#flu. covid and allergies all have the same symptoms and affect me the same way

[nightdecors]

Took flu medicine, pain medicine, pain medicine. IDK whats wrooong

[appalachiananarchist]

1. Vaccine data on preventing disease

I will start this post by summarizing (hopefully as simply as I can) a handful of studies pertaining to how well the vaccines work at preventing disease. I will start by looking at some of the early vaccine studies for the mRNA vaccines (as these are the ones I have researched most heavily). These are older studies done back before vaccine distribution really got big. In fact, I remember doing a journal club meeting on one of these articles sometime late last fall.

The first is one of the Pfizer studies. This one excluded people with compromised immunity which I understand, but angered me greatly when it came out (as a person with compromised immunity). Note that it was designed and funded by Pfizer, though when you look at the protocol and stats it appears well-designed. Like other studies discussed here, infection with COVID-19 used the FDA definition which is a positive test with at least one symptom (which can be basically anything). However, in summary, they found that a 2-dose regimen offered 95% protection against COVID-19 infection per the above definition. (SOURCE)

The second study (on Moderna) was funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the study protocol was designed by Moderna with their assistance. This study also used the FDA definition of COVID-19 as a positive test with a symptom and excluded the immune compromised. However, it found that a vaccination was 94.1% efficacious in preventing COVID-19 infection. (SOURCE)

Now that that part is out of the way I wanted to go over some more real-world data; that is, how are these vaccines actually functioning out there? Are they working on a population level like these studies suggest they ought to? Well...

The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from April through July of 2021 shows that vaccination reduces chances of catching COVID 5 fold. This report was important in examining how the vaccines are responding since the delta variant of COVID-19 has started to surge. (SOURCE)

A study out of California found in July of 2021 that COVID-19 infection rates in unvaccinated people are ~5X higher than in vaccinated people. (SOURCE) They do raise the concerns that more studies are needed on how long immunity lasts and whether it will wane. 

Another study examined COVID-19 vaccination effectiveness among health care workers, a group that is heavily exposed to COVID-19. They looked at whether the vaccines would prevent disease (in their study, defined as a positive test with at least one symptom). They specifically looked at the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna). The study found "a single dose...to be 82% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and 2 doses to be 94% effective." (SOURCE)

And before you say "but those were only symptomatic cases!" here is another study also looking at health care workers. This study spanning  December 2020-March 2021 basically tested all of their enrollees for 13 weeks and found that those who received 1 vaccine dose had 80% lower chances of getting COVID, while those with 2 doses had a 90% lower chance of getting COVID. This testing was done regardless of symptom burden. (SOURCE)

There is ongoing data collection on how long immunity lasts with some new reports (warning - following study is not yet peer reviewed) suggests that vaccine efficacy may drop to ~85% after 6 months in preventing disease, but efficacy in preventing severe disease remains very high, at 97%. Still, though, 85% is pretty good. (SOURCE)

So here are just a TEENY TINY number of the many studies coming out regarding the vaccines. I could sit here and list so many more, but then this post would be way too bloated and repetitive because they all say the same thing: the vaccine works. This conclusion is both consistent and reproducible, which when talking about scientific studies, means there is some good research backing it up. And before anyone says anything--YES, you can still catch COVID after getting a vaccine. Nothing works 100% of the time. Just because my car has an air bag and I use seat belts doesn't mean I won't get injured if I crash my car. But based on the available data, it works well in preventing infection in a lot of people, and furthermore, there is one other MAJOR benefit to the vaccine which I will discuss below.

2. Vaccine data on preventing severe disease:

Probably the most important realization that has come out of the past few months is our understanding of how robustly these vaccines effect disease course and severity. I am from eastern KY so one of the big hospital systems in my area is Appalachian Regional Health, which spans 13 facilities. According to their latest stats, they have 213 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 16 are vaccinated. That means a little over 92% of the COVID patients there sick enough to need hospitalized are unvaccinated. For further reference, another major hospital in the region, Pikeville Medical, today reported that 70 of their 88 hospitalized COVID patients (~80%) are unvaccinated, and 20 their 24 (83%) ICU COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Another regional hospital, Kings Daughters, had recently reported that 86.5% of those hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated and 100% of COVID patients in their ICU are unvaccinated. So before I even get to national statistics, you can look at these numbers as already see a trend, and I would hope you can see that these numbers are way too high and too consistent to be coincidence. For sources on these numbers you can visit the ARH, PMC, & KDMC websites or facebook pages where they post their stats (HERE, HERE, and HERE)

Now to post a few studies backing this up:

A recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (we talked about this one earlier) shows that vaccination reduces chances of hospitalization due to COVID-19 by ten fold. (SOURCE) The same report shows that vaccination reduces the risk of death due to COVID-19 by ten fold, as well!

Another recent study that incorporated delta variant data into their research has found that "unvaccinated adults aged ≥18 years are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized compared with vaccinated adults." (SOURCE).

Another study coming out of California, also post-delta surge, showed similar results, with hospitalization rates ~29X higher in unvaccinated people. (SOURCE)

Another study looked at how the vaccine protects adults over age 65, which is going to be a more vulnerable group. It found that adults >65 who received 1 dose of a COVID vaccine saw a 64% reduction in hospitalization if they contracted disease, and those with 2 doses saw a 94% reduction in hospitalization with disease. (SOURCE)

To me, studies like these are really important. What we are seeing over and over again right now is that our health care system is being absolutely flooded by unvaccinated COVID patients who need to be hospitalized. This is stressing the health system in ways it was not built to endure. We do not have enough equipment or staff to manage the volume of patients we are seeing. 

Sadly, this does not just affect COVID patients. When a bunch of unvaccinated people get sick and take up ICU beds, that means anyone who gets sick with non-COVID problems, like strokes and heart attacks, also suffer when there aren't beds left for them. For example, your grandmother who developed a bad bacterial pneumonia and is in respiratory distress may die because an unvaccinated COVID-19 patient got there first and took the last vent in the hospital, and there aren’t any ICU beds to transfer her to nearby because the wait lists are all so long because all the ICUs are also filled with unvaccinated COVID patients. I'd argue this is the biggest problem we are facing right now regarding the pandemic even if this problem is invisible to people who don't work in healthcare. Please believe me when I say this: we are drowning, and we are drowning because of unvaccinated COVID patients who are getting severely ill. This is completely unnecessary and avoidable when we are seeing over and over again that vaccination does wonders to prevent you from getting sick enough to need the hospital at all.

Don’t believe me still? I want each of you reading this to visit the webpage for some of your local hospitals. Most of them are posting daily or weekly COVID admission and death statistics. Just take a look at them. Take a look at who is getting admitted and who is dying.

3. Vaccine safety:

Any vaccine, medication, herbal supplement, or what have you that goes into your body carries the risk of an adverse side effect. As a result each of us has to ask ourselves, do the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks? To answer that we need to better understand the risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, and that means turning back to the data we have available. 

