Covid- Thank you, Next! Get out of our lives.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

Regarding dogs and COVID. Over the weekend I was told of the weirdest of the "side effects". The owner of blind dog claims that her pet doesn't recognize her anymore after the COVID vaccine.  To be fair, the dog is not only blind, it's also old and sick.

 

Makes sense, right - dogs rely heavily on smell, so if it has lost most of its smell the owner won't smell remotely the same. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Imagining the cruelty of the world that leaves a poor dog without his smell. That's gotta be like dog insanity for them.

[HoodedCrow]

Tylenol is good for pain and as described. I was specifically told to take ibuprofen,  but I don’t know. 

There, I have essential oils for a test.  All is good.  My DH has some sliced meat in the fridge. Open the fridge, if you have one, and run a check, if you dare. 

[Zorral]

All I'm saying is that over here from the gitgo, it was tylenol for some reason they specifically said to take, both when suffering the disease, and the reaction to the vaccination.  This is not to say it was correct, or that it actually matters, or anything like that.  What works, works, and praise the lord ya know?  

But I do tend to follow what I'm told in these situations, and we were told this by our physician relatives too -- who went to trouble at the beginning of pandemic to fedex among other essential items like masks and surgical gloves, big bottles of tylenol.

 

[Fragile Bird]

12 minutes ago, Zorral said:

All I'm saying is that over here from the gitgo, it was tylenol for some reason they specifically said to take, both when suffering the disease, and the reaction to the vaccination.  This is not to say it was correct, or that it actually matters, or anything like that.  What works, works, and praise the lord ya know?  

But I do tend to follow what I'm told in these situations, and we were told this by our physician relatives too -- who went to trouble at the beginning of pandemic to fedex among other essential items like masks and surgical gloves, big bottles of tylenol.

 

I believe that Advil and similar drugs were not recommended after vaccinations even prior to the pandemic. Fever can boost the immune response.

[Padraig]

Science magazine has an article about myocarditis and Pfizer/Biontech.  I don't think it is especially concerning but worth being aware of.  Others may have a better medical viewpoinnt.

 

[HoodedCrow]

I don’t know how my vaccinator was qualified, we were at a conference center. 

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

All I'm saying is that over here from the gitgo, it was tylenol for some reason they specifically said to take

Just depends on context. Paracetamol* ( Tylenol) is usually the first line recommendation as it's generally safer than alternatives in most age groups/ co-morbidities. It's also the first analgesic in what is called the WHO pain ladder,also an anti-pyretic. Paracetamol has few contraindications and is considered to be one of the safest analgesics ( probably why it was recommended to you)

Things like Ibuprofen ( Part of class of drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ( NSAIDs)) - these generally are better for pain that is due to inflammation, think joint pain/ pain due to injuries. However, people are more cautious with NSAIDs as they carry risks such as bleeding & it can cause issues with kidneys, and this risk is especially higher if you're 65 or above. It's why people recommend them with caution.

Not taking these meds to 'boost immune response' does not make much sense to me.  People are told to take painkillers if they get fevers post vaccination, and we regularly give paracetemol to people admitted with covid 19.

*And yes, generic names for the win, fuck brand names.

[Fragile Bird]

Canadian scientists have won a Webby award together with their partner, Icelandic game developer CCP Games, by involving gamers in an exercise to identify Covid-19 in blood samples, to build up a database for an AI program that will do the same thing. The AI program needed a huge sample of blood tests in order to learn how to identify Covid-19 in blood tests. 

CCP has a multiplayer online game called EVE On-line. For the past year an app developed by the scientists allowed more than 325,000 game players to earn rewards by taking time out from the game to categorize blood samples from patients with Covid-19, among other diseases. A complex task, they set up a training video to show how to identify "flow cytometry" and then circle clusters, just the way the scientists would do. They then followed up samples to see how accurate the players were. Since they launched their Discovery app in June of 2020, game players analyzed more than 1.25 M blood samples.

Setting up an AI program to do what they wanted to do would take researchers thousands of hours of boring work checking the samples. Using 325,000 gamers to do the work is a very creative way to gather the required data.

