  And Sanofi has contracted its vaccine facilities for making the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine and the J&J vaccine.  Let's give Big Pharma some love for a change.  Everybody will hate them again soon enough.😀

[D C]

16 hours ago, Texed said:

There are a lot of very smart folks on this board.  I wonder what are the thoughts if you Google:

 

Dr. Hotze on the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccine.

This line from Wikipedia is enough for me to not bother looking up anything he's ever said:
"Hotze has promoted conspiracy theories such as QAnon^[4][8] and has asserted that the COVID-19 pandemic was a "global ritual" to "inject experimental nano bots and chemi-kills into our bodies to alter our DNA using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to turn us into zombie-like, controlled masses and weapons of war."^[8]"

[D C]

2 hours ago, TeeRick said:

Here is another opinion piece on the AZ Oxford vaccine and blood clots/DVT's.  They are actually quite common in general.  The casual connection of two unrelated things is also quite common.  One can easily relate one event to another and make a case for it for argument's sake. Anti-vaxxers have been doing this for decades.  Without solid evidence.  And without any easy way to disprove it either.  How do you disprove a negative?  

 

I went to the donut shop yesterday morning and bought a jelly donut.  This morning I was in a car accident.  Two weeks ago my neighbor across town also bought a jelly donut.  The next day he was in a car accident.  Yes- jelly donuts cause car accidents within 24 hours.

 

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/evidence-oxford-vaccine-blood-clots-data-causal-links?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210316&instance_id=28100&nl=the-morning&regi_id=121450033&segment_id=53490&te=1&user_id=8259b050a84d722b46d85f64ae857bb0

 

 

There are reasons I don't watch Nicholas Cage films or own a pool.  https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

[Ken the cruiser]

Just curious, what is the likelihood that someone might have had an undiagnosed case of COVID if they have an adverse reaction to the first shot of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, but not the second one?

 

Here are a couple of examples. My DIL and her sister are in their mid 30s and are both Vets. During the April timeframe last year pretty much everyone in the clinic where they worked got sick. Remember back then masks were not even suggested yet. They got tested and quarantined for 10 days while waiting for the eventual results to come back. Both came back negative. Also, my BIL who is 70 was coughing for 2 weeks back in September. He did a Zoom meeting with his doctor but never got tested. Each of them this month got their first dose of the Moderna vaccine and all three of them about 12 hours later had a fever and felt bad which subsequently lasted for about 18-24 hours.

 

OTOH my DW and I, who haven't been sick since this whole thing started, had no reaction to our first Pfizer shot, other than a sore arm, but did experience nausea and a slight headache the following day for about 12-18 hours with my DW's more severe than mine. We're guessing they probably actually had COVID causing them to develop antibodies which then triggered their adverse reactions after the first shot. 

 

Has there been any reporting that this could be a possibility as I know there is quite a large percentage of folks that have actually had COVID symptoms but were never tested?

 

Update: Here's an article referencing side effects regarding the second shot.

 

Why does the second coronavirus vaccine shot have worse side effects? (msn.com)

Edited March 16, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[markeb]

23 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Amazingly the large pharmaceutical companies are actually working together to manufacture COVID vaccines.  Merck with J&J.  And Sanofi has contracted its vaccine facilities for making the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine and the J&J vaccine.  Let's give Big Pharma some love for a change.  Everybody will hate them again soon enough.😀

 

Have to agree here. AZ had some well publicized hiccups early on, and probably tripped once or twice along the way. And the countries that are putting holds on the vaccine have long histories of vaccine aversion of different degrees, and their governments would likely face incredible internal pressure if they just pressed on. Which could be why this hold is taking longer than makes sense on the surface, or maybe there is a single lot question. The reality is the EU needs the production numbers from AZ, probably more than anywhere else, and there is an uptake in cases there again.

[cangelmd]

9 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just curious, what is the likelihood that someone might have had an undiagnosed case of COVID if they have an adverse reaction to the first shot of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, but not the second one?

 

Here are a couple of examples. My DIL and her sister are in their mid 30s and are both Vets. During the April timeframe last year pretty much everyone in the clinic where they worked got sick. Remember back then masks were not even suggested yet. They got tested and quarantined for 10 days while waiting for the eventual results to come back. Both came back negative. Also, my BIL who is 70 was coughing for 2 weeks back in September. He did a Zoom meeting with his doctor but never got tested. Each of them this month got their first dose of the Moderna vaccine and all three of them about 12 hours later had a fever and felt bad which subsequently lasted for about 18-24 hours.

 

OTOH my DW and I, who haven't been sick since this whole thing started, had no reaction to our first Pfizer shot, other than a sore arm, but did experience nausea and a slight headache the following day for about 12-18 hours with my DW's more severe than mine. We're guessing they probably actually had COVID causing them to develop antibodies which then triggered their adverse reactions after the first shot. 