According to NYT Vaccine Tracker, there have been 5.73 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide since its release. This generates an abundance of data for us to work with--more than we have for most medications you take every day--in regards to understanding safety profiles of these immunizations. Given that impressive number, we are by no means seeing widespread death or disability popping up due to the vaccine, but let's get more specific. We have seen a couple common possible adverse effects:

Flu-like symptoms: Most common by far is going to be flu-like symptoms or redness/pain at the injection site. This is actually a good side effect because it means that the vaccine is doing what it is meant to do. I won't talk much more about this one because I doubt flu-like symptoms are the reason people are scared of the vaccine. But for most of you, if you have any side effects at all, this will be as bad as it gets. You are more likely to have these symptoms after dose #2.

Anaphylaxis: Anaphylaxis can occur in anyone when you encounter a substance you have a try allergy to. This is going to be a rare side effect (2 to 5 people per million, or 0.00025%), but is also why you are asked to wait 15-30 minutes to be monitored after receiving your vaccine. That way if you show any signs of distress you can be given immediate treatment. Any time you get a vaccine or start a new medicine a severe allergy is a possible reaction, but if you already KNOW that you are highly allergic to something in the vaccine, you should not receive it.

TTP: This is a disorder that causes abnormal clotting or bleeding. It seems to be associated exclusively with the J&J or AstraZeneca adenoviral-vector vaccines based on current data trends. While rare, this is going to be the most serious adverse effect from the immunization. Data suggest the highest risk is for women under 50, but it is still remarkably rare with only 45 confirmed cases of TTP after over 14 million vaccine doses given. This is an incredibly, incredibly low incidence. Of note, however, patients with the actual COVID-19 virus have a SIGNIFICANTLY increased risk of clotting, especially in severe disease. This increased risk may be due to the production of auto-antibodies in response to COVID-19 infection. Summary: your risk of a blood clot is much higher with the actual virus than the vaccine.

Myocarditis/Pericarditis: These are conditions involving inflammation around the heart tissues or heart muscle. There does appear to be an increased rate of myo/pericarditis after vaccination. This is more common in teenaged males who received an mRNA vaccine (such as Moderna or Pfizer). This is also very rare. According to VAERS, 1404 cases of possible myo/pericarditis were reported after vaccination through September of 2021, though only 817 were able to be confirmed. A CDC report from June 2021 estimated about 60 cases of myo/pericarditis may develop per 1 million vaccine series completed (if you are male aged 12-17; otherwise the rate is lower). However, that same report also estimated the prevention of 71 ICU admissions, 2 death, and 215 hospitalizations among that same group per million vaccines given. Again it is a risk-benefit discussion, but here the numbers definitely point to a benefit overall. Vaccine-induced myocarditis and/or pericarditis are generally one-time events with an excellent prognosis, so rarely represent a threat to life. As the authors of the study linked above stated, "The absolute incidence was extremely low, cases were mild, and all patients recovered. Fear of myocarditis or pericarditis should not influence COVID-19 vaccine decisions."

Guillain-Barré Syndrome: This is a disorder of the nervous system that can cause temporary weakness and paralysis. It is commonly seen after immunizations or infections with various pathogens. It has been associated with adenovirus-vector vaccines (J&J, AstraZeneca) at a very low rate (about 0.0008%) with J&J reporting ~100 cases per 12.2 million doses per VAERS data, and 227 cases out of 51.4 million doses given per EU/EEA to the EMA again through June 2021. People with a history of Guillan-barre are more likely to get it again, so your risk is probably slightly higher if you have had issues with this before, so people with this history may want to opt for an mRNA vaccine which has not been associated with this. 

4. Addressing Common Concerns

If the vaccine works, why do you feel unsafe if I don't get it? A vaccinated person is more protected from you than if they were not vaccinated, but no vaccine (or medical treatment in general) works 100% of the time, so there is always a risk of spreading disease no matter what. This is true for every single vaccine in history so COVID shots aren't special in this way. The data supports indisputibly that the vaccine reduces the RISK of getting COVID, but does not protect against it perfectly, so people should still use common sense. Also, vaccine works much, much better when everyone gets them, which is why vaccinated people enourage others to get the shot too. Think about it. Most of the studies I linked said the vaccines were in the range of 90-95% effective at preventing disease. If everyone in the room is vaccinated, the chances any of them (with their 90-95% protection) are infected and spreading COVID is going to be lower than a room of unvaccinated people, who have no protection against disease. Think now of yourself as a vaccinated bystander inside each of those rooms. In room 1, there is a low rate of COVID-19 being spread around, so your vaccine-induced immunity is now bolstered by the fact that there is also low spread in the community, making your overall chances of getting sick extremely low. In room 2 there is likely moderate to high spread of COVID-19 virus, meaning that even if you are vaccinated, because your vaccine can never be 100% effective, you sadly still have a chance of getting sick (even if it is lower than it would be if you were not vaccinated). Does that make sense?

If vaccines work, why do I have to wear a mask? Same reason as above. We can get into masks later, but point is, both offer protection against the spread of COVID-19, but neither is 100% surefire perfect immunity. Human bodies just don't work that way, sadly. By using both, you increase your chances of preventing catching or spreading disease more than if you did either one in isolation. Bringing back the car example, a seat belt is good, an air bag is also good, but I'd definitely prefer to get a car that has both a seat belt AND an air bag.

Why is the vaccine not approved for kids? Lacking data on safety and efficacy, as young children were excluded from many of the trials that looked at these vaccines. 

We don't have long term safety data. It is unprecedented for an immunization to cause new side effects years later. These shots work by activating your immune system. Any problems they are going to cause will occur surrounding that period of immune activation (meaning, at most a few weeks after you get it). That is why this vaccines typically have any side effects show up within days to weeks of administration. The idea that novel side effects will pop up YEARS later is unlikely. Now, a vaccination may have cause side effect that has long-lasting health implications, such as developing TTP and having a stroke from it, but my point is that will start within weeks of vaccination, not randomly 5 years later after the vaccine has long since left your system. As a result, any side effects from the vaccine are things we will already be seeing right now. The virus, though...   I can tell you that scar tissue in lungs doesn't magically vanish, and brain damage from hypoxia doesn't vanish. I can tell you that those who develop a generalized COVID inflammatory response are dealing with symptoms months post-infection. I can tell you that the virus itself is causing irreversible health problems and disability, and we KNOW that right now without waiting another 5 years. And we know that being unvaccinated increases your risk of getting sick enough to have these permanent disabilities. We also don't have time to wait 5-10 years on more data to deal with this problem. Action has to be taken now, or a lot of people won't be alive in 5 years to talk about the long term effects. I wish none of this had ever happened, but it did, and we have to do something or it won't get any better. This is a global pandemic; we have to cooperate with each other to eradicate it.

Vaccines should not be mandated by the state or companies. I don't really disagree. I do not think authority figures should be able to tell any person that they have to put any substance into their body against their will or else face starvation or homelessness, which is a real threat if people get fired over their vaccine status. HOWEVER neither your nor my beliefs on this topic change the fact that the vaccine works and is VITAL to keeping our health system from collapsing, and you really should be choosing to get it on your own based on the available data regardless of what your boss is saying. Please don't refuse to get the vaccine just to "send a message" or take a stand against your boss or whoever, because I promise you they will fire you without a second thought, and the only person you are sending a message to is that little grandma we talked about earlier who needs intubated but can't find a free vent or ICU bed, so dies in the emergency room while unvaccinated people take up all the space in the hospital.

