COVID-19 treatment and vaccine update thread

[Daehawk]

27+ hours post 2nd shot. This arm is 3x more sore than the first one was. But I can still use it and sleep on it. Other than that I seem good.

Well I mean the 5g has settled into my nipple. Some secret organization is offering me incentives to do their bidding. Very tempting. They say not to be surprised when the other nipple kicks in. Strangely they didn't mention my other two nipples. Shall see in the future.

[Jaymon]

It does bring me genuine happiness to see so many here getting vaccinated - truly.

So, Smoove - you have successfully pulled off emergency management during a pandemic. It's just that it was a different kind of community you did it for than what you expected.

Definitely not the route I'd imagined but I'm grateful to have had the opportunity. That being said, I'd be ok with less opportunity for a bit.

The path may be rocky, but we are still following it.

[Smoove_B]

I believe the CDC just voted 14-0 in favor of authorizing Pfizer for anyone over the age of 12.

[Zaxxon]

I believe the CDC just voted 14-0 in favor of authorizing Pfizer for anyone over the age of 12.

BAM.

[Smoove_B]

Still waiting to hear on how it will be rolled out, officially. Not sure if they're extending legal protections to pharmacists or others providing the vaccine - in the same way that I can only get influenza vaccine at a local pharmacy if I'm over 18. If they are going to require that 12-15 year old go to their PCP to get the vaccine...that's going to be a problem. Logically, I can't imagine that will be a requirement but I'm also having a hard time believing all parents will want to take their kids to a random clinic or pop-up location.

There's real potential here to fumble things. Here's hoping...

EDIT: Oh, and brace yourselves. Anti-vax army has officially mobilized.

[El Guapo]

Still waiting to hear on how it will be rolled out, officially. Not sure if they're extending legal protections to pharmacists or others providing the vaccine - in the same way that I can only get influenza vaccine at a local pharmacy if I'm over 18. If they are going to require that 12-15 year old go to their PCP to get the vaccine...that's going to be a problem. Logically, I can't imagine that will be a requirement but I'm also having a hard time believing all parents will want to take their kids to a random clinic or pop-up location.

There's real potential here to fumble things. Here's hoping...

EDIT: Oh, and brace yourselves. Anti-vax army has officially mobilized.

As far as I can tell the kids in my daughter's 6th grade class all had vaccination appointments scheduled within a day of the FDA approving Pfizer for 12+ (even before the CDC vote, which seems odds to me). Some of the appointments are for as soon as tomorrow.

So....rollout seems to be going fine in MA, I guess.

[Smoove_B]

I'd heard of a few parts of NJ where the same thing was happening - 12+ were being given appointments for Friday, ahead of the approval. I guess everyone believed it was going to happen and the supply is greater than general demand. Depending on how any given community responds here, it will likely have a significant impact on future outlook. From a practical sense, it will likely change a lot of summer plans and options for many families, which is also great.

Still waiting to hear about the next cohort...

[Kraken]

Saturday will make two weeks since my second shot. We're going to celebrate by getting brunch outdoors, weather permitting, for the first time since last October.

Also, yesterday was the first day since last September that Mass. recorded zero Covid deaths, and new infections were under 500. If those trends continue for another month, I'm going to dine indoors for the first time since March '20.

[stessier]

Appears we (the US) are out of J&J vaccine due to the debacle with Emergent.

[LordMortis]

Saturday will make two weeks since my second shot. We're going to celebrate by getting brunch outdoors, weather permitting, for the first time since last October.

Sunday was my two week date. Celebration is next Saturday where I will be gaming. In a room with other people.

Also, yesterday was the first day since last September that Mass. recorded zero Covid deaths, and new infections were under 500. If those trends continue for another month, I'm going to dine indoors for the first time since March '20.

Nope. But I am finally open the the idea of dining in out, out doors. It would be nice to take my parents out to some patio or pavilion somewhere. Only the restaurant world is already packed indoors and out around here and quite frankly if I was going to take the jump to restaurant eating to spend time with my parents, I'd want to be leisurely and I don't think restaurants both being constantly packed and having limited capacity (for I don't know how much longer) appreciate me wanting to take a table for couple of hours to eat and chat and relax.

