Covid vaccine

Hopefully she will be fine Chris, my wife had exactly the same issues which was quite scary but she was totally fine after a few days.

Thanks HC 👍

My Dad felt really rough after his booster the other week as well but also had the flu jab at the same time. I actually had a flu jab on Friday (not eligible for the Covid booster though I got my initial vaccine earlier) and was knackered yesterday. Flu jabs don't normally affect me so I wonder if this was the reason my Dad felt so rough as well?

The thing to be positive about is that the booster reduces your risk of hospitalisation/death by 95% in comparison to those already double-vaccinated. Antibody titres way off the scale following the third jab and you'd hope the booster should be enough to get people through winter without serious illness and hopefully less risk of spreading it if you do still catch it.

I always expected there would be boosters given around now, but I have to admit I thought they would be ones adapted for newer variants. The fact that Delta makes up 99% of cases in most of the world makes it a 'no brainer' to produce updated vaccines targetting Delta but the likes of Pfizer and Moderna are coining it in right now so I'm not too surprised they aren't pushing too hard to update the vaccine. Hopefully, they will still carry out proper trials of adapted vaccines in good time and changing the production process shouldn't make any difference with the mRNA technology.

My guess is we'll end up with a flu jab situation where the most vulnerable will receive an updated vaccine every year or two. Either that, or one of the many other vaccine approaches in development leads to one whose protection is longer-lasting.

Pandemics usually last at least a few years, so no surprise this one is still ongoing, even with our modern technology. I see that many western European countries are reintroducing limited lockdowns, even those with much higher vaccine coverage than us (because they've properly vaccinated teens). Watch out for what is going on in the Germanic countries - Austria, Germany, Switzerland. They have levels of vaccination similar to ours (though more patchy as they have a stronger anti-vaxx sentiment than we do) and the figures indicate the crap is going to hit the fan over there soon. Whether or not if will be possible to see if the UK's unwritten plan of infecting kids as quickly as possible to try and reduce overall infections within the community over winter remains to be seen. Hopefully so, because if not then the lives of a few tens of kids and the longer-term health of thousands (Long Covid) have been sacrificed for nothing.

Still no idea why we've not reintroduced a mask mandate. The ambulance services are all on black alert, with ambulances queuing outside hospitals unable to get patients admitted for hours. Hospital occupancy is higher than it usually gets in the worst part of winter (and it has been very mild over the past couple of weeks). We're setting ourselves up for another terrible winter with a greater risk of lockdown because we don't want to implement a few minor mitigations. It's ludicrous. After the half-term dip, infections are now on the way back up so we'll be seeing hospitalisations and deaths following. Hopefully not too much, if the booster programme can be accelerated enough.

Quoted from Stadium

More incorrect claims form the head of the NHS.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/fact-check-are-the-nhs-chief-s-covid-claims-correct-

I'd seen criticism of that on twitter because there really is no excuse for fiddling the statistics, even if you're doing it to try and get a more positive health outcome (i.e. more people vaccinated). Messing around with the denominator is what the Covid minimisers do - quoting death rates based on total population instead of the actual number of people with confirmed or even suspected infections to give an artificially low indication of risk. The minimisers knowingly being dishonest so the people who are in the right certainly shouldn't be copying them - two wrongs don't make a right!

Had my booster Monday 9.00 am. No ill effects, the wife says I'm thick-skinned!

Quoted from Maringer

My Dad felt really rough after his booster the other week as well but also had the flu jab at the same time. I actually had a flu jab on Friday (not eligible for the Covid booster though I got my initial vaccine earlier) and was knackered yesterday. Flu jabs don't normally affect me so I wonder if this was the reason my Dad felt so rough as well?

The thing to be positive about is that the booster reduces your risk of hospitalisation/death by 95% in comparison to those already double-vaccinated. Antibody titres way off the scale following the third jab and you'd hope the booster should be enough to get people through winter without serious illness and hopefully less risk of spreading it if you do still catch it.

I always expected there would be boosters given around now, but I have to admit I thought they would be ones adapted for newer variants. The fact that Delta makes up 99% of cases in most of the world makes it a 'no brainer' to produce updated vaccines targetting Delta but the likes of Pfizer and Moderna are coining it in right now so I'm not too surprised they aren't pushing too hard to update the vaccine. Hopefully, they will still carry out proper trials of adapted vaccines in good time and changing the production process shouldn't make any difference with the mRNA technology.