5. In Summary

There are risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, as with any vaccine or medicine, but they are remarkably, remarkably low. The potential benefits of vaccination are significant, with a decreased risk of infection, hospitalization, and severe disease among those who are vaccinated. This benefit extends to the community as well, in that it means you are less likely to catch (and therefore spread) COVID-19, increase the rate of herd immunity in your area which protects everyone (especially the medically vulnerable), and reduces preventable, unnecessary COVID-19 admissions that are weighing down the health system and clogging up hospital beds. If you look at this purely from a risk-benefit standpoint there is no mathematical reason not to favor getting the vaccine, and I strongly urge everyone who can safely do so to schedule it.

I suppose my take-away statement is this: I am a physician. If you are willing to trust my advice when you show up to the hospital in respiratory distress, trust my advice now in trying to prevent you from getting to that point. 

Please.

[jmtorres]

had a weird conversation today where I said Id gotten vaccinated for flu & covid (bivalent booster) and it knocked me flat and i slept for three days, and the guy i was chatting with thought i'd contracted the actual illnesses not been vaccinated

i think we have a reluctance to talk about normal vaccine effects--I don't even want to side effects, because you're deliberately setting off your immune system, this is what is supposed to happen. But because there's so much anti-vax bullshit we try to pretend vaccination is 100% positive and has no downsides and... I think that's actually more harmful in the long run, like people who may not have an opinion get a vaccine and the experience kinda sucks for a few days and they go "oh the anti-vaxxers were right!" well no they weren't, the vaccine is NOT worse than the disease, but it's not fun, that's true.

So it's always remotely possible you will have an allergic reaction to a vaccine, and this is why pharmacies ask you to hang around for 15 minutes after the jab to make sure you don't come down with hives or start having trouble breathing. This is really rare and if you've had all your childhood shots without a problem it's unlikely to affect you. But it's also why they ask you if you're allergic to any of the components of vaccines, like egg proteins, which, if you've got that allergy I'm sorry and you probably already know better than I do what vaccines you can have and what alternates are available to you. Anyway: an allergic reaction to a vaccine if you've never had one before is an abnormal problem and not one most people will ever deal with. But if you are worried, hang around the pharmacy for 15 minutes, they're equipped to help you if you do have an allergic reaction, and if you're going to have one it should happen in that time frame and you can stop worrying about it after.

But then: normal vaccine reactions. Many people get sore in the arm that was injected. This usually lasts a couple of days. I got two vaccines at once and opted to have them in the same arm so I only had one arm affected. It's really common to be fatigued the day or two after a vaccine, because your immune system is in overdrive. I ran a low-grade fever and flopped around adjusting my covers on and then off when it broke. Again, this is a normal immune response.

Some people are like that sounds like being sick, why bother getting vaccinated, why not just risk getting sick? Here's symptoms of the illnesses I got vaccinated for I got to skip the experience of:

runny nose, congestion, sore throat

headaches

full body aches

vomiting

diarrhea

fevers high enough to risk brain damage

difficulty breathing

hospitalization because you can't breathe

death

you think it won't happen to you but people do die of both covid and flu

not to mention long-term bullshit, I had a relatively mild case of covid a couple months ago and I'm still not up to my usual level of activity, plus I have scar tissue behaving super weirdly? and there are so many worse longterm covid effects ppl have reported. sense of taste or smell being permanently fucked up. lungs wonky for months. new blood pressure problems. worse fatigue.

so I got to avoid all that, and I got to choose when I wanted to deal with a couple of days of being too tired to do anything, so I could do it in a holiday weekend and not miss much.

Also, at no point was I contagious! I never risked giving even my minor miseries to other people!

And that's why I would rather get a vaccine and have a couple of sucky days while my immune system learns from it than get the actual disease.

Vaccines aren't fun. But in most cases they're better for you and for society than the disease they're preventing, and for those few people who have allergies or are immunocompromised in ways that prevent them from getting vaccinated, they're relying on as many of us who can get vaccinated to do so, to lower their risk of exposure. That's what herd immunity is and does--when the majority of a population is vaccinated, a disease can't spread through the population, so rare ppl who can't get vaccinated are protected.

Please get your vaccines! As of the beginning of September, 2022, in the US, this season's flu vaccine is out at pretty much all pharmacies, as well as the bivalent covid booster, which is supposed to protect against two common strains of omicron. Pharmacies can also handle all your standard childhood vaccinations and stuff like tetanus (you want a booster every ten years!) and HPV and others. Vaccines are preventative medicine so they're free under pretty much every insurance and government medical care.

[ID: "it's free real estate" meme edited to say "it's free healthcare!" end ID]

[madmadmilk]

hi, i read one your posts (from quite a while ago), where you responded to somebody unsure about the covid vaccination.

i understand that you believe in the vaccine - as do i, for the most part - but wondered whether you would recommend it for teenagers (same with the flu vaccine)?

it seems that the government are encouraging this, but many people (including adults who are overall very pro-vax and have been vaccinated themselves) are weary about giving it to younger people.

the longer term consequences are unknown, and of course the danger of covid for a healthy teenager/young adult is very low.

i am fifteen, already had covid, and being encouraged to take the flu vaccine (which usually is not offered to me) and covid vaccine. so many people are saying so many different things, and it's difficult to know what is true and what is not.

what would your recommendation be?

hiya!! i hope that this falls on ears that needs to hear it. i'm in no way your guardian, authority figure or a medical official– i'm just a girl on internet who has seen and lived through the same things you have. and [for me] it's been 578 days since the whole world paused, isolated, and started to to get smaller. once we realized this isn't going away without OUR cooperation through ~social distancing~ alone... i have to advise:

✨Get Vaccinated.✨

i can understand apprehension; cos nobody likes going to get shots or check ups– but there are just some things our bodies need help with. as children we get all these shots and take vitamins so that we can grow up healthy and strong. example: many of us who got the shot for chickenpox (as toddlers) won't get shingles in our later years, unlike many of our parents. history, experience, science WANT us to be better than those before. trust those who study.

the covid-19 vaccine will NOT affect your physical growth, fertility, and it does not contain magnets or microchips.

what it WILL do is: teach your body how to better fight against covid, whether you have already had it or not. the vaccine provides your body a blueprint. (as do other common vaccines/flu shots)

[–– it doesn't matter if you have already had covid. get vaccinated. lol i already had it, and got the shot. give yourself the peace of mind. ]

and even though teens and children are reported to endure milder symptoms through covid, the rate of infection and spread is all the same. please do not feel invincible when you can easily get your parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, neighbors, teachers, bus drivers, health care workers sicker than you. it is a haunting idea to GIVE someone an illness that is preventable; whether you mean to or not.

covid-19 is invisible, unpredictable, and still very much here. it's really not the time to fuck around and find out how it affects you or the ones around you. please, please, get vaccinated (the whole TWO shots), wear a mask when appropriate, and take care of yourselves.

it's not going to just 'go away' with our indifference

sorry!! i would love love love to relax my shoulders– but i can't. lol i'm sensitive but a hard-ass at the same time lol. get your jabs, dude.

