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*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (6 Viewers)

Do you mean "deleted intentionally", like he asked the mods to dump all of his posts?

Or do you mean "hard banned", somehow? I didn't know anyone ever crossed the line so bad they got their entire forum history erased.
In another thread it was mentioned that he was considering a political run and axed the account.

 
My oldest son tested positive for COVID yesterday. Minor symptoms as he is 26, a construction worker, National Guard and a workout freak, never smoked, etc. So I'm not too concerned for him. Now he and his wife and kids are quarantined. I dropped off a snack bag for the kids and my daughter-in-law. The kids had sunny D, some snacks, ice cream, an IOU one butt spanking for the grandson from grandpa (he is 3 and thought that was funny as hell. Made mom put it on the coffee table so everyone could see it). Mom got a bag with a frozen cocktail in it, a can of some fruity alcoholic drink someone left in my fridge at some point and a random piece of fried chicken I had in the fridge. She said the adult snack bag made her day. I figured if anyone needed a drink it was her being stuck in the house with a sick husband and a 1 and 3 year old running al over.

 
Not to put a damper on the vaccine optimism coming from the declines in the UK and Israel, but I don’t think the improving numbers are due to vaccinations...yet. We’re a month out from the major holiday gatherings, we’re bound to see significant declines no matter the rate of vaccination.

The benefits of vaccinations will come and soon but not yet. Most elderly haven’t received 2nd dose. It will probably take a couple more months before we see the true benefits from the vaccine.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible, just seems way too early to give credit to the vaccine for the drop. Inevitably when you do that, backlash will start if cases start to rise again.

 
Not to put a damper on the vaccine optimism coming from the declines in the UK and Israel, but I don’t think the improving numbers are due to vaccinations...yet. We’re a month out from the major holiday gatherings, we’re bound to see significant declines no matter the rate of vaccination.

The benefits of vaccinations will come and soon but not yet. Most elderly haven’t received 2nd dose. It will probably take a couple more months before we see the true benefits from the vaccine.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to get as many people vaccinated as possible, just seems way too early to give credit to the vaccine for the drop. Inevitably when you do that, backlash will start if cases start to rise again.
Fauci actually said as much. Soon though!
 

On another note....If the US has had 25M documented cases, isn’t the actual number projected to be closer to 100M? And our population is only 330M?

 
UK develops nasal spray to stop transmission

This is REALLY interesting. Especially if it has applications beyond Covid in the future, particularly for kids and schools.

Another story with more details
I hope something like this really pans out. Sounds kind of too good to be true. But: if it's basically a souped-up saline solution ... we know that salt/brine is a time-tested antibacterial agent. Could sodium chloride also be an anitiviral on surfaces -- or in this case, on mucous membranes?

Maybe related, maybe not: I don't remember reading about it at the time, but last spring they were apparently low-profile reports of salt-solution coatings being used on masks as additional COVID protection. Googling "Salt coated mask, Coronavirus" brings up plenty of reading.

 
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Ah ... this one sounds less than legitimate:

InvisiMask is a proprietary, engineered human antibody nasal spray that delivers SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies directly to the nasal passages, where most COVID-19 infections enter the body.

The compound combines the best properties of IgG and IgA. IgG is easy to manufacture but has a shorter half-life in the mucosa. By engineering IgG antibodies to bind to mucins (as does IgA) in the airway epithelium, their half-lives in the mucosa were extended while maintaining its ability to be scaled up easily for commercial manufacturing.

 
I've read conflicting reports on the first of two vaccine shots?  I read somewhere that the first shot gets you at about 60% effectiveness and the second brings you up to the 90+%.  I've also read that you are not at any effectiveness level at all  until the second shot.  Which is it?  

 
I've read conflicting reports on the first of two vaccine shots?  I read somewhere that the first shot gets you at about 60% effectiveness and the second brings you up to the 90+%.  I've also read that you are not at any effectiveness level at all  until the second shot.  Which is it?  
It's pretty clear that the first shot delivers some level of protection.  The 60% figure you mentioned is probably near the consensus.