 

Has there been any reporting that this could be a possibility as I know there is quite a large percentage of folks that have actually had COVID symptoms but were never tested?

I think it is true, in fact I think it is very likely, but I have no data to back up that opinion, just an observational study. Also in my observational study, the third exposure (second shot for people who have had Covid) tends to lead to a lesser or no reaction. My observational study has an N of about 10, so take it for what it is worth. I think there will possibly be a study forthcoming.

[cangelmd]

In fact, I believe that the vaccine will highlight undiagnosed Covid strongly enough, that I have told a couple of people who have asked me exactly what you are saying - if you have no reaction to either shot, it is impossible to know whether or not you had Covid, but if you have a strong reaction to the first shot with or without reacting to the second, there is a good possibility that you already had it unknowingly.

 

There are a couple of big problems that might even make this hard to study - the range of reactions is wide and many people have no reaction or would have no reaction if you hadn't asked them how they feel or somehow emphasized that a person should have a reaction. It would take compiling a lot of people's reactions and comparing the number after the first shot in a known Covid population to the number in a non-COvid population.

[nocl]

3 hours ago, cangelmd said:

Other than stopping the trial in the US early on, which IIRC was due to issues in the UK, not here, have there been any reported hiccups with the AZ US trial?

Not that I have heard about.  

 

Of course the hold itself would have some impact with the delayed second injections.  Will be interesting to see if there was enough of those for a separate grouping which might answer the scheduled vs delayed impact on efficacy.

[Ken the cruiser]

10 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

In fact, I believe that the vaccine will highlight undiagnosed Covid strongly enough, that I have told a couple of people who have asked me exactly what you are saying - if you have no reaction to either shot, it is impossible to know whether or not you had Covid, but if you have a strong reaction to the first shot with or without reacting to the second, there is a good possibility that you already had it unknowingly.

 

There are a couple of big problems that might even make this hard to study - the range of reactions is wide and many people have no reaction or would have no reaction if you hadn't asked them how they feel or somehow emphasized that a person should have a reaction. It would take compiling a lot of people's reactions and comparing the number after the first shot in a known Covid population to the number in a non-COvid population.

For us, especially with our DIL and her sister getting sick about a year ago, it also has the potential for demonstrating the sustainability of the COVID antibodies a year later. But then again, this is all pure speculation from me over in the peanut gallery. 

[nocl]

3 hours ago, TeeRick said:

Here is another opinion piece on the AZ Oxford vaccine and blood clots/DVT's.  They are actually quite common in general.  The casual connection of two unrelated things is also quite common.  One can easily relate one event to another and make a case for it for argument's sake. Anti-vaxxers have been doing this for decades.  Without solid evidence.  And without any easy way to disprove it either.  How do you disprove a negative?  

 

I went to the donut shop yesterday morning and bought a jelly donut.  This morning I was in a car accident.  Two weeks ago my neighbor across town also bought a jelly donut.  The next day he was in a car accident.  Yes- jelly donuts cause car accidents within 24 hours.

 

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/evidence-oxford-vaccine-blood-clots-data-causal-links?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210316&instance_id=28100&nl=the-morning&regi_id=121450033&segment_id=53490&te=1&user_id=8259b050a84d722b46d85f64ae857bb0

 

 

While the news is talking about the hold due to blood clots, it appears that it is more about the data out of Norway which seems to be cases of  thrombocytopenia.

 

Looking at adverse event data is a fairly complex issue of which the relationship between the background rate of events and the occurrence is a given population is usually just the first step.  The adverse event data bases usually will just indicate an anomaly that needs investigation.

 

If the media report on the data out of Norway is accurate (one can never be sure) there are a couple of items including the age of the cases, number in a specific window, compared to background.

 

I believe that is what has triggered the holds, after the initial statements indicating a lack of a relationship.

 

For those interested thrombocytopenia has an incidence rate of 3.3 per 100,000 per year in the US.  Since Norway has a population of roughly 5.5 million.  So if the US incidence rate is the same in Norway (have not been able to find any data about their incidence rate)  one could expect about 181 cases per year or about 3 cases per week  in their complete population.  I can see why having 3 cases in close proximity to vaccination could be viewed as an anomaly.

 

Not necessarily a large signal, but enough to require an investigation, maybe not a hold though.

 

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by nocl

[nocl]

57 minutes ago, D C said:

There are reasons I don't watch Nicholas Cage films or own a pool.  https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

I always liked the comparison between crime rate and the number of fast food outlets.

[nocl]

3 hours ago, TeeRick said:

Here is another opinion piece on the AZ Oxford vaccine and blood clots/DVT's.  They are actually quite common in general.  The casual connection of two unrelated things is also quite common.  One can easily relate one event to another and make a case for it for argument's sake. Anti-vaxxers have been doing this for decades.  Without solid evidence.  And without any easy way to disprove it either.  How do you disprove a negative?  