*note: if you are immunocompromised, have any underlying illness or have experienced allergies with other vaccines... consult your doctor!! no brainer!!

anyway– go out there! if you still feel uncomfortable, feel free to check out these linked resources. pro-tip: anytime you feel unsure about a topic, i recommend reading from at least 4 reliable AND verified sources. (not just web opinions, not talk shows, not just through 'verified' influencers)

CDC: Key things to know about the vaccine

Health Action Alliance: Myths & Facts

What should I expect after getting a COVID-19 vaccine?

CDC: FAQ

World Health Organization: Vaccines Explained

cheers! stay safe and healthy everybody! 🌷💕✨

[aalt-ctrl-del]

something that does disturb me about some of these corona virus self-reports, is a small account given by those that have had corona virus or know someone who went through corona virus. Third-party reports, with minimal credibility, but there is a disturbing narrative I review, that comes from a common attribute. There is a dismissive often casualness to these reports, which comes from someone who has done minimal research into the significance.

A somewhat frequent trend is that those young people, who have the minimum side-effects (such was mild aches and soreness in the throat, sometimes headaches) go on to ‘recover’ from corona virus. Then go on to say, “Taste or the sense of smell has not returned. At all.”

To the “it’s just a flu” crowd, this is dismissed as typical allergy or side effects of a mediocre cold. But the account may have a more unsettling significance.

I have a family member, who several years prior, suffered a very mild stroke. A mild stroke can be missed, because it does not have outward significance to those who knew the individual. And, we only put together the context of this stroke and it’s impact on her health, years later, when she displayed early onset dementia. The stroke was only made knowledge years following, after a MRI scan revealed the mild onset of neuro damage that matches to a stroke pattern, though it was not outwardly visible. Though this family member, aware that her mind was damaged but not comprehending how, made the efforts to square away essential assets and put her future care in order. There is more to this story, but it is personal and not relevant to the corona virus tangent I am going through.

Now, of this early onset dementia, our first clue was that her sense of smell and taste was affected. Bear in mind, no neurological discrepancies were visibly apparent at the time - and this medical narrative comes before a time when resources for dementia or Alzheimer's was made readily available. The plot we built around our ailing individual, we had to piece together years later following the discovery of medical documents. However prior to the documents surface, as years endured, it became more apparent that memory loss was setting in, and she was aware of this.

What does this have to do with corona virus? From what we have gathered with the virus, is that it is systemic, it can infect and damage other organs and tissue of the body. It can infect the brain and optical nerves, it can affect the liver and kidneys. There is a distinct difference between pneumonia corona virus and the systemic corona virus - these health issues are one in the same - though it only establishes where corona virus has infiltrated and damaged. It is only when corona virus has infiltrated the lung tissue and presents itself in respiratory distress, that people think that they have contracted corona virus. And I tell my family this, when they have a little throat thrash - Corona virus WILL NOT present itself first as a cold or abrasive throat. You will not know you have it, and when you begin presenting the common and true respiratory distress, it may be too late.

And right here I want to make a very crucial note. Ebola first presents as a flu or cold. Meningitis first presents itself as a flu or cold. Measles first presents itself as a cold or flu. Invasive fungal sinusitis first presents itself as a flu or cold. A deadly bacteria microbial that killed a 6 year old in Texas, first presented itself as a cold or flu, or corona virus.

What all these illnesses have in common, is that, they present firstly as a common cold or flu, but if the medical institute which treats the infected fails to work fast enough to actually diagnose the individual, they will die. Yes. Ebola is fatal to many people without hospital intervention and antiviral treatments, and even still if it is not controlled quick enough the infected person will perish. Measles is deadly to children AND adults. Invasive fungal sinusitis is often fatal, unless the contaminated tissue is hacked out of the persons face - this usually results in disfigurement. The point being, because something has been described as a little flu or cold, does not mean it is harmless - it only means that we can see these symptoms presented. It is a prescript response the body has, to many viral or bacterial infections, due to an inflamed reaction to compromised tissue. That is what a sore throat is, tissue contaminated to invasive cells which the bodies white blood cells must destroy and remove - this results in abrasion or a ‘burn’. When you want to refurbish furniture, you first must remove tarnished and unsightly top coat through sanding. You can accidentally disfigure your furniture project if you are not careful, or need to do repairs on weaknesses or damage inflicted by age. The body is the same way, the cells destroy the infected cells and some cells which are not infected - this is the cytokine storm which puts individual infected with covid, into the hospital for essential medical intervention.

Now back to this topic of dementia and neuro damage. These young people as reported casually, having recovered a ‘mild’ infection from covid, and did not present any symptoms or barely ‘noticed’ any aches or whatever. They still report a loss of taste and smell. Why this is concerning to me, is it can mean that covid cells infiltrated the brain and got up to some not good businesses. NOW, I am NOT here to say, “omg, these people are doomed. Oh no.” What I will say, is that they ARE NOT CURED.

The body likely responded to some sort of infection, it might have only affected the sinus cells. Whether or not antibodies were produced is unknown. There is a possibility that the headache is a result of the body attacking compromised cells in the brain, and if that sounds scary, DO NOT LET IT MAKE YOU AFRAID. This is very important. This is only a cautionary segment, and a plea for those who have suspected they may have been exposed to covid, or have recovered from covid, to be cautious from here on out. Neuro cells can rebuild themselves, to a degree. Neuro cells or brain cells, are notorious for being permanent, non-replicable. But they can be fixed by small increments. It can also take months, or years, in an individual that is healthy. This is why I say those who have lost some sensory, must absolutely be careful. Covid cells have a very direct plan of attack, they are very illusive in the body, and cells that have gone through the trauma of protecting you from this virus may be weakened to some degree.

This is why I am adamant about directing focus to the lack of immunity or the relapses when they occur, to those that previously thought they recovered from covid.  I saw a beautiful post on here a few days prior, about a woman who is HIV +, but is able to have children and a husband, without fear for them contracting the virus, because she has medicine to keep the viral count down. Thus, her family does not need to worry about HIV, her children can live a normal life, and she can have children. It’s a blessing.

It is also a very important narrative for the corona virus, an illness we are still struggling to understand to the full of our capacity. This speculation I have that antibodies formed following a corona virus infection, may be short lived or unreliable to future infection. If a person is subjected to a high concentration of virus load, such as our healthcare workers, the prospect of infection and a lethal infection increases. This is why metropolitan areas need harsh restrictions due to the corona virus, the high concentration of people increases the infection rate - probability - of a positive infection. The more covid cells you encounter, the higher risk and possibly the more severe your infection because your body is not capable of keeping up with the infection onslaught. Healthcare workers MUST BE EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS - that is why they wear hazmat suits while treating covid sufferers. They are in a viral load element, and many can not go home to their families because the risks are too great.

If you suspect you have had covid or may have encountered someone with covid, reduce your interaction with people. Do not go out. Treat yourself like you are still struggling with the virus, even if you feel you are not. Behave like you are still taking the medication your doctor gave you, even though you feel better. Let your body do its job to its fullest, before you go out courting covid once more. If you keep subjecting your body to a trauma, then the cells become eroded and run down - it increases the probability of a severe infection which will have ultimate consequences.