The story doesn't say whether or not this is still going on, but if you play the game you can check it out, I guess.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canadian-scientists-win-webby-award-for-enlisting-online-gamers-to/

[Luzifer's right hand]

9 hours ago, Padraig said:

Science magazine has an article about myocarditis and Pfizer/Biontech.  I don't think it is especially concerning but worth being aware of.  Others may have a better medical viewpoinnt.

 

That number does not seem threating to me even in the worst case. I know quite a few young guys with myocarditis and the most likely cause is in all cases a light virus infection that they did not take serious.

[HoodedCrow]

Acetaminophen is bad for your liver in quantity. Ibuprophen is bad for your kidneys in quantity. Aspirin is a mild blood thinner and pain reliever in quantity but can give stomach problems. The key is quantity and personal reactions..

[Filippa Eilhart]

got my first Pfizer dose, yay!!!!

[Fragile Bird]

I have friends who are now getting their second doses. The first is my brother's law firm partner, who is 80. He had virtually no reaction from his 2nd Pfizer shot, which he received on Monday. The next is my friend who I described when I started the Today is a Lousy Day thread. He is 66 and is getting his second Pfizer shot in an hour from now, because he starts chemo for his Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma on Monday. He only got his chemo appointment on Monday after further tests showed it's actually a more aggressive form of the disease, so it's a pity he won't have full immunity before the chemo starts. Effectiveness drops dramatically after you start chemo. His wife got the AZ shot way back in March and she's trying to hunt down a second AZ shot ASAP. There's a scarcity of AZ, and she can get the 2nd shot now whereas she'd have to wait for an mRNA dose.

Her husband and I got our shots roughly at the same time, but I don't think the 60+ age group will open up for another two weeks yet. I plan to get my second shot ASAP, since the Delta variant is spreading quickly here and the effectiveness of one shot is apparently only about 35%. I'm not sure if that's for AZ and it's higher for the mRNA vaccines, but I do know once you get the second shot the effectiveness rises to 90%.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Quote

President Joe Biden has provided additional details on his administration’s plan to share 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses with other countries, explaining Thursday how the first 25m doses will be disbursed.

Around seven million doses will go to Latin America and the Caribbean, some seven million will go to South and Southeast Asia, and approximately five million will go to Africa, Biden has said in a statement. Those 19m doses will be shared through Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative.

The remainder, about six million doses, will be shared directly with countries seeing surges, and nations in crisis, as well as other allies and neighbors, including Canada, Mexico, India, and the Republic of Korea, Biden says in the statement.

In the meantime, case data shows 15000 new cases (rolling average), a steep drop from the peak in January. Hospitalizations and deaths have also dropped substantially.

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

In the meantime, case data shows 15000 new cases (rolling average), a steep drop from the peak in January. Hospitalizations and deaths have also dropped substantially.

I would also note that is lower than it has been at any point since March 2020 when testing was not yet widely available. 

[Zorral]

O my goodness. For the first time since February 2020, I have been inside a restaurant, to see and plot with, a dear friend and colleague we've not seen even on Zoom since January 2020.  It was our old local.  I had a margarita, made by the best bartender who makes the best margaritas.  I'm kinda giddy from this experience.  Fortunately so was our friend.  She hadn't been out in person either.  Like all the rest of us, the very idea of spending any extended time with other people at this point seems almost impossible -- and that includes her own family, she realized, while booking tickets to see them.  Suddenly, it was, "I will have to be in the same living quarters with other people for three days and nights!"  She lives alone, so it's even harder for her than for us, and it's hard enough for us.

Interesting too, how much I'm hearing from long-time friends for whom travel was a way of life.  We could be ready to head to the airport and leave the country in two hours flat.  After all this time, the very idea of picking up that life-style again seems, just, "I don't wanna!"

 

[Clueless Northman]

7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Her husband and I got our shots roughly at the same time, but I don't think the 60+ age group will open up for another two weeks yet. I plan to get my second shot ASAP, since the Delta variant is spreading quickly here and the effectiveness of one shot is apparently only about 35%. I'm not sure if that's for AZ and it's higher for the mRNA vaccines, but I do know once you get the second shot the effectiveness rises to 90%.