 

I went to the donut shop yesterday morning and bought a jelly donut.  This morning I was in a car accident.  Two weeks ago my neighbor across town also bought a jelly donut.  The next day he was in a car accident.  Yes- jelly donuts cause car accidents within 24 hours.

 

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/evidence-oxford-vaccine-blood-clots-data-causal-links?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210316&instance_id=28100&nl=the-morning&regi_id=121450033&segment_id=53490&te=1&user_id=8259b050a84d722b46d85f64ae857bb0

 

 

 

 

However to use your Jelly doughnut example, if there was a rash of car accidents near the doughnut shop (trigger for investigation)

 

If the  investigation determined that you both happened to be eating the jelly doughnuts in the car while driving, then there could be a cause and effect relationship.

[d9704011]

22 minutes ago, nocl said:

 

 

However to use your Jelly doughnut example, if there was a rash of car accidents near the doughnut shop (trigger for investigation)

 

If the  investigation determined that you both happened to be eating the jelly doughnuts in the car while driving, then there could be a cause and effect relationship.

Could be.... is it the jelly doughnuts themselves (perhaps there is a soporific in the jelly) or the distracted drivers too intent on what they’re eating?

[larry_s_taco]

Virgin Voyages announced today that they will require vaccines in order to sail.

Edited March 16, 2021 by larry_s_taco
Typo

[TeeRick]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

For us, especially with our DIL and her sister getting sick about a year ago, it also has the potential for demonstrating the sustainability of the COVID antibodies a year later. But then again, this is all pure speculation from me over in the peanut gallery. 

Just keep in mind that being infected and being vaccinated trigger a host immune response and memory response that is a whole lot more than just antibodies.  Many infected asymptomatic individuals were probably controlling their virus by having a memory response from perhaps having seen other coronaviruses.  Antibodies are important but definitely not the whole story.  So just look up fever and what causes it.  Mostly T Cells and cytokines and other immune factors.  If you get a fever shortly after vaccine dose 1, then that might indicate your immune system was previously primed.  We tend to focus on antibodies and how long they last initially.  That actually does not matter anywhere near as much as the ability of your immune response to very quickly turn back on the host antibody and T Cell responses. 

[PTC DAWG]

For anyone who has had their first shot of the vaccine...does your dishwasher now beep when you walk by?  🙂

 

Wife and I are scheduled for #1 shot next Tuesday...

[TeeRick]

1 hour ago, nocl said:

While the news is talking about the hold due to blood clots, it appears that it is more about the data out of Norway which seems to be cases of  thrombocytopenia.........................

Thanks.  Here is a general layman's terms discussion of the thrombocytopenia issue.

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/rare-blood-disorder-covid-vaccine-thrombocytopenia

[neilrr]

33 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

For anyone who has had their first shot of the vaccine...does your dishwasher now beep when you walk by?  🙂

 

Wife and I are scheduled for #1 shot next Tuesday...

Hi there!! We get our second shots of Pfizer next week.  I am still working on getting the bleach inoculation and trying to figure out how to use the ultra violet light - my electrician and my proctologist are coming by next week... LOL😁🎈

[D C]

4 hours ago, cangelmd said:

In fact, I believe that the vaccine will highlight undiagnosed Covid strongly enough, that I have told a couple of people who have asked me exactly what you are saying - if you have no reaction to either shot, it is impossible to know whether or not you had Covid, but if you have a strong reaction to the first shot with or without reacting to the second, there is a good possibility that you already had it unknowingly.

 

There are a couple of big problems that might even make this hard to study - the range of reactions is wide and many people have no reaction or would have no reaction if you hadn't asked them how they feel or somehow emphasized that a person should have a reaction. It would take compiling a lot of people's reactions and comparing the number after the first shot in a known Covid population to the number in a non-COvid population.

It would make for an interesting study to monitor the reactions of people with known cases and see how they react.

 

Anecdotally, one of DW's colleagues had covid a few months ago and was pretty sick (not hospitalized though).  He got the first Moderna dose and his reaction was so bad he swore he wouldn't get the 2nd dose.   No other reports of severe reactions to jab #1 from her non-covid friends at work.

[cruiselvr04]

Got my first Pfizer today.  Arm started hurting tonight.  Hoping that’s it.  DH got his first Sunday and he had a sore arm for 2 days and a headache the first day.  
 

We really vacillated about getting it at all.  We kind of see it as the only way to see family and friends again without concern.  So in about 5 weeks we can enjoy some freedoms again.  We will still wear a mask of course but we are looking forward to patio dining this summer and travel as soon as possible.  

[UnorigionalName]

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=featured_coronavirus

 

Ouch.