“Young people seem to bounce back” is a highly irresponsible narrative. We do not grasp the full effects of corona virus infection in young people. We have no test group, nor a control group. But we can follow patterns. The cases increase, due to the false belief that corona virus is not serious. It likely comes from some young person believing, “I recovered and didn’t feel that bad, thus, the virus is not that bad. I am very healthy, and the virus didn’t stand a chance.”

Wherein the truth is, your body managed to get the virus under control to the point the young person felt good. And yes, because the young person may be healthy, but they are not exempted from a second, or third infection. IF THE ANTIBODIES ARE NOT THERE. This is where we reach the relapse, reinfection, and the ongoing lethargy that some people endure. The virus is still present, but it is managed by the body. The body is producing antibodies, but the virus is still producing cells which attack the body.

This may also explain the “negatives” of those that test negative, but still feel like crud. The negative of a covid test, might mean that there is not sufficient viral load to reach a positive result. I could be wrong. All I have right now are speculation, theories. But the doctors are telling us fundamental things, and not going into specifics why.

You do not want to contract corona virus. It does not care how healthy you are, it’s primary mission is replicate and spread, and feed on hemoglobin.

When people say, “Yeah, I still don’t have my sense of taste and or smell back.” I am very alarmed. Because when someone dismisses something so essential, my first concern is not, “That is common in colds”; I begin thinking, “This virus attacks any tissue, and the sinuses have been traumatized. How long does this last?”

We do not know enough about this virus to be complacent. It does not behave anything like a cold or flu, aside from symptoms which are a synonymous onset to every other kind of horrendous viral or bacterial infection with a high fatality rate. The cytokine storm is a very sudden, aggressive onslaught on anything compromised by corona virus cells - including cells that may have not been infected let alone compromised. Individuals who come across as very proud to have recovered so efficiently from a possible corona virus infection, may be health compromised or primed for a second more serious infection.

And last, if you are a person who does not know where you liver is located, then you probably shouldn’t conclude you’ve recovered from the corona virus. And final, if you lost your sense of taste or smell, you need to be more cautious from here on out because it is possible you are not fully recovered.

[sparrow-ink]

covid diaries aka memoirs of the plague

trying to keep my thoughts organized and coherent has been a bitch recently, so i’m going to try to put them down more or less in order here and see where we end up. this is going to be heavy on personal covid content and might get long, so please skip if either distresses you.

so last tues, the uh... 24th i guess, i started feeling ill. mostly like allergies plus a bad headache. i had a feeling i was getting sick but didn’t want to alarm my spouse or housemate/best friend, so stuck with ‘could very well be allergies and dehydration.’ also it very well could have been, and it was very reassuring for us all to tell each other that. my company had already moved the majority of employees to work-from-home, including me, so i already wasn’t going to come into contact with anyone outside my home.

symptoms got worse over the next few days, congestion, headache, feeling feverish, cough started up. we didn’t own a thermometer, and my spouse and housemate tried every wal-mart, wal-greens, target, etc to find one. housemate said at one place they laughed at her when she asked if they had any. i tried ordering one on amazon with no luck. either they were $90+, out of stock, or not shipping until may. i settled on ordering on for shipment in may. the seller messaged me the next day and said they couldn’t fulfill the order and asked to cancel it.

from our last costco trip we had already (unintentionally) gotten stocked up on toilet paper, snacks, and some dry goods. at some point before I got sick, spouse and I bought a bag of rice and bag of potatoes, because I intermittently try to do mealprepping and seemed being stuck at home would be a good time to try again, what with national and state-wide states of emergency being declared. also seemed good to have them in supply. and we were still stocked up on cold and flu medecine from when i got bronchitis mid-dec to mid-jan. so we were/are pretty well-stocked on essentials? that was reassuring, as i was obviously, noticeably sick by last friday.

i was hoping i would get better over the weekend but i did not. still couldn’t find a thermometer anywhere. governor had issued the state-wide stay-at-home order on uh...thurs? weds? but already being sick, and already working from home, and not going out, it didn’t really affect me much?

i feel like i should mention at this point that since the state of emergency was declared and we started to transition to working from home, i’d been trying to ration my social media (tumblr/twitter/insta) time for my sanity. but also not having information makes me feel helpless, so i had the CDC covid page up and checked every day. and then the colorado state covid page too. seeing the numbers of confirmed cases double, and triple, from week to week was... hm.

also one of my younger siblings moved from colorado to arizona at the start of march, and presumably lost their phone because i haven’t heard from them since despite poking. that hasn’t been concerning during a global pandemic. not at all. they’re probably not dead. i mean, you’d think a bitch could call their older sibling to let them know they’re not dead, but whatever. i’m sure they’re fine. probably. anyway.

where was i. so by the weekend i was Not Feeling Well At All Actually. my cough had become “scary.” my housemate did all the dishes in the kitchen despite not being responsible for most of them. i felt, and sounded, disgusting.

i checked the covid testing requirements again, and basically found that in colorado you had to be dying to be tested for covid. cool.

monday rolled around, still not better. i ended up having work computer issues (their end, not mine) where i basically ended up laying on the couch in my office while IT did IT things. a blessing. i slogged through the rest of the day. just felt like i wasn’t tracking well, couldn’t focus on shit. that evening while watching shows with husbeast & housemate, i had a truly uncontrollable coughing spasm/fit that seemed to just go on. could barely talk without coughing. i coughed all night. i basically didn’t sleep.

tuesday morning i woke up, and started coughing again. i could hear a crackle echo up my throat when i breathed if i was in the right position. i sat up to try and get my breath. i think it was like 6 am. spouse creature (already awake from my coughing) gently rubbed my back. i started crying. i just wanted to sleep, and i couldn’t sleep, and i couldn’t stop coughing, and i felt like i could barely breathe, and things just hurt, and i couldn’t think straight. i felt so... defeated. i think it freaked out the spouse creature. i usually only cry during children’s movies.

i took the day off of work. i hadn’t taken a day yet because i was already working from home, and it was the end of the month which is the busiest for my team, and my boss had said last week that if i felt i could work, they needed me. by tuesday morning i was out of energy and also fucks. i got in the queue for a teladoc appointment. per the CDC and colorado covid websites, telehealth visits are to be the first option in order to help prevent the spread, etc. also i would have done teladoc anyway bc i don’t have a PCP.

it took a few hours to get connected with a doctor. i think i started coughing while he did his intro thing. he basically said, well i think i know what you’re calling about, but why don’t you tell me. i told him. and coughed some more. he said my symptoms are consistent with covid, and in a perfect world they’d be able to get me in for rapid testing, but they couldn’t. that basically people are only getting tested at this point who are getting admitted to the hospital. some people were able to access testing through their PCPs but even that was drying up. he advised me to self-isolate (already on it lol) and for my household to self-quarantine for at least two weeks from when i started showing symptoms. and i could un-self-isolate once the majority of my symptoms calmed down AND when i didn’t have a fever for three days straight with no meds. he prescribed me an inhaler and a cough suppressant pill, though he said the cough suppressant might not do much since it didn’t seem to be working for anyone else with similar.