Edit: It looks like dining room restriction in state are set to be re-evaluated on May 24th. With how bad we still are, I can't see how we wouldn't extend restrictions. With how insane we are, I can't see how we can extend restrictions.

[hitbyambulance]

very sore injection site, but now with light-headedess and feeling somewhat chilled - also had some weird joint pain, but i'm honestly not sure if it's related, since these were bothering me pre-second-dose. kept waking up, and couldn't go back to sleep after 5:30AM - only a few hours gotten. rather unable to focus, so it is PTO day

this was 18 hours after, which was the closest i came to a rough patch. went back to bed for a few hours and 27 hours later, i'm feeling low on energy, but much improved. might even go back to work now...

[jztemple2]

Edit: It looks like dining room restriction in state are set to be re-evaluated on May 24th. With how bad we still are, I can't see how we wouldn't extend restrictions. With how insane we are, I can't see how we can extend restrictions.

Here in Florida, with the governor having banned local and county government from imposing mask or capacity limits , it's up to the individual businesses to decide what they wish to do. Last week in Naples we ate out in restaurants where all the staff were masked and other ones where it seemed to be mask optional for staff and customers. Still most businesses are requesting (not requiring) that masks be worn by customers till they are seated.

[Kraken]

if I was going to take the jump to restaurant eating to spend time with my parents, I'd want to be leisurely and I don't think restaurants both being constantly packed and having limited capacity (for I don't know how much longer) appreciate me wanting to take a table for couple of hours to eat and chat and relax.

I have our favorite breakfast place in mind. Breakfast is fairly quick, no lingering over drinks. We'd be in and out in under an hour. But that depends on the state numbers continuing to drop as the legions of vaccinated continue to grow for another few weeks -- we're on a good path for both.

[Daehawk]

I hope I dont jinx myself here. I bought a bunch of soup yesterday thinking the 2nd shot would make me pretty sick for a few days. But so far so good. My arm is less sore tonight. Will probably be worse again in the morn like it was this morn. But other than that Im fine. From horror stories I went in expecting worse. Still got my two shots though. Im happy. And now I got soup for a while

Maybe my immune system just sucks "Hey look its COVID. Ehhhh let it be, maybe it will go away"

Or its super good and effective. Yaaa right.

[Max Peck]

I thought there was a company in Montreal working on a vaccine? What happened to that?

My parents actually think Canada's doing really well, and that we're in a good place right now. And I don't really know how to respond to that.

I don't know if either of these is the same company that you are thinking of, but the CBC mentioned:

By an odd coincidence, the two companies with major operations in Canada, GSK and Sanofi, co-developed a COVID-19 vaccine product but announced a "delay" last year after it failed to produce sufficient results in clinical trials.

The federal government is spending $173 million to help Quebec City-based Medicago develop a COVID-19 vaccine and build a large plant to produce it.

The vaccine is now in the third and final stage of clinical trial testing. A relatively new player — the company has been privately held since 2013 — Medicago has partnered with GSK to help launch the product.

Additionally, we have the NRC/Novavax partnership:

In February, the government announced a partnership with the Maryland-based company Novavax to produce its promising COVID-19 vaccine at this government-owned plant.

But the first Canadian-made Novavax vials won't be produced until the end of this year at the earliest — well after the point when every Canadian is supposed to be inoculated against COVID-19, according to the federal government's timeline.

A spokesperson for the National Research Council (NRC) told CBC News "construction for the biologics manufacturing centre, which is happening at an accelerated rate, is proceeding very well and is on schedule to be completed by end of July 2021."

Going by the numbers, apparently your parents aren't exactly wrong (in the sense of Canada doing well in the context of how well we can possibly do with the vaccine supply constraints under which we have to operate). From what I've read, while we suck compared to the US and UK, we're now doing better than average compared to the remaining G20 nations. Our vaccination numbers look horrible if you focus on the fully-vaccinated stats, but that is an artifact of delaying the second dose for most people in order to protect more people sooner rather than later, and the bias should self-correct after we close the gap and catch up on second doses.

The nation's vaccination campaign has improved in recent weeks after a slow start marred by production delays and missed deliveries. Canada is now performing better than most other countries in the G20 but it's still being outpaced by at least two other countries: the United Kingdom and the United States.

