The Vaccine Thread

[KSera]

47 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I think this is going to be one of those statements along the lines of "there's no evidence for aerosol transmission, so masks are unnecessary" or "there's no evidence that Delta is actually more transmissible or more likely to affect children." I think the CDC is afraid that if people think boosters may be necessary it will further suppress vaccination rates, because more people will just decide it's not worth it if you need another shot (especially one with unpleasant side effects) every 6-8 months. But I suspect that we're going to see big spikes this fall when schools and colleges reopen, with much higher breakthrough rates with Delta than we're used to with previous variants, and then suddenly boosters will be a thing after all. 

I’m not sure. If we get much more mutation than where we are with Delta, that seems increasingly likely. And in either case, I expect boosters would help. But, I still think there’s a good chance boosters won’t be necessary any time soon for healthy people. The big caveat is the fact that our vaccination rate is so low it may mean that people need them, because it allows so much Covid to still be transmitting that a lot more vaccinated people will have breakthrough cases than if everyone would just get their darn vaccine already. If we had strong vaccine coverage everywhere, I think our case rate would drop so low the boosters wouldn’t be necessary any time soon. Not looking like that’s likely to happen anytime soon 😞. It does look like vaccination is picking up a bit as Delta gets going, and I could see us having a burst of people who suddenly want to get vaccinated in the fall when things start turning bad. Sure would be nice to be able to avoid that in the first place.

[ktgrok]

I think having a booster approved, for those who want it or whose doctor deems it necessary - say immune suppressed people, people at high risk like medical workers, etc, makes sense. I don't think that means everyone will need one.  

[Matryoshka]

9 hours ago, Penelope said:

Of course they mean not right now. How could they say boosters will never be needed? The statement is careful, but clearly  they put it out because the drug companies and the media are jumping the gun and freaking everyone out. 
 

The whole thing is unfortunate, as with so much about Covid info. There isn’t any evidence at this time that any of us will need another vaccination in the fall, and people that know do say that, and it is reported somewhat, but the big scare gets a lot of attention. 

I definitely think we'll need boosters targeted to new variants. I sure hope this is what they mean and not just a 'same old' booster to boost profits rather than immunity because turns out the vaccine is working better/lasting longer than expected.  I just saw an article about how the longer than expected persistent immunity could be 'bad news' for Pfizer/Moderna's future profits... 😒

I find it odd that there is no mention in these booster articles about them being retargeted toward, say, Delta. Especially since I've read a lot earlier about how this kind of pivot/targeting was much easier to do with mRNA vaccines...  you'd think they'd be including that tidbit if that's what they meant...  that's actually news I've been looking out for.

[Syllieann]

6 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

I definitely think we'll need boosters targeted to new variants. I sure hope this is what they mean and not just a 'same old' booster to boost profits rather than immunity because turns out the vaccine is working better/lasting longer than expected.  I just saw an article about how the longer than expected persistent immunity could be 'bad news' for Pfizer/Moderna's future profits... 😒

I find it odd that there is no mention in these booster articles about them being retargeted toward, say, Delta. Especially since I've read a lot earlier about how this kind of pivot/targeting was much easier to do with mRNA vaccines...  you'd think they'd be including that tidbit if that's what they meant...  that's actually news I've been looking out for.

It looks like they are pursuing both routes:  a regular booster and a delta booster.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/08/pfizer-says-it-is-developing-a-covid-booster-shot-to-target-the-highly-transmissible-delta-variant.html

[mommyoffive]

Pfizer Vaccine in Israel: How It Works Against Delta Variant - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

Herd immunity is not a light switch - by Katelyn Jetelina - Your Local Epidemiologist (substack.com)

[mommyoffive]

Enough: It's time to make vaccinations mandatory (opinion) (msn.com)

[mommyoffive]

Vaccinated teachers and students don't need masks, CDC says (msn.com)

[Drama Llama]

1 minute ago, mommyoffive said:

Vaccinated teachers and students don't need masks, CDC says (msn.com)

I have no idea how one would be expected to enforce that.  Are high school teachers with caseloads of 150 kids just supposed to remember who is vaccinated?   What about hall duty?  
 

[Corraleno]

1 minute ago, BaseballandHockey said:

I have no idea how one would be expected to enforce that.  Are high school teachers with caseloads of 150 kids just supposed to remember who is vaccinated?   What about hall duty?  
 

The idea that (1) schools can require some kids to wear masks while others don't and (2) teachers can (or should) be responsible for enforcing that, is just ridiculously impractical and unenforceable. There will be a few school districts that mandate masks for everyone and the rest will just let everyone drop them. Given how incredibly transmissible Delta is, I think this fall is going to be a huge mess for schools and colleges, and then everyone will wring their hands and say "how can this still be happening???" while doing nothing to actually prevent it from happening. 