It takes about two weeks after each shot for the protection to reach the maximum.   

 
I've read conflicting reports on the first of two vaccine shots?  I read somewhere that the first shot gets you at about 60% effectiveness and the second brings you up to the 90+%.  I've also read that you are not at any effectiveness level at all  until the second shot.  Which is it?  
The part in red is absolutely not true of either Moderna's or Pfizer's vaccines. IIRC, each differs in the effectiveness of just one shot alone ... I really want to look it up and not post off the cuff. I do remember that both were over 50% effective at preventing infection at one dose -- which, recall, was the initial goal and is considered an effective vaccine.

 
I've read conflicting reports on the first of two vaccine shots?  I read somewhere that the first shot gets you at about 60% effectiveness and the second brings you up to the 90+%.  I've also read that you are not at any effectiveness level at all  until the second shot.  Which is it?  
52% efficacy for Pfizer and 80% for Moderna (sourced here) after one dose
Another source for the same figures and some details about other countries' vaccines here:
How effective is a single vaccine dose against Covid-19? (BBC 1/14/2021)

 

According to Pfizer data published in December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is roughly 52% effective after the first dose ...

For the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, things are a bit different. In a paper published in January, the authors explain that the vaccine offers protection of 64.1% after at least one standard dose. This compares to 70.4% if you've had two full doses, or – oddly – 90% in people who have had one half dose followed by one full dose ...

According to a document the company submitted to the FDA, the Moderna vaccine can provide 80.2% protection after one dose ...



 
The true first dose effectiveness is really hard to gage because it’s mainly been studied in people who ended up getting both doses. For the Pfizer that’s only 3 weeks in between and even less when you consider the time each dose takes to be effective. The data being used to find the percentage is based on that small window vs infections in the placebo group. Unless there is a long term study of people who only got 1 dose, I wouldn’t put much significance on the current estimated 1st dose %.

 
nuggets from Your Local Epidemiologist on FB about the emergency CDC meeting today:

The CDC ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) had an emergency meeting today.

The purpose of this meeting is to update everyone on the current affairs related to COVID19 vaccinations. There were a lot of big wigs in attendance: new CDC Director, FDA, NIH, DOD, HHS, CDC, AAP, ACOG, AMA, CSTE, AAP (just to name a few).

Here are your cliff notes…

AstraZeneca update…

• Enrollment ended in the US. 32,459 people enrolled. As of Jan 21, 26,327 trial participants have received their second dose. 57.8% have a comorbidity and 23.6% are 65+ years old. Trial participants are only getting the standard dose (not the half dose that some in the UK received)

COVID19 epidemiology among kids…

• Kids with the most severe COVID19 are in these groups (and in this order): Obesity; Asthma; Immunocompromised; Chronic lung disease; Cardiovascular disease; sickle cell disease; diabetes; cerebral palsy; down syndrome; hypertension, and renal disease.

• 1,659 cases of MIS-C in 47 states, leading to 26 deaths

Vaccines for children…

• Rationale for pediatric clinical trials: 1) Pediatric burden of disease is significant 2) Disproportionate burden among children in minority communities 3) Indirect effects to the child and society (school, development, etc.) 4) Continued burden if we wait for natural “herd” effects 5) Data suggests that vaccination prevents asymptomatic carriage, thus reversing pandemic more rapidly 6) Safety data are best collected in clinical trials

• Age de-escalation trials will be organized as the following: 6 to <12 years; then 2 to < 6 years; and infants to < 2 years

• True placebos (like saline) are being considered. Another vaccine hasn’t been proposed as a control yet

• Will test multiple dose levels (full, half, and quarter doses)

Vaccine safety…

• Safety of COVID-19 vaccines are reassuring and consistent with clinical trials

• We (the U.S.) are actively collecting safety data from three main sources: V-safe (active surveillance), VAERS (passive surveillance), and Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Project (CISA) (which investigates individual cases).

