COVID VACCINE - The Megathread

[FiremanMike]

Two anecdotes from my neck of the woods this week

1. One of our cops got the booster, said the side effects were absolutely miserable the next day with severe weakness and body aches, slept for about 16 hours and good

2. I now know someone who had covid in the first round, got vaccinated, and then just popped positive again this last week. He’s totally fine, just the first I’ve heard of double infection plus vaccine..

 

[mgr22]

Two anecdotes from my neck of the woods this week

1. One of our cops got the booster, said the side effects were absolutely miserable the next day with severe weakness and body aches, slept for about 16 hours and good

2. I now know someone who had covid in the first round, got vaccinated, and then just popped positive again this last week. He’s totally fine, just the first I’ve heard of double infection plus vaccine..

Just to complement your anecdotes with two of mine, especially for anyone on the fence about the third Pfizer shot, I got mine on Sunday and have had the same mild side effects as I did the first two times: low-grade fever resolved with APAP, plus a sore arm, neither of which prevented me from doing anything I'd normally do. My wife, who got her third vaccine on the same day, has been asymptomatic, as she was the first two times. We are both very happy to have minimized our chances of death or disability due to COVID.

 

[EpiEMS]

Same experience for third moderna - though much more mild symptoms than for my first two

 

[mgr22]

Same experience for third moderna - though much more mild symptoms than for my first two

Do you know if the dose was the same?

 

[EpiEMS]

Do you know if the dose was the same?

I was curious about that myself. It is a .5mL dose that I got - believe that is the usual dose for the 1st two doses?

 

[Aprz]

I just got my Pfizer booster shot.

 

[akflightmedic]

Dose is the same... 0.5ml

Not sure if I posted or not earlier, been busy and cannot recall. I did my booster a few weeks ago. The 3rd Moderna kicked my *** for about 24 hours. After that I was fine. First 2 doses had very mild, very mild symptoms which went away within 12 hours. The 3rd one I felt like full on flu, had fever, body ached. Treated the symptoms with OTC meds, slept and hydrated a lot. It passed just as quickly as it hit me...and I am happy that I did it, as it definitely beats the alternative. People just do not see what is going on in the ERs of their own backyard! Disheartening.

I have been in Louisiana (again) for nearly 3 weeks now working in an ER. The amount of ignorance and excuses is mind blowing. The conspiracy theories run rampant here...and so does Covid. I am diagnosing covid cases every single day, far more than we should be at this point in time. I told a 9 year old boy and his mother, the kid has Covid...he immmediately started wailing and crying "I dont want to diiiiieeeeeee!!!!"

Sad, but thats how it is. And the kid had a headache and sniffles, thats all so I suspect he will be fine. But the mother was against quarantine...him or herself as she has other kids, they all go to school and she has to work...the cycle goes on.

 

[ffemt8978]

Biden vaccine mandate splits US on party lines: AP-NORC poll

A survey of Americans on President Joe Biden’s plan to require most workers to get either vaccinated or regularly tested for COVID-19 finds a deep and familiar divide: Democrats are overwhelmingly for it, while most Republicans are against it.

apnews.com

Nothing really surprising in the results except the split between in place workforce and remote workforce. That one kind of surprised me.

 

[EpiEMS]

Biden vaccine mandate splits US on party lines: AP-NORC poll

A survey of Americans on President Joe Biden’s plan to require most workers to get either vaccinated or regularly tested for COVID-19 finds a deep and familiar divide: Democrats are overwhelmingly for it, while most Republicans are against it.

apnews.com

Nothing really surprising in the results except the split between in place workforce and remote workforce. That one kind of surprised me.

Big demographic divide between remote & in-place workers, I would imagine -- which would be correlated with educational attainment, party, income, all correlates of vaccine uptake.

For example, Pew found back last year that people with a bachelors degree and up were - the majority, anyway - remote working, and educational attainment is positively associated with COVID vaccine status.

 

[Bullets]

Seems to be some disagreement among the CDC, FDA, White House and general Meddit/Medtwitter/scientific cognoscenti about the need for universal 3rd dose

 

[akflightmedic]

Just another observation that boggles my brain. I sit next to medical professionals which for this discussion includes Docs, Medics, RNs and RTs....who talk for the entire shift about every conspiracy theory under the moon regarding vaccines. I legit sat thru hours last night listening to recaps of various "homeopathic OB doc" who is podcasting how those who get flu vaccine are now more susceptible to COVID. (In my head, I so wanted to throw down facts and argue logic, you know, like from whence did she collect this data?? since there was no real flu season last year).

And then the discussion of "end times" is upon us, mark of the beast (vaccine or the covid vaccine card), how this one nurse has a relative who is now magnetized post vaccine, and of course talk about Bill Gates patent which has the numbers 666 in it. And then onwards to Biden,Biden Biden and how this is actually a major ploy to get a female president too, but I dont want "her" as one (racial bias implied). Praise Trump and he will be back soon too mind you....

It just hurts my head, these are medical professionals who we are all treating covid side by side daily...and these are their thoughts.

And they wonder why their area is so hard hit by covid....because this became a political thing instead of a public health thing, sprinkled on top with the GOP's attempt to always be the more moral or religious entity.

And no, I do not participate in ANY of these chats...I am a traveler and when that is majority opinion, I can be bounced fast.

Git dat stupid lib outta here now!

 

[mgr22]

Just another observation that boggles my brain. I sit next to medical professionals which for this discussion includes Docs, Medics, RNs and RTs....who talk for the entire shift about every conspiracy theory under the moon regarding vaccines. I legit sat thru hours last night listening to recaps of various "homeopathic OB doc" who is podcasting how those who get flu vaccine are now more susceptible to COVID. (In my head, I so wanted to throw down facts and argue logic, you know, like from whence did she collect this data?? since there was no real flu season last year).