[Penelope]

9 hours ago, KSera said:

I’m not sure. If we get much more mutation than where we are with Delta, that seems increasingly likely. And in either case, I expect boosters would help. But, I still think there’s a good chance boosters won’t be necessary any time soon for healthy people. The big caveat is the fact that our vaccination rate is so low it may mean that people need them, because it allows so much Covid to still be transmitting that a lot more vaccinated people will have breakthrough cases than if everyone would just get their darn vaccine already. If we had strong vaccine coverage everywhere, I think our case rate would drop so low the boosters wouldn’t be necessary any time soon. Not looking like that’s likely to happen anytime soon 😞. It does look like vaccination is picking up a bit as Delta gets going, and I could see us having a burst of people who suddenly want to get vaccinated in the fall when things start turning bad. Sure would be nice to be able to avoid that in the first place.

I think this is right, just from what I hear and read. 

We will probably have other variants. By the fall, we might not be seeing Delta anymore, it could just as well be another one with some combination of these similar mutations. 

I agree with you; I think more people will get vaccinated before the end of the year. I do think a few people were are off by the talk of boosters and when cases were down when they became eligible, they thought they might just as well wait for the first doses. There is a certain logic to that, I guess. 

2 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

I definitely think we'll need boosters targeted to new variants. 

I don’t how any of us here can say that when the scientists aren’t even sure.

I learn so much from this podcast, but this episode was particularly good and pertains to this discussion. https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-777/ 

The first hour is most of the content.
 

It talks about the concept of viral fitness vs transmissibility as the title says, and how the public conversation about transmissibility of variants is very muddled and inaccurate, but so much more.
There is a lot about vaccination, B and T cells, the differences between Covid and influenza vaccines and what they do, why most people should not need boosters with the current VOC (something said not only here, but many other experts), and an interesting note about flu vaccination and the debate over whether we should vaccinate children for flu only with an inactivated vaccine like FluMist, since other flu vaccines do not produce T cell responses and immune memory. (This is something I have wondered about for a long time). 
 

I plan to listen again, but other interesting points that I’ve heard before, elsewhere:

-assays for neutralization (in all the variant neutralization studies, for example) are not standardized for this virus among labs. So you can’t directly compare all the different studies you see.

-antibody assays are not standardized either. Different countries use different ones with different measurements.

-and this one is huge- we don’t have a correlate of protection for this virus the way we do for influenza. With influenza, when antibodies go below a certain level, you will get infections. We don’t know what this is for this virus, they are learning as they go. But flu vaccines don’t induce good T cell responses the way the Covid vaccines do. T cells protect from severe disease, which changes the whole picture, and they go into this a lot more.

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Penelope

[mommyoffive]

9 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

The idea that (1) schools can require some kids to wear masks while others don't and (2) teachers can (or should) be responsible for enforcing that, is just ridiculously impractical and unenforceable. There will be a few school districts that mandate masks for everyone and the rest will just let everyone drop them. Given how incredibly transmissible Delta is, I think this fall is going to be a huge mess for schools and colleges, and then everyone will wring their hands and say "how can this still be happening???" while doing nothing to actually prevent it from happening. 

I feel like the colleges around me have done a much better job managing it.  From what I hear there are going to either require the vaccine or that you have to test several times a week.  I hope they keep up all the things that they did last year.  One near us had the students test several times a week and then they would have to show on their phones that they were negative every time they stepped into a building on campus.  Obviously they had masks and things too.  But they also have the advantage that everyone on campus is able to get a vaccine based on age that middle and elem. schools don't have.  I had heard of some elementary schools doing random testing of the kids every week, but it wasn't happening around here.  I feel like the colleges are going to do more to control things because they need the college to stay open, kids be on campus, and all the money to keep rolling in.

[ieta_cassiopeia]

On 7/7/2021 at 2:07 AM, Sdel said:

I have to say….until they work out the myocarditis thing the vaccine is a hard no here for both me and my DD.  I have two male cousins who have had heart transplants due to myocarditis.  One is a second cousin who had a transplant when I was a teen, the other is my direct cousin who received his transplant around the same age as our second cousin was when he had his.

The BBC is reporting that a European Medicines Agency study found a small but statistically significant link between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis (2 per million for Pfizer, 1 per million for Moderna - but spread out over nearly 100 million people, many of whom have no especial predisposition to myocarditis). Young men were the most common group affected

OxfordAstrazeneca and Janssen had no reliably-linked cases, but in your position it would be wise to wait for more information before opting for either over Novovax (which wasn't in the study but as far as I know isn't connected to myocarditis).

Edited July 9, 2021 by ieta_cassiopeia
Providing the link to go with the explanation might be an idea...