• V-safe data has been initially analyzed. 2.08M people have participated in V-safe (out of 21.8M people vaccinated). There are 15,131 pregnancies reported to v-safe (they will follow these women that consent up to 3 months after babies are born)

• See the Figure for the reactions to the vaccines being seen in real-time.

• Anaphylaxis: 50 people reported for Pfizer (out of 9.943M doses) and 21 reported in Moderna (out of 7.581M doses). 90% happened within 30 minutes of vaccination. 80% (Pfizer) and 86% (Moderna) of people had a history of allergies

• VAERS has 196 deaths reported following vaccination. None of them have been causally linked to vaccinations.

Other random notes…

• Prior COVID infection and vaccine side effects: they are designing a study to get a better idea of what’s happening

• Vaccine and transmission: This is a priority. 5,000 healthcare providers and first responders are being assessed for transmission after vaccination. They are getting tested weekly for infection.

• Among 65+ years, 90% of vaccine recipients are White. Speed is compromising health equity

• There is no additional data for delayed doses. The current recommendation remains: don't delay your second dose more than 6 weeks (42 days) after your first dose

• mRNA vaccines are NOT interchangeable unless in an exceptional situation

 
Worrierqueen just got her first shot, Pfizer.  Reports some burning on her left (injection) side and a mild headache 30 minutes after. 

I'm actually jealous!
I've been really fascinated with seeing how it affects people. Particularly people who have had an infection vs those who (at least knowingly) haven't. Has your wife had COVID?

 
I've been really fascinated with seeing how it affects people. Particularly people who have had an infection vs those who (at least knowingly) haven't. Has your wife had COVID?
We don't think so, although we both got very sick last February.  I spent Super Bowl Sunday with a 102 fever and she had fever and a cough that lasted almost two weeks.  It could have been COVID but we don't know.

 
5) Data suggests that vaccination prevents asymptomatic carriage, thus reversing pandemic more rapidly
People have asked about this a dozen times in this thread, maybe more. Thanks for posting this bit. Going to try to find a link for it (I understand you read it on Facebook).

EDIT: Found link thanks to Nathan R. Jessep -- see top of pg 2.

 
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The true first dose effectiveness is really hard to gage because it’s mainly been studied in people who ended up getting both doses. For the Pfizer that’s only 3 weeks in between and even less when you consider the time each dose takes to be effective. The data being used to find the percentage is based on that small window vs infections in the placebo group. Unless there is a long term study of people who only got 1 dose, I wouldn’t put much significance on the current estimated 1st dose %.
Moderna had a group of single dose. 

 
People have asked about this a dozen times in this thread, maybe more. Thanks for posting this bit. Going to try to find a link for it (I understand you read it on Facebook).
Yeah I hate linking to FB. She has a website/blog, but it's not on there yet. I think it was just her notes from watching the meeting, as there were presentation slides as well. 

 
Didnt a bunch of MIT people give themselves their own home brew nasal vaccine a while back? 
Yep, and some Harvard folks, too. Pretty early on ... some back in April. Would love to know if any of them have contracted COVID since.

From the link:

A nasal vaccine is easier to administer than one which must be injected and, in Church’s opinion, is an overlooked option in the covid-19 vaccine race. He says only five out of about 199 covid vaccines listed as in development use nasal delivery, even though some researchers think it’s the best approach.

A vaccine delivered into the nose could create what’s called mucosal immunity, or immune cells present in the tissues of the airway. Such local immunity may be an important defense against SARS-CoV-2. But unlike antibodies that appear in the blood, where they are easily detected, signs of mucosal immunity might require a biopsy to identify.
Mucosal immunity? Had no idea that was a thing ... I knew about the nasal flu vaccine, but I thought the contents of the spray made their way into the bloodstream. I wonder if instead the nasal flu vaccine works by imparting mucosal immunity?

@gianmarco -- this seems to tie in to the British nasal spray you posted about this morning.