And then the discussion of "end times" is upon us, mark of the beast (vaccine or the covid vaccine card), how this one nurse has a relative who is now magnetized post vaccine, and of course talk about Bill Gates patent which has the numbers 666 in it. And then onwards to Biden,Biden Biden and how this is actually a major ploy to get a female president too, but I dont want "her" as one (racial bias implied). Praise Trump and he will be back soon too mind you....

It just hurts my head, these are medical professionals who we are all treating covid side by side daily...and these are their thoughts.

And they wonder why their area is so hard hit by covid....because this became a political thing instead of a public health thing, sprinkled on top with the GOP's attempt to always be the more moral or religious entity.

And no, I do not participate in ANY of these chats...I am a traveler and when that is majority opinion, I can be bounced fast.

Git dat stupid lib outta here now!

Pretty freakin' scary, especially since you're talking about so many subsets of lunacy. I wouldn't know where to begin.

 

[Fezman92]

 

[Kevinf]

It seems like conspiracy lunacy (my preferred term, as "theory" implies a backing of logical/scientific reasoning) used to be relegated to fairly lone individuals 20+ years ago, but with the widespread adoption and use of social media (that forms groups that reinforces and supports conspiracies instead of quashing them as they would have experienced in a less connected society) allows all the fringe folks that are susceptible to conspiracy theory mentality to find each other.

Normally those doctors and other medical folks would be fighting an uphill battle in their daily lives as soon as they start talking about magnetized microchips in vaccines at work, but they just go on their phones and find someone else employed in medicine on their favorite conspiracy group that supports them when they get that push-back and it gives them the social support to spread misinformation more broadly than they would otherwise feel socially permitted to do. If someone looks at you funny when you say the earth is flat and we never landed on the moon, then you can just hop onto your Facebook FlatMoon group and get positive reinforcement again instead of feeling like an outsider.

Which is bad for everyone when vaccines are part of the conspiracy theory circle. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that anti-vax conspiracy nonsense has cost tens or even hundreds of millions of lives over the past two decades. Diseases like measles are resurging in some areas, when they were just on the verge of going on the permanently no-longer-a-problem list with smallpox... which means that anti-vaxxers are causing routine vaccinations to become MORE necessary. If anti-vaxxers had a really good end-game, they'd be encouraging people to get vaccinated so that diseases die off and nobody needs vaccines anymore. That'd be a real win for anti-vaxxers!

That's just like, my opinion though.

edit: I don't want to oversimplify here however, as social support from interconnectedness has been a real win for some minority groups that well deserve it. But sometimes the bad comes with the good.

 

[NomadicMedic]

Same experience for third moderna - though much more mild symptoms than for my first two

Third Moderna?

 

[ffemt8978]

they'd be encouraging people to get vaccinated so that diseases die off and nobody needs vaccines anymore. That'd be a real win for anti-vaxxers!

The problem with that statement is that Covid will never die off. It has a multi-species repository where it can continue to flourish and mutate, and it is impossible to vaccinate every animal that can carry the disease. To date, as far as I'm aware of, we've never been able to eradicate a disease that can infect multiple species. The best we've been able to do is to mitigate it's effects on people.

 

[ffemt8978]

Merck says COVID-19 pill cuts risk of death, hospitalization

Drugmaker Merck says its experimental COVID-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the coronavirus.

apnews.com

I could see this new pill being used as a basis for people not to get vaccinated. "Why should I get the vaccine if I can just take a pill once I start feeling sick?" will be the argument, and it stands a chance of being an effective counter to madating vaccination in legal challenges (assuming for the sake of discussion that it gets approval for use)

 

[mgr22]

Merck says COVID-19 pill cuts risk of death, hospitalization

Drugmaker Merck says its experimental COVID-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the coronavirus.

apnews.com

I could see this new pill being used as a basis for people not to get vaccinated. "Why should I get the vaccine if I can just take a pill once I start feeling sick?" will be the argument, and it stands a chance of being an effective counter to madating vaccination in legal challenges (assuming for the sake of discussion that it gets approval for use)

True, but I doubt having one more excuse not to get vaccinated will add greatly to the ranks of the vaccine-resistant. I suppose medical professionals unafraid of being magnetized could remind their patients that even if the drug cuts COVID deaths in half, it still sucks for the other half.

 

[Summit]

Merck says COVID-19 pill cuts risk of death, hospitalization

Drugmaker Merck says its experimental COVID-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the coronavirus.

apnews.com

I could see this new pill being used as a basis for people not to get vaccinated. "Why should I get the vaccine if I can just take a pill once I start feeling sick?" will be the argument, and it stands a chance of being an effective counter to madating vaccination in legal challenges (assuming for the sake of discussion that it gets approval for use)

I think if you were going to to get vaccinated, this pill won't stop you... If you are rational. A 50% RR reduction in hospitalization and death is vastly less effective than the 90% of the mRNA vaccines which also prevents most infection and transmission, unlike a post-symptomatic drug. Of course, in the hands of information manipulators I'm always nervous and people are not rational about this.

I'm impressed at the efficacy they are claiming for a PO post infection treatment in a hig risk population! But I'm also very leery of a single smaller trial that I haven't seen a peer review of design...

 

[Kevinf]

The problem with that statement is that Covid will never die off. It has a multi-species repository where it can continue to flourish and mutate, and it is impossible to vaccinate every animal that can carry the disease. To date, as far as I'm aware of, we've never been able to eradicate a disease that can infect multiple species. The best we've been able to do is to mitigate it's effects on people.