[ktgrok]

27 minutes ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:

The BBC is reporting that a European Medicines Agency study found a small but statistically significant link between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis (2 per million for Pfizer, 1 per million for Moderna - but spread out over nearly 100 million people, many of whom have no especial predisposition to myocarditis). Young men were the most common group affected

OxfordAstrazeneca and Janssen had no reliably-linked cases, but in your position it would be wise to wait for more information before opting for either over Novovax (which wasn't in the study but as far as I know isn't connected to myocarditis).

This makes sense, in that it is happening in the "better" vaccines. Anything that invokes a strong immune response (including illness - the usual cause) can cause myocarditis. The mRNA vaccines invoke a very strong immune response, which is why they work so gosh darn well..but also why they are more likely to trigger autoimmune reactions than a less immunogenic vaccine. So...yeah. 

[catz]

I was very concerned about cardiac issues with the vaccines when my 20 year old son got vaccinated as someone who had a father die of cardiomyopathy caused by a virus.  These issues weren't super well known when the rest of us here were vaccinated.  My father was a potential candidate for heart transplant for a while.  Anyway, I hope people delaying because of this side affect are doing everything they can to avoid contracting covid in other ways because my 14 year old nephew spent 6 days in the hospital and has been following up with a cardiologist for months since developing MIS after covid and is still not able to be active and play sports.  I hope people are working with their doctors who know their medical history for recommendations.  

My 20 year old son  was fully vaccinated with Pfizer and did just fine with it.  He is 2 weeks post 2nd vax TODAY! HOORAY we are all fully vaxed here.  He had very similar post 2nd shot 2nd day ickiness like the rest of us, nothing else to report.  He took something twice day 2, the rest of us only took something once.  But was good to go morning of day 3 and no other complaints.  

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, FuzzyCatz said:

I was very concerned about cardiac issues with the vaccines when my 20 year old son got vaccinated as someone who had a father die of cardiomyopathy caused by a virus.  This issues weren't super well known when the rest of us here were vaccinated.  My father was a potential candidate for heart transplant for a while.  Anyway, I hope people delaying because of this side affect are doing everything they can to avoid contracting covid in other ways because my 14 year old nephew spent 6 days in the hospital and has been following up with a cardiologist for months since developing MIS after covid and is still not able to be active and play sports.  I hope people should work with their doctors who know their medical history for recommendations.  

My 20 year old son  was fully vaccinated with Pfizer and did just fine with it.  He is 2 weeks post 2nd vax TODAY! HOORAY we are all fully vaxed here.  He had very similar post 2nd shot 2nd day ickiness like the rest of us, nothing else to report.  He took something twice day 2, the rest of us only took something once.  But was good to go morning of day 3 and no other complaints.  

I would also bet that knowing about vaccine cardiac issues can also help make good decisions making bad outcomes less likely. Like, I bet things go better if you don't do strenuous cardiac activity after the vaccine... not that this completely eliminates the risk, but I bet it reduces it by a lot. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[ieta_cassiopeia]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

I would also bet that knowing about vaccine cardiac issues can also help make good decisions making bad outcomes less likely. Like, I bet things go better if you don't do strenuous cardiac activity after the vaccine... not that this completely eliminates the risk, but I bet it reduces it by a lot. 

Treating a vaccine appointment like a blood donation (where the advice is typically to eat and drink decent amounts of food, avoid anything strenous and generally be kind to yourself) is starting to sound more and more like good advice.

[catz]

17 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I would also bet that knowing about vaccine cardiac issues can also help make good decisions making bad outcomes less likely. Like, I bet things go better if you don't do strenuous cardiac activity after the vaccine... not that this completely eliminates the risk, but I bet it reduces it by a lot. 

I did see some other country was recommending young men lay low the week of their vaccine, so there may be some merit to some recommendations on self care is a good idea, monitoring for certain populations, etc?  I wonder if using anti inflammatories might help after vaccination too?

[Jaybee]

I'm in a low vax (and generally low case) state that is starting to see a rise in cases again. I am so very thankful that we took our vax-resistant ds to get vaccinated anyway, because he was not and will not be careful. I know some would disagree with our doing that, but he makes decisions that are not in his own best interests, health-wise, and we decided that while he was still a minor, we needed to do that for him.

[Roadrunner]

I am glad they filed for a booster. Keep in mind most of the world is eagerly waiting mRNA vaccines to arrive in their corners and many countries basically consider FDA approvals as a go for their countries as well. So I am glad at least the new vaccines shipping will be more adapted for a new variant. I think the ear vaccines need to evolve along with a virus. 