 
Also didnt people think early on that the reason thailand or some other place had low rate of spread was because of the saline they use in neti pots? 

 
Regarding the home-brew COVID nasal vaccine -- from further down the same link, there were and are doubters:

George Siber, the former head of vaccines at Wyeth, says he told Estep that short, simple peptides often don’t lead to much of an immune response. Moreover, Siber says, he doesn’t know of any subunit vaccine delivered nasally, and he questions whether it would be potent enough to have any effect.

When Estep reached out to him earlier this year, Siber also wanted to know if the team had considered a dangerous side effect, called enhancement, in which a vaccine can actually worsen the disease. “It’s not the best idea—especially in this case, you could make things worse,” Siber says of the effort. “You really need to know what you are doing here.”

He isn’t the only skeptic. Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center, who saw the white paper, pans Radvac as “off-the-charts loony.” In an email, Caplan says he sees “no leeway” for self-experimentation given the importance of quality control with vaccines. Instead, he thinks there is a high “potential for harm” and “ill-founded enthusiasm.”

Church disagrees, saying the vaccine’s simple formulation means it’s probably safe. “I think the bigger risk is that it is ineffective,” he says.

So far, the group can’t say if their vaccine works or not. They haven’t published results showing that the vaccine leads to antibodies against the virus, which is a basic requirement for being taken seriously in the vaccine race. Church says some of those studies are now underway in his Harvard laboratory, and Estep is hoping mainstream immunologists will assist the group. “It’s a little bit complicated, and we are not ready to report it,” Estep says of the immune responses seen so far.

 
Also didnt people think early on that the reason thailand or some other place had low rate of spread was because of the saline they use in neti pots? 
Baxter also adds that the total deaths in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam are particularly low. “Yes, they wear masks, and yes, they bow and don’t shake hands, but the biggest difference between them and places like South Korea or Japan is that nasal irrigation is practiced by 80 percent of people,” she says. 

not saying these people are right, just having a fun little covid memory lane trip here.

 
Baxter also adds that the total deaths in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam are particularly low. “Yes, they wear masks, and yes, they bow and don’t shake hands, but the biggest difference between them and places like South Korea or Japan is that nasal irrigation is practiced by 80 percent of people,” she says. 
80 percent of the people? Is that right? Huh.

EDIT: I know you weren't pushing that info, parasaurolophus -- that link is pretty woo-ey, even if Maxter is an MD.

 
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I'm three days in on mine after the first shot and so far it's been fine other than some arm soreness the first night about 6-8 hours after the shot. I'll update if anything changes, although one of the nurses I spoke to when getting the shot said her armpit lymph nodes became sore about a week after the first shot. She also said that one or two other nurses who got their shot at the same time reported this as well. 

 
I'm three days in on mine after the first shot and so far it's been fine other than some arm soreness the first night about 6-8 hours after the shot. I'll update if anything changes, although one of the nurses I spoke to when getting the shot said her armpit lymph nodes became sore about a week after the first shot. She also said that one or two other nurses who got their shot at the same time reported this as well. 
I had this also both times. Even a little discomfort in my left wrist/forearm when lifting weights that I didn't initially tie in.

 
We've had 9 people in my office get 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. We range in age from 35 to 71. There was only one person who had more than a very mild reaction to dose 1; it was a 40 year old female who tested positive for Covid about 3 months earlier. She had flu-like symptoms for 3-4 days including a 101.5 fever. On her second dose, she had no side effects. But 3 of us, including myself, had body aches after dose 2 which responded quickly to Tylenol or ibuprofen. 

A mild reaction that almost everyone reported for both doses was some soreness around the injection site for 1 to 2 days. We're lucky to be among the first to get vaccinated. My 2 daughters who moved to California in 2020 said I can come visit now.

 
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I'm 34 hours in on shot number one, 2PM Tuesday 1/26. I believe I had covid just before Christmas to a little after New Year's. I've had injection site soreness from the onset, starting the next morning a minor chronic injury has been acute and now I've got the chills.