husbeast had run out to get some more supplies by the time i got on the vidcall with the doc, mostly liquids and electrolytes. he went back out once i gave him the rundown, to fill my prescription and get me the good costco chicken soup once they were open. he also, miracle of miracles, managed to find and buy a temporal thermometer at costco for like $45 i think. a true champion. my temp seemed to be fine in the afternoon, a touch above normal but fine. i’m not actually sure what my personal base temperature is. i should also say that i’d been consistently taking dayquil and sudafed since the previous weds.

that evening my temp started to go up. and up. or at least i think it was tuesday night. maybe it was weds? freaked out spouse, i got up to 102 F even with sudafed and additional acetaminophen. i basically had a fever from tues through this morning (friday), while taking pills like clockwork. always seemed to get worse in the afternoon/evening and be better in the morning. today at least it’s stayed below 100F, even mostly below 99F.

the cough and difficulty breathing has been the worst part. i have delicate baby lungs to begin with, and i have allergies and a history of childhood asthma. so i’m already paranoid about my breathing even with a normal cold. but to hear that i would have to immediately proceed to emergency services should my symptoms progress to: can only get a few words out, can’t stand up or walk across the room, can’t maintain conciousness, to hear that was... something. because then it’s basically like, okay, if I get pneumonia and my lungs are filling up, then i can go see a doctor in person. cool. and i know it says on the websites that there’s no approved treatment for coronavirus, that treatment for less severe cases will be the same at home as it would be in person, but shit. i woke up so many times last night feeling like i was fighting for air, waking up because i was coughing so hard i had to sit up all the way to breathe, and i kept thinking, what if i just stop breathing in my sleep? not like i would notice, right?

it’s been scary. i’ve been trying not to freak out my people with more crying and whatnot, but i’ve already got anxiety and this shit aint helping. i’m trying to stay relatively calm and not make them deal with me losing my shit on top of already taking care of me and bringing me soup and water and pills and asking what they can do for me. i’m tired of being sick. i want a new pair of lungs. i want to not feel like i’ve been hit by a truck. my ribs hurt from coughing so much. my chest hurts. my whole body aches. the headache keeps coming and going. i can’t stop fucking coughing. i don’t want to die, i just want to maybe go into a coma and wake up when this is all over. once the line of dump trucks has stopped running me over.

and i’m just so mad at the lack of preparedness in the US. i’m so pissed that i can’t even get tested, i can’t know for sure what the fuck is happening to me. i’m so mad that the cheeto is president during this. i hate this fucking timeline. i hate that we don’t even have clear numbers on cases because of mismanagement. i hate that i keep feeling like i’m about to throw up because i’m coughing so fucking hard. real fucking reassuring to know that the symptoms i’ve been told to watch for, to know that i need to go to the hospital, are the same ones that constitute an emergency and would mean that i would basically have to be rushed there. wearing a facemask if we can find one.

ugh. the other worst part is that i haven’t even been really coherent enough to write. and i’ve only been able to settle on a few things to read and watch. being sick makes me picky and like, impossible to please. so i’m spoiled for choice with 4+ streaming services, but nothing sounds good. and my people are working from home, but they’re still working. they can’t spend all their time with me. i’m bored, and everything is garbage, and there are only so many times i can rewatch the princess bride. i have been napping quite a lot, but even that doesn’t take all day.

maybe i’ll write some crackfic. then it doesn’t have to be coherent. and it would be in the spirit of covid to write some real absurd shit i think.

anyway. i might delete this later. i feel better for getting events put down and venting.  also i apologize, i have no idea how to do a readmore cut on tumblr anymore.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple

If there is a silver lining to the flawed U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, it is this: The relatively high number of new cases being diagnosed daily — upward of 20,000 — will make it easier to test new vaccines.

To determine whether a vaccine prevents disease, the study’s subjects need to be exposed to the pathogen as it circulates in the population. Reopening the economy will likely result in the faster spread of the coronavirus and therefore more opportunities to test a vaccine’s efficacy in trial subjects.

Under a proposal under discussion by a committee set up by the National Institutes of Health, each of four or five experimental vaccines would be tested on about 20,000 trial participants with a placebo group of 10,000 for each vaccine. Some 50 U.S. medical centers — and perhaps an equal number overseas — would participate in these trials.

On Monday, Moderna, the biotech company, reported promising results in the first eight of 45 people enrolled in an initial test of the safety and immune responses to its vaccine. Analysts attributed a 900-point jump in the Dow that day at least partly to this very preliminary data, so eager are investors for any signs of progress in efforts to control the pandemic.

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Moderna is running animal and human studies simultaneously and plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build laboratories where the vaccine will be produced even before it’s approved. The Food and Drug Administration on May 12 promised an accelerated review of Moderna’s vaccine, which works by injecting pieces of synthetic viral RNA into the body to stimulate an immune response to the virus.

The speed in developing vaccines for widespread testing this summer is impressive, certainly compared with the nation’s inadequate, delayed response to providing coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment to health care providers.

Still, many scientists have expressed skepticism at the breakneck timetable put forward by some Trump administration officials, who say that 100 million doses of a vaccine could be available by November. Even the normally sober Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Senate committee on May 12 that a vaccine could have proven safety and efficacy by then.

Running a trial of the size and speed contemplated by the NIH will be an immense undertaking. Just setting up trial locations and getting common consent and data-entry forms into shape usually take months. Enrolling 30,000 people for a single vaccine trial is a big challenge.

In addition, defining success in a vaccine against COVID-19 will be no simple matter. As scientists design vaccine trials, they first have to set the “endpoints” that determine success or failure. Death? Length of illness? Hospitalization? Number of days in which a subject is infectious?

If there is little virus circulating where a trial is being run, even a vast study won’t prove anything. On the other hand, if a vaccine trial had started in early April in New York City, where roughly 10,000 cases a day were reported for weeks, 30,000 participants would have been plenty to show whether the vaccine protected against the disease.

In all likelihood, the big NIH trials will focus on rates of infection as well as clinical symptoms such as fever and cough. To discover whether the vaccine prevents severe disease, which is relatively rare, is harder. COVID-19, according to one account, kills about 0.6% of those it infects, while perhaps six times that many require hospitalization.

People who take part in a trial will be given clear instructions to protect themselves against infection through social distancing, face masks, frequent hand-washing and so on. That will lower the number of people infected during the study.

“You’d have to ask all the people enrolled in a trial to practice good hygiene,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “You don’t want them to get infected — but you do.”

When Jonas Salk announced the successful trial of his polio vaccine in 1955, the nation celebrated a vaccine that could virtually eliminate a deadly infectious disease overnight. A new coronavirus vaccine may not provide that kind of overnight success. Instead, it may be more akin to the flu vaccine, which reduces the risk or severity of the illness but requires a new shot each year.

Vaccinating 20,000 people in a trial can reveal whether a vaccine is clearly dangerous to a general population. But when 200 million receive the same vaccine, less common side effects could still affect thousands. Botched batches of polio vaccines released after Salk’s trial permanently paralyzed 200 people and killed 10. Early vaccines against measles caused tens of thousands of cases of grave illness in the 1960s.

Maurice Hilleman, the vaccine pioneer who developed successful vaccines against measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B and other diseases, once said he never breathed a sigh of relief “until the first 3 million doses” had been delivered.