 

[Corraleno]

The apparent contradiction between "boosters may be needed as antibodies wane/variants evolve" and "boosters are unnecessary because the vaccines produce good memory cell response" is an artificial one. It's true that antibodies wane over time, it's true that Delta has characteristics that help it evade antibodies, and it's true that good memory cell response will enable the majority of fully vaccinated people to avoid severe illness and death (at least with the variants we have so far).

But none of those statements address the question of whether "avoiding severe illness or death" is really the only goal worth pursuing. If people (including those who run the CDC) think the potential for long covid is NBD, and we're not concerned with reducing infection and transmission rates as long as hospitalization and death rates are manageable, then boosters are not strictly necessary, at least for those who aren't elderly or immunocompromised.

But if a booster, especially one tweaked to better match Delta, could also reduce asymptomatic and mild infections and reduce transmission, why wouldn't we want to do that? I think the answers to that question are largely political rather than scientific and they don't address the question of whether boosters could potentially reduce infection and transmission, and whether that would be a worthy goal in itself.

 

[whitestavern]

2 hours ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:

The BBC is reporting that a European Medicines Agency study found a small but statistically significant link between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis (2 per million for Pfizer, 1 per million for Moderna - but spread out over nearly 100 million people, many of whom have no especial predisposition to myocarditis). Young men were the most common group affected

OxfordAstrazeneca and Janssen had no reliably-linked cases, but in your position it would be wise to wait for more information before opting for either over Novovax (which wasn't in the study but as far as I know isn't connected to myocarditis).

One person in the trial did get viral myocarditis. I am not familiar at all with the difference, if any, between that and regular myocarditis. 

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210705/Novavax-COVID-19-vaccine-demonstrates-7e9025-efficacy-against-SARS-CoV-2.aspx

[Penelope]

I don’t understand the assumption that Delta is the primary variant from here on out. The latest from PHE is that Delta now has spread numbers similar to Alpha. Is there any reason to think we won’t have another variant predominant a few months from now? 
 

There is not yet any clear and substantial evidence that symptoms following Covid are more significant or more common than after other common infections, so I think we are a long way from any premise that we will get regular shots to prevent asymptomatic infection or long Covid, even if maybe eventually that is true. Not that long Covid isn’t real, but you can’t study whether something is currently happening or being prevented if you don’t have a good definition or good epidemiology.
Preventing symptomatic infections, sure, no one wants to get sick from this if they don’t have to. But right now the rest of the world is still on fire. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Penelope

[mommyoffive]

23 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

The apparent contradiction between "boosters may be needed as antibodies wane/variants evolve" and "boosters are unnecessary because the vaccines produce good memory cell response" is an artificial one. It's true that antibodies wane over time, it's true that Delta has characteristics that help it evade antibodies, and it's true that good memory cell response will enable the majority of fully vaccinated people to avoid severe illness and death (at least with the variants we have so far).

But none of those statements address the question of whether "avoiding severe illness or death" is really the only goal worth pursuing. If people (including those who run the CDC) think the potential for long covid is NBD, and we're not concerned with reducing infection and transmission rates as long as hospitalization and death rates are manageable, then boosters are not strictly necessary, at least for those who aren't elderly or immunocompromised.

But if a booster, especially one tweaked to better match Delta, could also reduce asymptomatic and mild infections and reduce transmission, why wouldn't we want to do that? I think the answers to that question are largely political rather than scientific and they don't address the question of whether boosters could potentially reduce infection and transmission, and whether that would be a worthy goal in itself.

 

AGREED!   I want the booster.  Assuming someone who got Moderna could get it.  Honestly I am not following CDC or WHO's advice on a lot of things with Covid anymore.  I am making my own decisions.  I think they messed up a lot during this telling people we don't need masks and so on.  I never believed that and have worn a mask since March 2020.  I still am.  The more and more I find out about Delta the more and more I am masking indoors.  Ok sue me, I never stopped.    To me it isn't a big deal and I want that extra layer of protection.  I know the CDC is telling me I don't need to do that based on my vaccination status and that the rates are low in my area currently.  And maybe I don't.  Maybe my chances are so small.   But I really don't want covid.  Sure I might get a mild case because I am vaccinated, but lots of people who had mild cases still get long Covid.  I wish this wasn't all so political because I would love to have real information that would help me live my life during this time.   And maybe I am not someone that needs the booster, but I want it.  I want to have an extra layer especially if it is performing better against Delta. 

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, FuzzyCatz said:

I did see some other country was recommending young men lay low the week of their vaccine, so there may be some merit to some recommendations on self care is a good idea, monitoring for certain populations, etc?  I wonder if using anti inflammatories might help after vaccination too?

Singapore. I think that it is precautionary.

They don’t know that the myocarditis following the vaccine is autoimmune, or any kind of immune reaction. They don’t know why the vaccine leads to myocarditis. 
 