I was wondering how it was possible and then realized that slots are slowly opening up for 2nd dose, not 1st one. I checked the data, and it seems that Canada follows an even more aggressive policy of "give everyone 1 shot then worry about the 2nd one" than UK ever did: there's basically 8 times more people who got just 1 dose than people who already got 2 doses. Which begins to be very risky - it's always been risky, but the longer it takes before 2nd dose can be mass-delivered, the riskier for people at risk, considering how nastily some variants can spread to people who only got 1 dose.

Granted, delaying 2nd dose can actually boost even more immunity and might make it last longer, but for now we're in a race, we don't have the luxury of waiting as long as ideally possible.

On the bright side, this means that more than 60% of all Canadians want the vaccine, so close to 80% of all adults. It also means that, thankfully, the bulk of vaccines can now be given as 2nd dose and I suppose most people will be fully protected before end of July.

[Fragile Bird]

39 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

 

On the bright side, this means that more than 60% of all Canadians want the vaccine, so close to 80% of all adults. It also means that, thankfully, the bulk of vaccines can now be given as 2nd dose and I suppose most people will be fully protected before end of July.

The goal here is 75/20 by the end of June, which really seems possible. The second largest province, Quebec, with 8 M people, is at over 70% of those over 12 already, and Ontario with 14.5 M people, should hit that number over the weekend, or early next week. Second dose vaccination is really ramping up now, and for Ontario to get to 20% we’ll need to do about 55,000 second doses a day. We did 53 k today and that number should steadily rise going forward.

My friend’s wife and her 96 year old mom are getting Moderna second doses next week when the family doctor makes a house call. Her mom got Moderna for her first dose and my friend, as I said, originally got AZ.

The government of Canada has always taken the position that all Canadians who want to be vaccinated will be fully vaccinated by the end of August. I hope that number will be over 80%. I hope that’s not wishful thinking, but the nursing home crowd is at 96%, the military is over 90%. There are pockets of communities that have terrible rates, but they are all small towns with religious or political axes to grind. I won’t hold my breath for them.

[Zorral]

45 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The goal here is 75/20 by the end of June, which really seems possible.

terrific!  Yet -- Manitoba!  On border of anti-vax North Dakota!  They are one and the same!  Arggggh.

[Raja]

New Public Health England Report on B.1.617.2/Delta VOC - Not the best news, I'm afraid.

Quote

Transmissibility between humans - Delta continues to demonstrate a substantially increased growth rate compared to Alpha, across multiple analyses. Delta cases are rising whilst Alpha cases are declining. Secondary attack rates, including household secondary attack rates, are higher for Delta, but these are not yet corrected for vaccination status. There is in vitro evidence suggestive of increased replication in biological systems that model human airway. It is highly likely that Delta is significantly more transmissible than Alpha

Vaccines - There are now analyses from England and Scotland supporting a reduction in vaccine effectiveness for Delta compared to Alpha. This is more pronounced after one dose (absolute reduction in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection of approximately 15-20% after 1 dose). Iterated analysis continues to show vaccine effectiveness against Delta is higher after 2 doses but that there is a reduction for Delta compared to Alpha. There is a high level of uncertainty around the magnitude of the change in vaccine effectiveness after 2 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Overall assessment: Delta is predominant and all analyses find that it has a very substantial growth advantage.The observed high growth rate is most likely to be due to a combination of place based context, transmissibility and immune escape. Both English and Scottish analyses continue to support the finding of reduced vaccine effectiveness which has increased to high confidence. New early data from England and Scotland suggest a possible increased risk of hospitalisation compared to Alpha. The priority investigations are vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation and transmission, household secondary attack rate corrected for vaccination, characterisation of the generation time, viral load and period of infectivity, and epidemiological studies of reinfection

There are more comments regarding severity within the document, but given that a lot of the cases are under follow up, their confidence regarding the data as it relates to severity is low. However, they have high confidence in Delta being more transmissible & *some* vaccine escape, though we do not know how much.