An estimated 231 million vaccine doses have been administered so far in the U.S. and 37 per cent of the American adult population has been fully vaccinated with two doses. Among people over the age of 18, 54 per cent of Americans have had at least one dose.

In the U.K., more than 47 million doses have been deployed and 64 per cent of all Britons have had at least one dose.

Canada has fully vaccinated just three per cent of its population — a low figure explained in part by the long interval between shots — while 30 per cent have had at least one shot.

We're not doing as well as I'd like, but I do feel that we're doing about as well as can be expected with all the problems that Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have each had at one time or another in delivering shipments on schedule. Personally, over the course of a little more than a week I went from expecting to be vaccinated (probably with AZ) sometime around the end of June to having an arm full of Pfizer/BioNTech, so my own POV is perhaps understandably skewed to seeing the situation as improving very rapidly.

[El Guapo]

My wife got her second shot (Pfizer) yesterday. Some tiredness today and definitely feeling under the weather this everning...seems to have had a rougher time of it than I did. But sleeping now, and should be fine tomorrow.

[Daehawk]

She can have some of my stockpiled soup.

[Rumpy]

I don't know if either of these is the same company that you are thinking of, but the CBC mentioned:

Yeah, the thought did cross my mind when you initially posted about it. If it is the same one, kind of shows how many pitfalls we've endured throughout this.

And yeah, to clarify, I do think we're doing about as well as we can considering what we're up against, but I don't think I would consider that we're doing really well on a global average. I don't think I've heard of any other country having their doses so far apart like we do, and I guess maybe that's a source of anxiety when I see fully vaccinated stats when it feels like we're so far behind. But what can we do, right? All we can do is sit tight at this point.

[stessier]

Got my 14 year old an appt at 3:45pm today (Thursday)! Now it's a race to see which happens first - 6-11 year olds get approved or my 11 year old levels up on Aug 6th.

[Smoove_B]

It's going to be be close (but I'd bet on the birthday). My latest understanding (as of this morning) is that the next application (1-11 year olds, I think) will be in September, but I have no idea if it's late or early. Then it's infants (6 months - 1 year).

[Blackhawk]

Caiden will be the last in the family to be fully vaccinated. We're in the car now on the way to his second Pfizer.

[Holman]

My 14yo has an appointment for his first shot on Tuesday. He's the last in the family without the vaccine.

[Blackhawk]

Caiden will be the last in the family to be fully vaccinated. We're in the car now on the way to his second Pfizer.

And done.

[AWS260]

If you have an <12 kid and want to get them vaccinated sooner, you could look for clinical trials in your area.

This is Pfizer's study: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04816643
This is Moderna's: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04796896

In both, if you scroll down to "Locations" it will show you every site that is participating in the study. None in my neck of the woods, unfortunately.

[coopasonic]

If you have an <12 kid and want to get them vaccinated sooner, you could look for clinical trials in your area.

Just be aware your child could also be in the control group and possibly end up getting the real vaccine later than otherwise possible.

[Max Peck]

I don't know if either of these is the same company that you are thinking of, but the CBC mentioned:

Yeah, the thought did cross my mind when you initially posted about it. If it is the same one, kind of shows how many pitfalls we've endured throughout this.

And yeah, to clarify, I do think we're doing about as well as we can considering what we're up against, but I don't think I would consider that we're doing really well on a global average. I don't think I've heard of any other country having their doses so far apart like we do, and I guess maybe that's a source of anxiety when I see fully vaccinated stats when it feels like we're so far behind. But what can we do, right? All we can do is sit tight at this point.

I was very skeptical about the extended delay when it was first proposed, but it seems to be backed up by clinical trials and real world data, so I've come around to thinking it was the right call.

"While studies have not yet collected four months of data on vaccine effectiveness after the first dose, the first two months of real world effectiveness are showing sustained high levels of protection," NACI said.

Since first doses of all three vaccines have been shown to dramatically increase immunity to the disease, or to significantly reduce the illness associated with contracting COVID-19, the committee said stretching the interval would help protect more Canadians sooner.

NACI said that it reviewed evidence from two clinical trials that looked at how effective the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were after a single dose.