Usually, light exercise helps the immune response, but it does make sense to limit activity to prevent any stress on the heart. Don’t know if that will prevent anything, since they don’t know why it happens. 
 

I would think you would not want to take anything that could mask the symptoms, so I wouldn’t do that until cardiologists come up with something official. 

[Pen]

12 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I don’t understand the assumption that Delta is the primary variant from here on out. The latest from PHE is that Delta now has spread numbers similar to Alpha. Is there any reason to think we won’t have another variant predominant a few months from now? 

 

 

🤷‍♀️
Lambda rolling out ...   

[Roadrunner]

7 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

AGREED!   I want the booster.  Assuming someone who got Moderna could get it.  Honestly I am not following CDC or WHO's advice on a lot of things with Covid anymore.  I am making my own decisions.  I think they messed up a lot during this telling people we don't need masks and so on.  I never believed that and have worn a mask since March 2020.  I still am.  The more and more I find out about Delta the more and more I am masking indoors.  Ok sue me, I never stopped.    To me it isn't a big deal and I want that extra layer of protection.  I know the CDC is telling me I don't need to do that based on my vaccination status and that the rates are low in my area currently.  And maybe I don't.  Maybe my chances are so small.   But I really don't want covid.  Sure I might get a mild case because I am vaccinated, but lots of people who had mild cases still get long Covid.  I wish this wasn't all so political because I would love to have real information that would help me live my life during this time.   And maybe I am not someone that needs the booster, but I want it.  I want to have an extra layer especially if it is performing better against Delta. 

I think this is basically what CDC wants - for vaccinated to decide their own level of comfort.

I am very grateful that I don’t have to wear a mask. I live in a rural area and my community has a 70% vaccination rate right now. I am not around large crowds, and I don’t see a point of putting a mask on at a restaurant just to take it off while I am eating. I fully support those who don’t feel comfortable without a mask to put one on. If I were in a low vaccinated and high density area, I probably would mask indoors as well. 
 

Adding that I also want an option of the booster. I probably won’t give it to my kids, but as a high risk individual, I will be all for one. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Roadrunner

[Pen]

 

6 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

I would love to have real information

we probably mostly disagree, yet  I absolutely agree with this!!!

 

[Roadrunner]

3 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

🤷‍♀️
Lambda rolling out ...   

Lambada 💃💃🕺🤣🤣🤣

 

[mommyoffive]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

I think this is basically what CDC wants - for vaccinated to decide their own level of comfort.

I am very grateful that I don’t have to wear a mask. I live in a rural area and my community has a 70% vaccination rate right now. I am not around large crowds, and I don’t see a point of putting a mask on at a restaurant just to take it off while I am eating. I fully support those who don’t feel comfortable without a mask to put one on. If I were in a low vaccinated and high density area, I probably would mask indoors as well. 

Oh I wish we were 70% in my county.  I would feel so much more comfortable if we were.  My county is at 48% of adults fully vaccinated and and 39% of all residents fully vaccinated.  

The county where my kids do their activities in is a much higher rate.  77% of adults fully vaccinated and 66% of all residents fully vaccinated.  I will feel much better doing things there vs. here.

[mommyoffive]

7 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

we probably mostly disagree, yet  I absolutely agree with this!!!

 

Too funny.  I love that we can disagree and still find something we can agree on.  

[Corraleno]

33 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I don’t understand the assumption that Delta is the primary variant from here on out. The latest from PHE is that Delta now has spread numbers similar to Alpha. Is there any reason to think we won’t have another variant predominant a few months from now? 

Undoubtedly there will be more variants, but what we've seen so far is that variants are mutating in ways that make them more infectious, faster replicating, and more able to evade antibodies, not less infectious, slower replicating, and more easily destroyed by antibodies. And the more Delta spreads, the more likely there will be new mutations developing within Delta (e.g. Delta Plus).

Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and Novavax all use the same specially-tweaked spike protein in their vaccines, and as the virus accrues mutations in the areas of the spike protein that are specifically targeted by the vaccines, the less effective the vaccines will be. The issue isn't that Delta is uniquely dangerous and will be around forever, the issue is that the virus will continue to mutate in ways that make the vaccine less effective, and at some point we are going to need boosters. The question is do we wait until new variants evolve that may increase the hospitalization and death rates to "unacceptable" levels again, or do we try to be more proactive? Based on what's happened in the last year and a half, I'd say the answer to that is probably "Why be proactive when we can wait until the shit hits the fan and then flail around?" 

 

33 minutes ago, Penelope said:

There is not yet any clear and substantial evidence that symptoms following Covid are more significant or more common than after other common infections, so I think we are a long way from any premise that we will get regular shots to prevent asymptomatic infection or long Covid, even if maybe eventually that is true. Not that long Covid isn’t real, but you can’t study whether something is currently happening or being prevented if you don’t have a good definition or good epidemiology.