Unexpected problems naturally bedevil quick rollouts, as this one will almost certainly be as the nation searches for a way to check a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans and paralyzing the economy. But as Gregory Poland, the leader of Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research, told me, “There is an irresolvable tension of speed versus safety.”

Allen is the San Francisco editor for California Healthline, produced by Kaiser Health News, and the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.”

Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple

If there is a silver lining to the flawed U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, it is this: The relatively high number of new cases being diagnosed daily — upward of 20,000 — will make it easier to test new vaccines.

To determine whether a vaccine prevents disease, the study’s subjects need to be exposed to the pathogen as it circulates in the population. Reopening the economy will likely result in the faster spread of the coronavirus and therefore more opportunities to test a vaccine’s efficacy in trial subjects.

Under a proposal under discussion by a committee set up by the National Institutes of Health, each of four or five experimental vaccines would be tested on about 20,000 trial participants with a placebo group of 10,000 for each vaccine. Some 50 U.S. medical centers — and perhaps an equal number overseas — would participate in these trials.

On Monday, Moderna, the biotech company, reported promising results in the first eight of 45 people enrolled in an initial test of the safety and immune responses to its vaccine. Analysts attributed a 900-point jump in the Dow that day at least partly to this very preliminary data, so eager are investors for any signs of progress in efforts to control the pandemic.

Don't Miss A Story

Subscribe to KHN’s free Weekly Edition newsletter.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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Moderna is running animal and human studies simultaneously and plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build laboratories where the vaccine will be produced even before it’s approved. The Food and Drug Administration on May 12 promised an accelerated review of Moderna’s vaccine, which works by injecting pieces of synthetic viral RNA into the body to stimulate an immune response to the virus.

The speed in developing vaccines for widespread testing this summer is impressive, certainly compared with the nation’s inadequate, delayed response to providing coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment to health care providers.

Still, many scientists have expressed skepticism at the breakneck timetable put forward by some Trump administration officials, who say that 100 million doses of a vaccine could be available by November. Even the normally sober Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Senate committee on May 12 that a vaccine could have proven safety and efficacy by then.

Running a trial of the size and speed contemplated by the NIH will be an immense undertaking. Just setting up trial locations and getting common consent and data-entry forms into shape usually take months. Enrolling 30,000 people for a single vaccine trial is a big challenge.

In addition, defining success in a vaccine against COVID-19 will be no simple matter. As scientists design vaccine trials, they first have to set the “endpoints” that determine success or failure. Death? Length of illness? Hospitalization? Number of days in which a subject is infectious?

If there is little virus circulating where a trial is being run, even a vast study won’t prove anything. On the other hand, if a vaccine trial had started in early April in New York City, where roughly 10,000 cases a day were reported for weeks, 30,000 participants would have been plenty to show whether the vaccine protected against the disease.

In all likelihood, the big NIH trials will focus on rates of infection as well as clinical symptoms such as fever and cough. To discover whether the vaccine prevents severe disease, which is relatively rare, is harder. COVID-19, according to one account, kills about 0.6% of those it infects, while perhaps six times that many require hospitalization.

People who take part in a trial will be given clear instructions to protect themselves against infection through social distancing, face masks, frequent hand-washing and so on. That will lower the number of people infected during the study.

“You’d have to ask all the people enrolled in a trial to practice good hygiene,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “You don’t want them to get infected — but you do.”

When Jonas Salk announced the successful trial of his polio vaccine in 1955, the nation celebrated a vaccine that could virtually eliminate a deadly infectious disease overnight. A new coronavirus vaccine may not provide that kind of overnight success. Instead, it may be more akin to the flu vaccine, which reduces the risk or severity of the illness but requires a new shot each year.

Vaccinating 20,000 people in a trial can reveal whether a vaccine is clearly dangerous to a general population. But when 200 million receive the same vaccine, less common side effects could still affect thousands. Botched batches of polio vaccines released after Salk’s trial permanently paralyzed 200 people and killed 10. Early vaccines against measles caused tens of thousands of cases of grave illness in the 1960s.

Maurice Hilleman, the vaccine pioneer who developed successful vaccines against measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B and other diseases, once said he never breathed a sigh of relief “until the first 3 million doses” had been delivered.

Unexpected problems naturally bedevil quick rollouts, as this one will almost certainly be as the nation searches for a way to check a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans and paralyzing the economy. But as Gregory Poland, the leader of Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research, told me, “There is an irresolvable tension of speed versus safety.”

Allen is the San Francisco editor for California Healthline, produced by Kaiser Health News, and the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.”

Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

Analysis: Get Ready For The Vaccine — They’re Never Simple

If there is a silver lining to the flawed U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, it is this: The relatively high number of new cases being diagnosed daily — upward of 20,000 — will make it easier to test new vaccines.

To determine whether a vaccine prevents disease, the study’s subjects need to be exposed to the pathogen as it circulates in the population. Reopening the economy will likely result in the faster spread of the coronavirus and therefore more opportunities to test a vaccine’s efficacy in trial subjects.

Under a proposal under discussion by a committee set up by the National Institutes of Health, each of four or five experimental vaccines would be tested on about 20,000 trial participants with a placebo group of 10,000 for each vaccine. Some 50 U.S. medical centers — and perhaps an equal number overseas — would participate in these trials.

On Monday, Moderna, the biotech company, reported promising results in the first eight of 45 people enrolled in an initial test of the safety and immune responses to its vaccine. Analysts attributed a 900-point jump in the Dow that day at least partly to this very preliminary data, so eager are investors for any signs of progress in efforts to control the pandemic.

Don't Miss A Story

Subscribe to KHN’s free Weekly Edition newsletter.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

Sign Up

Moderna is running animal and human studies simultaneously and plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build laboratories where the vaccine will be produced even before it’s approved. The Food and Drug Administration on May 12 promised an accelerated review of Moderna’s vaccine, which works by injecting pieces of synthetic viral RNA into the body to stimulate an immune response to the virus.

The speed in developing vaccines for widespread testing this summer is impressive, certainly compared with the nation’s inadequate, delayed response to providing coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment to health care providers.

Still, many scientists have expressed skepticism at the breakneck timetable put forward by some Trump administration officials, who say that 100 million doses of a vaccine could be available by November. Even the normally sober Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Senate committee on May 12 that a vaccine could have proven safety and efficacy by then.

Running a trial of the size and speed contemplated by the NIH will be an immense undertaking. Just setting up trial locations and getting common consent and data-entry forms into shape usually take months. Enrolling 30,000 people for a single vaccine trial is a big challenge.

In addition, defining success in a vaccine against COVID-19 will be no simple matter. As scientists design vaccine trials, they first have to set the “endpoints” that determine success or failure. Death? Length of illness? Hospitalization? Number of days in which a subject is infectious?

If there is little virus circulating where a trial is being run, even a vast study won’t prove anything. On the other hand, if a vaccine trial had started in early April in New York City, where roughly 10,000 cases a day were reported for weeks, 30,000 participants would have been plenty to show whether the vaccine protected against the disease.