Chills didn't last long. I drank half a powerade and some tea, added an extra blanket, pointed a space heater at my body and dozed off. I woke later starting to feel warm, pealed off the extra layers and turned off the heater. The injection site and my injury are only a dull pain at the moment. 

 
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I'm 34 hours in on shot number one, 2PM Tuesday 1/26. I believe I had covid just before Christmas to a little after New Year's. I've had arm soreness from the onset, starting the next morning a minor chronic injury has been acute and now I've got the chills.
I meant to edit, but whatever.

Moderna

I got a dose that was going to be wasted with a warning that I probably won't get a second shot from them in the recommended 4 weeks.

How soon should I push a second shot if one becomes available? 3 weeks like Pfizer? 3 1/2 weeks?

 
The article linked doesn't answer this squarely: What, exactly, does a "sixfold reduction" mean here? From ~95% effective to ~16% effective? 1/6 the number of antibodies per unit of blood? Something else? The article says exactly this:
It’s probably based on a neutralization titer of vaccinated individuals’ serum inoculated with SARS-CoV-2 strain(s) with the mutation(s) of interest, in comparison to regular (wild type) virus. Sixfold reduction means serum retains its neutralizing ability (detailed below for an influenza microneutralization assay) after diluting to 1/6 the concentration for the wild type virus versus the mutant being studied. If vaccines generate antibodies effectively enough, a several fold reduction in their potency won’t necessarily result in a meaningful change in clinical efficacy.

The microneutralization test is a highly sensitive and specific assay for identifying influenza virus-specific, neutralizing antibodies in animal and human sera (9). The 2-day assay is performed in two stages. On day 1 of the assay (1) a virus-antibody reaction step, in which virus is mixed with dilutions of serum and time allowed for antibodies to react and (2) an inoculation step, in which the virus-serum mixture is inoculated into the appropriate host system, MDCK cells in this assay. An ELISA is performed on day 2 of the assay to detect virus-infected cells. The absence of infectivity constitutes a positive neutralization reaction and indicates the presence of virus-specific antibodies in the serum sample. The preferred serum samples in cases of influenza-like illness are paired acute and convalescent serum samples with the acute collected less than 7 days after symptom onset and the convalescent collected at least 14 days after the acute sample and ideally within 2-3 months of illness onset. A fourfold or greater rise in antibody titer demonstrates a seroconversion and is considered to be diagnostic. With single serum samples, care must be taken in interpreting low titers such as 20 and 40. Generally, knowledge of the antibody titers in an age-matched control population is needed to determine a minimum titer that is indicative of a specific antibody response to the virus utilized in the assay.

 
How soon should I push a second shot if one becomes available? 3 weeks like Pfizer? 3 1/2 weeks?
per CDC website:

You should get your second shot as close to the recommended 3-week (Pfizer) or 1-month (Moderna) interval as possible. However, there is no maximum interval between the first and second doses for either vaccine. You should not get the second dose earlier than the recommended interval.

 
I'm 34 hours in on shot number one, 2PM Tuesday 1/26. I believe I had covid just before Christmas to a little after New Year's. I've had injection site soreness from the onset, starting the next morning a minor chronic injury has been acute and now I've got the chills.
I guess you didn't get tested?

Doesn't the CDC recommend not getting the vaccine until 3 months after having the virus or is that just due to supply?

 
I guess you didn't get tested?

Doesn't the CDC recommend not getting the vaccine until 3 months after having the virus or is that just due to supply?
I had two negative PCR (15 minute) tests. I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection but now think it was a misdiagnosis. I had a blood draw for an antibody test, at the same time as my second PCR and diagnosis, that came up positive. My symptoms were more aligned with a covid infection. I first had fatigue, then shortness of breath, body aches and kidney pain. I never had a cough, fever or any loss of taste or smell.

Not sure about the CDC, but the pharmacist who gave me my shot knows my recent medical history.

 
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