Those studies, NACI said, showed the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines started providing some level of protection 12 to 14 days after the first dose. By the time the second dose was administered — 19 to 42 days after the first — the first shot was shown to be 92 per cent effective.

[Zaxxon]

If you have an <12 kid and want to get them vaccinated sooner, you could look for clinical trials in your area.

Just be aware your child could also be in the control group and possibly end up getting the real vaccine later than otherwise possible.

Yeah, we're on the fence. 2/3 chance of getting the real shot in June (but with a sub-chance that your dose isn't the ultimately-decided one) vs 1/3 of being a control and therefore getting the actual shot at the 6-mo mark (Dec). Tough call.

[Rumpy]

I was very skeptical about the extended delay when it was first proposed, but it seems to be backed up by clinical trials and real world data, so I've come around to thinking it was the right call.

Yeah, so was I, and I'm glad they eventually found a solution. Although what's made me nervous are the new strains vs the rate we've been vaccinating. It ends up feeling like we're quite helpless.

[paulbaxter]

New CDC guidance today essentially removes mask mandates indoors and out for fully vaxxed people. I call that good news.

[Blackhawk]

I call it uncomfortable news.

[Scuzz]

We just heard that news as well. My wife and daughter were made a little uneasy by it. I welcome it, for the most part. I expect non-vaxxed people to remove their masks too and that there will be a spike of people who lied about getting the shots. But that's on them at this point.

[stessier]

We just heard that news as well. My wife and daughter were made a little uneasy by it. I welcome it, for the most part. I expect non-vaxxed people to remove their masks too and that there will be a spike of people who lied about getting the shots. But that's on them at this point.

That's where I'd be if both my kids had the shot. As it is, I'm hesitant to totally throw caution to the wind as I know the latest I'll have to wait is Sept 10th to have the whole family 2 weeks post second shot.

[jztemple2]

We just heard that news as well. My wife and daughter were made a little uneasy by it. I welcome it, for the most part. I expect non-vaxxed people to remove their masks too and that there will be a spike of people who lied about getting the shots. But that's on them at this point.

I think that probably a lot of those non-vaxxed people with the "attitude" have been going around without masks anyway, at least in my location since mask wearing isn't mandatory. Mostly folks have been wearing masks just because it is the considerate thing to do, even if it isn't theoretically necessary.

My wife and I will probably keep wearing masks since we've gotten used to it... well, she has. Sometimes she'll forget she still has the mask on and keep it on in the house or outside. I chuckle at this since I had to nag her a bit to finally get her to wear it consistently last year. Me, I keep one in each car and still forget to put it on when I head into a store or restaurant, so I have to scurry back to get it. But I always do, because I never want to be thought of as inconsiderate.

[Xmann]

Great news. However, I'll still be wearing a mask for the foreseeable future. My health is doing so much better and I just want to ride this out a bit longer.

[Blackhawk]

We will switch to lighter masks (cloth vs the KN95s) , but we'll generally wear them for the same activities.

[Daehawk]

Have to search hard but can barely detect any soreness in my arm. So all good. A little over 1 more week and I should be safe as can be.

Going back to a cloth mask for the last bit might be a good idea. I wore a cloth one for 2020 and could breath. But I could do that thanks to simply breathing from the top of the mask. Not a lot of coverage lol. I got some KN95 this year and they actually do a great job but hard to breath in them. Recirculates some CO2. Now to get used to cutting down masks and then stopping.

I never did have any test done so I dont know if I ever did have it or make any antibodies in my blood. I dont think I did either.

[Lorini]

Who knows when California will remove the mask mandate. Without a way to show vaccination on your phone, that guidance is dead in the water here.

[jztemple2]

Who knows when California will remove the mask mandate. Without a way to show vaccination on your phone, that guidance is dead in the water here.

Confused. Do Californians get vaccinations cards? How does this relate to your phone? Wondering...

[dbt1949]

Well, I for one don't plan on wearing a mask anymore where it is not mandatory.

[Rumpy]

Who knows when California will remove the mask mandate. Without a way to show vaccination on your phone, that guidance is dead in the water here.

Confused. Do Californians get vaccinations cards? How does this relate to your phone? Wondering...

Maybe she means the Covid-positive tracker? Could be there's a way to show that you've also been vaccinated that way.