I'm not clear what you're saying here — long covid is real, but there's no evidence that it's worse than the after-effects of other common viruses? Have you read any of the studies on long covid? Are there any studies suggesting 1/3 to 2/3 of people who had the flu report continued, and even worsening, symptoms and "reduced quality of life" weeks or months afterwards? Because that is what studies are showing with covid. I'm going to put some of the studies in a separate post.

 

[Corraleno]

Some of the data on long covid:

"A post-acute outpatient service established in Italy (hereby referred to as the post-acute COVID-19 Italian study)³ reported persistence of symptoms in 87.4% of 143 patients discharged from hospital who recovered from acute COVID-19 at a mean follow-up of 60 d from the onset of the first symptom. Fatigue (53.1%), dyspnea (43.4%), joint pain (27.3%) and chest pain (21.7%) were the most commonly reported symptoms, with 55% of patients continuing to experience three or more symptoms. A decline in quality of life, as measured by the EuroQol visual analog scale, was noted in 44.1% of patients in this study.

A study focused on 150 survivors of non-critical COVID-19 from France similarly reported persistence of symptoms in two-thirds of individuals at 60 d follow-up, with one-third reporting feeling worse than at the onset of acute COVID-19 (ref. ²¹).

Other studies, including in-person prospective follow-up studies of 110 survivors in the United Kingdom at 8–12 weeks after hospital admission²² and 277 survivors in Spain at 10–14 weeks after disease onset²³, as well as survey studies of 100 COVID-19 survivors in the United Kingdom at 4–8 weeks post-discharge²⁴, 183 individuals in the United States at 35 d post-discharge²⁵ and 120 patients discharged from hospital in France, at 100 d following admission²⁶, reported similar findings. Fatigue, dyspnea and psychological distress, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and concentration and sleep abnormalities, were noted in approximately 30% or more study participants at the time of follow-up.

In a prospective cohort study from Wuhan, China, long-term consequences of acute COVID-19 were evaluated by comprehensive in-person evaluation of 1,733 patients at 6 months from symptom onset (hereby referred to as the post-acute COVID-19 Chinese study)⁵. The study utilized survey questionnaires, physical examination, 6-min walk tests (6MWT) and blood tests and, in selected cases, pulmonary function tests (PFTs), high-resolution computed tomography of the chest and ultrasonography to evaluate post-acute COVID-19 end organ injury. A majority of the patients (76%) reported at least one symptom. Similar to other studies, fatigue/muscular weakness was the most commonly reported symptom (63%), followed by sleep difficulties (26%) and anxiety/depression (23%).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01283-z

US study looking at insurance claims for 2 million covid patients:

• Of patients who had COVID-19, 23.2 percent had at least one post-COVID condition.

• Post-COVID conditions were found to a greater extent in patients who had more severe cases of COVID-19, but also in a substantial share of patients whose cases lacked symptoms. Of patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, the percentage that had a post-COVID condition was 50 percent; of patients who were symptomatic but not hospitalized, 27.5 percent; and of patients who were asymptomatic, 19 percent.

• The five most common post-COVID conditions across all ages, in order from most to least common, were pain, breathing difficulties, hyperlipidemia, malaise and fatigue, and hypertension.

• The ranking of the most common post-COVID conditions varied by age group. For example, in the pediatric population (0-18), pain and breathing difficulties were the top two conditions, as in the all-ages cohort, but intestinal issues, rather than hyperlipidemia, were the third most common.

• Most of the post-COVID conditions that were evaluated were associated more with females than males. In the case of 12 conditions, however, males more commonly had the condition diagnosed than females. For example, of patients who had post-COVID cardiac inflammation, 52 percent were male and 48 percent female. By age, the largest share (25.4 percent) with this condition was found in a young cohort—individuals aged 19-29.

• Of the four mental health conditions evaluated as post-COVID conditions, anxiety was associated with the highest percentage of patients after COVID-19 in all age groups. Depression was second, adjustment disorders third and tic disorders fourth.