In all likelihood, the big NIH trials will focus on rates of infection as well as clinical symptoms such as fever and cough. To discover whether the vaccine prevents severe disease, which is relatively rare, is harder. COVID-19, according to one account, kills about 0.6% of those it infects, while perhaps six times that many require hospitalization.

People who take part in a trial will be given clear instructions to protect themselves against infection through social distancing, face masks, frequent hand-washing and so on. That will lower the number of people infected during the study.

“You’d have to ask all the people enrolled in a trial to practice good hygiene,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “You don’t want them to get infected — but you do.”

When Jonas Salk announced the successful trial of his polio vaccine in 1955, the nation celebrated a vaccine that could virtually eliminate a deadly infectious disease overnight. A new coronavirus vaccine may not provide that kind of overnight success. Instead, it may be more akin to the flu vaccine, which reduces the risk or severity of the illness but requires a new shot each year.

Vaccinating 20,000 people in a trial can reveal whether a vaccine is clearly dangerous to a general population. But when 200 million receive the same vaccine, less common side effects could still affect thousands. Botched batches of polio vaccines released after Salk’s trial permanently paralyzed 200 people and killed 10. Early vaccines against measles caused tens of thousands of cases of grave illness in the 1960s.

Maurice Hilleman, the vaccine pioneer who developed successful vaccines against measles, mumps, hepatitis A and B and other diseases, once said he never breathed a sigh of relief “until the first 3 million doses” had been delivered.

Unexpected problems naturally bedevil quick rollouts, as this one will almost certainly be as the nation searches for a way to check a pandemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans and paralyzing the economy. But as Gregory Poland, the leader of Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research, told me, “There is an irresolvable tension of speed versus safety.”

Allen is the San Francisco editor for California Healthline, produced by Kaiser Health News, and the author of “Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/analysis-get-ready-for-the-vaccine-theyre-never-simple/

[elizabethcariasa]

COVID-19 law expands FSA OTC options & ends Rx rule

The hubby and I are self-isolating, meaning I only get out of the house every 10 days or so to pick up some perishables. This week, though, my grocery list was a bit longer.

On top of COVID-19 concerns, it's been a bad allergy and sinusitis season for me. I'm relatively lucky, though. Most of the time over-the-counter (OTC) medications do a decent job of stifling the sneezing, sniffles, headaches and itchy eyes. So I loaded up on the shelf ready antihistamines, as well as cold and flu meds that treat many of the same symptoms without as much drowsiness. Gotta keep working from home!

I'm not alone. Lots of folks have relatively minor medical issues. They, too, depend on OTC treatments for their seasonal ailments, as well as everyday scrapes and minor medical complaints.

Now, one big tax-related headache in purchasing these products has been eliminated. If you have a medical spending account, you can once again use that money to cover OTC treatment costs without having to get a prescription from your doctor.

That reversion to previous OTC reimbursement rules is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act that became law at the end of March.

And you can thank women for the change. (You're welcome.) The elimination of the overall Rx requirement came in a CARES Act provision that expands spending account OTC usage to menstrual products.

COVID-19 changes to medicine: Beyond the OTC changes, which we'll get to in a minute, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the larger medical world.

Doctors, nurses and all medical staff worldwide are overworked. But on the plus side, new treatments are being tried and researchers are working on potential vaccines.

The virus also has changed day-to-day level medical situations for almost every American.

As a preventative precaution, many of us are limiting doctor visits, turning instead to telemedicine. In place of pre-pandemic scheduled doctor appointments, I've had two virtual visits with my physicians via my laptop and smartphone.

The CARES Act has expanded insurance coverage for these social distancing medical meetings.

A decade of OTC limits ends: Since we're not seeing our doctors face-to-face or as often, more of us are self-treating. That generally means turning to non-prescription meds we can pick up at (or, social distancing still, have delivered by) our local grocery or pharmacy.

Now, again per the CARES Act, we can use our tax-favored medical savings account money — be it in a health savings account (HSA), medical flexible spending account (FSA), Archer medical savings account (MSA) or health reimbursement arrangements (HRA) — to pay for these OTC items without having to hassle with getting approval from our doctors.

Specifically, the COVID-19 law eliminates the Rx requirement, letting us again use spending account funds to pay for more of our OTC meds. This essentially takes us back to the OTC FSA etc. rules that were in place before Affordable Care Act (ACA) limited them.

When the ACA, still popularly known as Obamacare, was developed, lawmakers looked for creative ways to help pay for the legislation. One of those was by limiting what was covered by medical spending accounts.

Before the ACA, medical spending accounts regularly were used to pay for a wide variety of OTC meds. The ACA stopped that, mandating that these non-prescription treatments only counted for OTC reimbursement if they were prescribed by a doctor.

Yes, you had to get an Rx for your Nyquil or no FSA money. I know. Makes no sense unless you're on Capitol Hill pulling pennies from wherever to pay for a law.

As soon as the OTC restrictions took effect, many in Congress began trying to change it back to the more open OTC approach. None of the proposals gained traction, however, until we were in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

Retroactive and ongoing: The OTC without a doctor's script change is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2020, so you might want to see if you can find those old receipts. Or at least find a charge for them on your credit card statement.

Even better, there's no sunset date in the CARES Act for this return to the old OTC reimbursement eligibility standard. It's in place and doesn't expire, at least not until Congress changes its mind again.

Feminine hygiene products covered: In addition, the CARES Act also now allows for FSA etc. money to be used for menstrual care products. In fact, it's the inclusion of these products that got us back to the good old OTC reimbursement days.

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The CARES law specifies that newly eligible OTC covered items include tampons, pads, liners, cups, sponges or similar products used by consumers with respect to menstruation. Since it's silly to demand a doctor's script for a naturally occurring biology reality, the law did away with that provision.

And technically, it was this legislative act of making OTC menstrual products spending account eligible without doctor involvement that erased the entire ACA OTC prescription requirement.

The CARES Act replaced the ACA OTC language in the U.S. Code Title 26, better known as the Tax Code, with the new language, specifically —

Subsec. (d)(2)(A). Pub. L. 116–136, §3702(a)(1), substituted "For purposes of this subparagraph, amounts paid for menstrual care products shall be treated as paid for medical care." for "Such term shall include an amount paid for medicine or a drug only if such medicine or drug is a prescribed drug (determined without regard to whether such drug is available without a prescription) or is insulin."

Not that I'm a spokesman for my gender at large, but I'm feeling a bit proud and thankful that finally the natural biological needs of millions of women have been recognized as being worthy of more equitable tax treatment, at least in this small medical area.

And yes, I'm also a bit smug that the literal legislative act of making this change helps so many others who aren't directly affected by the reason. Again, all of us women say, "You're welcome!"

You also might find these items of interest:

Make the most of tax-deductible medical miles

Ohio bill to make feminine hygiene products sales tax-free

Looking at Pink Tax effects on International Women's Day

  Coronavirus Caveat & More Information In 2020, we're all dealing with extraordinary circumstances, both in our daily lives and when it comes to our taxes. The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce its transmission and protect ourselves and our families means that, for the most part, we're focusing on just getting through these trying days. But life as we knew it before the coronavirus will return, along with our mundane tax matters. Here's hoping that happens soon! In the meantime, you can find more on the virus and its effects on our taxes by clicking Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Taxes.

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