My guess is we'll end up with a flu jab situation where the most vulnerable will receive an updated vaccine every year or two. Either that, or one of the many other vaccine approaches in development leads to one whose protection is longer-lasting.

Pandemics usually last at least a few years, so no surprise this one is still ongoing, even with our modern technology. I see that many western European countries are reintroducing limited lockdowns, even those with much higher vaccine coverage than us (because they've properly vaccinated teens). Watch out for what is going on in the Germanic countries - Austria, Germany, Switzerland. They have levels of vaccination similar to ours (though more patchy as they have a stronger anti-vaxx sentiment than we do) and the figures indicate the crap is going to hit the fan over there soon. Whether or not if will be possible to see if the UK's unwritten plan of infecting kids as quickly as possible to try and reduce overall infections within the community over winter remains to be seen. Hopefully so, because if not then the lives of a few tens of kids and the longer-term health of thousands (Long Covid) have been sacrificed for nothing.

Still no idea why we've not reintroduced a mask mandate. The ambulance services are all on black alert, with ambulances queuing outside hospitals unable to get patients admitted for hours. Hospital occupancy is higher than it usually gets in the worst part of winter (and it has been very mild over the past couple of weeks). We're setting ourselves up for another terrible winter with a greater risk of lockdown because we don't want to implement a few minor mitigations. It's ludicrous. After the half-term dip, infections are now on the way back up so we'll be seeing hospitalisations and deaths following. Hopefully not too much, if the booster programme can be accelerated enough.

Well boosters more likely to be three months.

https://www.newscientist.com/a.....nes-within-10-weeks/

A more realistic outlook.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1108622

The surprise is that the variant which is going to be dominant around the world in mere months is nothing to do with Delta! And, in fact, it seems it doesn't have much to do with Beta, either. Probably developed either in an immunocompromised patient or in an animal before transferring back into the general population. Remember back when they culled millions of mink in Denmark last year, just in case?

Makes the idea of using variant-specific vaccines a little bit tricky. They ought to be more useful than those based on the original virus out of Wuhan, but difficult to pick one. A bit like how flu vaccines are chosen depending on what is in circulation, I suppose.

I think 'endemicity' was always going to happen. I assumed it would be with Delta, but the speed Omicron has spread and the immune escape aspect means that the majority of us will be catching it during the next six months. The problem is that the speed of spread (it appears to infect and transmit within 3 days) means that the peak is going to be terrible (and very soon). It wouldn't surprise me if things were generally settling down as regards the pandemic within a few months. Lots of people will be lost before then, unfortunately.

The Pfizer and Merck drugs will probably save a lot of lives in the longer term. Unfortunately, the are needed right now and it's going to vs several months until decent amounts of th drugs will be available.

Remsedevir was only ever marginally useful (the trial data showed it wasn't up to much), but it's use was authorised due to desperation. Luckily, this isn't the case with the Pfizer drug especially which has very firm data to back it up.

My guess is that, this time next year, if you test positive for Covid (whichever variant is around), you'll be told to isolate for a week and take some pills. We should be back close to normal life, fingers-crossed.

Sad story of an anti vaxxer. Thought he was too young and strong to succumb.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/anti-vaxxer-kickboxing-champion-41-25791356

And yet people still think Covid doesn’t exist 🤔 I’ve had many family members who have contracted it the most serious one being my wife (she still hasn’t fully recovered after getting it in July) we’ve all had our jabs in our household and taken all precautions (sensibly) we do go out and live normally but we are well aware and keep ourselves and everyone else as safe as possible.

Quoted from cmackenzie4

And yet people still think Covid doesn’t exist 🤔 I’ve had many family members who have contracted it the most serious one being my wife (she still hasn’t fully recovered after getting it in July) we’ve all had our jabs in our household and taken all precautions (sensibly) we do go out and live normally but we are well aware and keep ourselves and everyone else as safe as possible.

Quoted from ginnywings

Sad story of an anti vaxxer. Thought he was too young and strong to succumb.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/anti-vaxxer-kickboxing-champion-41-25791356

I think both these posts highlight the seriousness of covid and the lax attitude by the young.  Covid does not recognise age, nor health, and attacks anybody. We can only protect ourselves the best way we can and hope the anti-vaxers see the errors of their ways.