• The odds of death 30 days or more after initial diagnosis with COVID-19 were 46 times higher for patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19 and discharged than patients who had not been hospitalized (odds ratio [OR]=46.020, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 34.778-60.897, P<0.001). Of COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized and discharged, 0.5 percent died 30 days or more after their initial diagnosis.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/A Detailed Study of Patients with Long-Haul COVID--An Analysis of Private Healthcare Claims--A FAIR Health White Paper.pdf

UK study:
37.7% of 76,155 symptomatic people post COVID-19 experienced at least one symptom, while 14.8% experienced three or more symptoms, lasting 12 weeks or more... Almost a third of people 8,771/28,713 (30.5%) with at least one symptom lasting 12 weeks or more reported having had severe COVID-19 symptom [i.e. 2/3 had mild or moderate cases]
https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/89844/9/REACT_long_covid_paper_final.pdf

Irish study:
"62% of patients did not feel back to full health and ... 47% of our cohort met the diagnostic criteria for fatigue, independent of initial severity of infection. This study highlights the persistence of ill health following SARS-CoV-2 infection that presents a serious burden to quality of life. The lack of association with infection severity highlights that this may be an issue for a large number of patients, and this should be used to inform management strategies for convalescent patients."  
https://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/post-covid-complications.pdf

Italian study on long covid in children:
"129 children diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and November, 2020 were enrolled (mean age of 11 4.4 years, 62 (48.1%) female). Subsequently, three developed Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (2.3%) and two myocarditis (1.6%). Patients were assessed on average 162.5 ± 113.7 days after COVID-19 microbiological diagnosis. 41.8% completely recovered, 35.7% had 1 or 2 symptoms and 22.5% had 3 or more. 52.7% had at least one symptom 120 days or more after diagnosis."
https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/89844/9/REACT_long_covid_paper_final.pdf

Edited July 9, 2021 by Corraleno

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, whitestavern said:

One person in the trial did get viral myocarditis. I am not familiar at all with the difference, if any, between that and regular myocarditis. 

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210705/Novavax-COVID-19-vaccine-demonstrates-7e9025-efficacy-against-SARS-CoV-2.aspx

myocarditis is just the term for heart inflammation. It can happen due to a virus, or other immune trigger. Sounds like that one was caused by a virus. 

[Melissa Louise]

Vaccine Q for my mum. 

She's 4 weeks out from her second AZ shot. So she's 8 weeks from her first.

We are in the middle of a Delta outbreak. Should I encourage her to get her second dose early? 

Thankfully my dad has his second dose in a few days. 

Edited July 10, 2021 by Melissa Louise
Added detail for clarity

[KSera]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

Vaccine Q for my mum. 

She's 4 weeks out from her second AZ shot. So she's 8 weeks from her first.

We are in the middle of a Delta outbreak. Should I encourage her to get her second dose early? 

Thankfully my dad has his second dose in a few days. 

I see a lot of studies trying to figure this out. They all seem confounded to me by the fact that protection builds as time goes by, so is the second dose at 12 weeks better because of the interval, or because it's been 12 weeks total time for immunity to build? This abc article suggests 8 weeks is the sweet spot where you get to full immunity sooner, without sacrificing much efficacy: https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-07-05/astrazeneca-vaccine-timing-doses/100259926

[wathe]

2 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

Vaccine Q for my mum. 

She's 4 weeks out from her second AZ shot. So she's 8 weeks from her first.

We are in the middle of a Delta outbreak. Should I encourage her to get her second dose early? 

Thankfully my dad has his second dose in a few days. 

8 weeks between shots is the current protocol for AZ here.

it’s a choice between pretty good immunity sooner (8 weeks between shots) vs maybe better immunity later (12 weeks between shots).  

Given your national situation, I think I would opt for pretty good immunity sooner.

 

[Pen]

20 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Too funny.  I love that we can disagree and still find something we can agree on.  

🙂
It might be that if full and transparent information were readily available we would end up agreeing more in general

[Mona]

On 7/9/2021 at 3:43 PM, Pen said:

 

🤷‍♀️
Lambda rolling out ...   

It didn’t last long. I think we are now on Epsilon. (7/7/21) https://nypost.com/2021/07/07/california-epsilon-strain-of-covid-19-could-evade-vaccines-study/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter

 

[freesia]

Ugh, vaccinated (Moderna) dh just got a positive rapid test.  He's had a fever since Weds and I've had him totally isolated (bc I didn't want him to give it to the kids who were going to go to camp this next week.)  He had a negative rapid Wed, the positive today. Ugh.ugh.ugh.  It's crazy bc we are in a high vax area with low case numbers,  and he is definitely careful (still double masks at the grocery store.)  Maybe the PCR will come back negative.....

[mommyoffive]

32 minutes ago, freesia said:

Ugh, vaccinated (Moderna) dh just got a positive rapid test.  He's had a fever since Weds and I've had him totally isolated (bc I didn't want him to give it to the kids who were going to go to camp this next week.)  He had a negative rapid Wed, the positive today. Ugh.ugh.ugh.  It's crazy bc we are in a high vax area with low case numbers,  and he is definitely careful (still double masks at the grocery store.)  Maybe the PCR will come back negative.....

Oh wow.  That sucks so bad.  I am so sorry.  It makes me so worried about things when I hear things like that.   I hope that he feels better soon and that everyone else can avoid it.    

Edited July 10, 2021 by mommyoffive

[KSera]

38 minutes ago, freesia said:

Ugh, vaccinated (Moderna) dh just got a positive rapid test.  He's had a fever since Weds and I've had him totally isolated (bc I didn't want him to give it to the kids who were going to go to camp this next week.)  He had a negative rapid Wed, the positive today. Ugh.ugh.ugh.  It's crazy bc we are in a high vax area with low case numbers,  and he is definitely careful (still double masks at the grocery store.)  Maybe the PCR will come back negative.....

Oh, crud! That is not good news at all. does he know anyone who currently has it? I’ll be hoping for you guys that it was a false positive and the PCR comes back negative.

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Mona said:

It didn’t last long. I think we are now on Epsilon. (7/7/21) https://nypost.com/2021/07/07/california-epsilon-strain-of-covid-19-could-evade-vaccines-study/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter

 

mhmm 

all the Greek letters at least through lambda are in use for “variants” supposed to be circulating... 

I guess Epsilon is there in calif and I think iota or maybe kappa in New York...

 

Lambda supposed to be significantly sweeping South America and has reached UK

 

i have not heard from mu or nu ... 

[freesia]

23 minutes ago, KSera said:

Oh, crud! That is not good news at all. does he know anyone who currently has it? I’ll be hoping for you guys that it was a false positive and the PCR comes back negative.

No, no one. It’s mystifying. 

Dd’s camp, which is camp postponed from last year, was able to push her to another week—but she’ll miss camp with her friends.  Luckily she makes friends easily. I just really wanted her to go with these other girls as they’ve been waiting so long for this ( since we registered in Nov 2019)

[KSera]

6 minutes ago, Pen said:

all the Greek letters at least through lambda are in use for “variants” supposed to be circulating... 

If people would get vaccinated, we wouldn't have so many variants circulating, and we wouldn't have ten thousand people dying of Covid every month, and increasing by the day.

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Mona said:

It didn’t last long. I think we are now on Epsilon. (7/7/21) https://nypost.com/2021/07/07/california-epsilon-strain-of-covid-19-could-evade-vaccines-study/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter

 

Epsilon has been around for almost a year. It has the same L452R mutation as Delta, which helps it evade antibodies (the NY variant, Iota, has this mutation as well). But it doesn't seem to be outcompeting Delta, which is now the dominant strain in CA, as well as the US. Epsilon helped drive the big spike in CA last fall & winter, and then Alpha dominated in April/May, and now Delta is starting to push cases back up in CA. 

Lambda (Peru) has two mutations in common with Delta, and although it seems to be more infectious than either Gamma (Brazil) or Alpha, I haven't seen any reports so far that it is worse than Delta.

[Not_a_Number]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

Ugh, vaccinated (Moderna) dh just got a positive rapid test.  He's had a fever since Weds and I've had him totally isolated (bc I didn't want him to give it to the kids who were going to go to camp this next week.)  He had a negative rapid Wed, the positive today. Ugh.ugh.ugh.  It's crazy bc we are in a high vax area with low case numbers,  and he is definitely careful (still double masks at the grocery store.)  Maybe the PCR will come back negative.....

Oh no 😞 . I hope the PCR comes back negative!! Keep us updated. 

[mommyoffive]

Pfizer expected to brief U.S. officials in coming days on the need for a booster shot (msn.com)

 

NY uptick in COVID-19 cases as vaccination rates slowly rise (msn.com)

Edited July 11, 2021 by mommyoffive

[ieta_cassiopeia]

On 7/9/2021 at 8:28 PM, whitestavern said:

One person in the trial did get viral myocarditis. I am not familiar at all with the difference, if any, between that and regular myocarditis. 

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210705/Novavax-COVID-19-vaccine-demonstrates-7e9025-efficacy-against-SARS-CoV-2.aspx

It's a type of myocarditis - there are others (I'm not sure the study specified the other options and their incidence),

[Laura Corin]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d5afea6e-e18e-11eb-b3d5-485ebee7ab7d?shareToken=f5c0d7a72f0e8628f7812d47ccb6f754

 

[Catwoman]

20 hours ago, freesia said:

Ugh, vaccinated (Moderna) dh just got a positive rapid test.  He's had a fever since Weds and I've had him totally isolated (bc I didn't want him to give it to the kids who were going to go to camp this next week.)  He had a negative rapid Wed, the positive today. Ugh.ugh.ugh.  It's crazy bc we are in a high vax area with low case numbers,  and he is definitely careful (still double masks at the grocery store.)  Maybe the PCR will come back negative.....

Oh no! That’s terrible! How is he feeling today?

When will he get the results of the PCR test? 

It was so smart of you to immediately isolate him from the rest of the family. Hopefully, no one else will catch whatever he has (and obviously I hope it’s not Covid!)