Inside Medicine. What Are You Seeing? [COVID-19 medical news]

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I have heard from two people that this has actually happened to! Someone said after their first shot, they felt great for the first time in months, and finally got their taste/smell back. Someone else also said that their lingering symptoms went away

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A study on COVID-19 after-effects:

The conclusion: “We observed 14% of individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosed with a new clinical sequelae that required medical attention during the post-acute phase of illness. Elevated and sustained risk for clinical sequelae during the 4 months following acute illness, particularly but not exclusively among individuals with pre-existing conditions or hospitalized due to COVID-19, was observed. Additional follow-up is needed to determine resolution of risk over time.”

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wasnt there talk about rapid strips that could be used at home for testing that never went anywhere. Keeping fingers crossed for travel.

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More information on post vaccine numbers:

https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/washington-breakthrough-vaccine-cases/281-9278cb21-6b14-4746-a2b7-91725282c24b

With 2/102 dying and 8 hospitalized it seems the benefit of the vaccine is mostly prevention as those odds of people who caught it don’t seem all that different from the odds of the general population getting it (deaths + hospitalization for Covid positive folks). Prevention is a big deal, so definitely no slight, but it’s sad for those where it didn’t work.

I wish they had said which vaccine plus it looks like they are still studying to see if those affected had the newer variants or not.

Looking forward to more numbers as they come in.

This is important as well since the immune systems of older people aren’t as robust.

However, eight people were hospitalized with COVID-19, and the state is investigating two “potential” breakthrough cases where patients died.

Both of those patients were more than 80 years old and suffered underlying health issues, according to the state.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/31/world/covid-19-coronavirus/the-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-is-highly-effective-in-adolescents-12-to-15-years-old-a-clinical-trial-suggests

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Agreed, which also matches those most likely to die in the “typical” Covid positive population.

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I am working at a Covid Surge facility (alternate care site) in Southern California. Our facility took patients who were covid positive, not sick enough to be hospitalized, but for whatever reason couldn’t be cared for at their home. Many had disabilities and came from long term care facilities or board and care type facilities. Many long term care facilities were in crisis because their staff was getting covid and the residents were getting covid and they didn’t have enough staff to take care of the residents and they couldn’t get registry staff because the residents had Covid. Some families were in crisis because there was a member of the family who required caretaking, and the caregiver and/or the family member or both got covid. December and January were absolutely crazy busy. The emergency rooms were full, the ICUs were full. Our facility was full. Shortly after the long term care facilities started to get vaccinated, we saw a dramatic decrease in admissions. Our last admit was in February. Half of our facility closed two weeks ago and we officially closed today. In addition, our local hospitals numbers are way down. There is some concern about a fourth surge, but for now we are in a “warm shutdown”, but we are ready to reopen if necessary.

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The state said that the breakthrough cases are 0.01% of the 1.2 million fully vaccinated people in Washington state, which health officials say falls within the results of the clinical studies of the vaccines.

Vaccines do work. They do not just prevent hospitalization.

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Oh they’re definitely working for the vast majority - no doubt there, and I do think they prevent hospitalization for many. It’s solely the breakthrough cases I was looking at and pondering.

Covid vaccines do not protect 100%. Percentage of breakthroughs is within clinical expectation.

Agreed. No vaccine is 100% effective. That doesn’t stop some of us (or at least me) from being curious about the outliers wondering what they have in common, etc.

Luck (or lack of it).

Have there been any studies about breakthrough cases and after-effects?

There seems to be a decent number of anecdotes about breakthrough cases (not surprising when 5% of millions is still a large number who could get breakthrough cases), but anecdotes about after-effects from breakthrough cases seem to be absent, unlike the high frequency of such for cases in unvaccinated people.

If the vaccines greatly reduce the risk of after-effects even in breakthrough cases, that would be another win.

I’m only seeing numbers right now. It’s so new I would expect after effects to come later. If anyone finds anything, I’d love it if they shared.

CDC made some additions to the list of conditions consider at high risk of COVID. I’m not sure what proportion of the population have at least one high risk condition, but my guess is it’s 70% of adults, maybe more. One of the reasons the US has had relatively poor covid outcomes.

From Medscape (overweight is BMI 25+):

“Conditions that had previously been categorized as “might be” placing individuals at increased risk — but now are listed as high risk — include type 1 diabetes (in addition to type 2), moderate-to-severe asthma, liver disease, dementia or other neurological conditions, stroke/cerebrovascular disease, HIV infection, cystic fibrosis, and overweight (in addition to obesity).

Substance use disorders, which hadn’t been previously listed, are now also considered high-risk.”

76% of a sample of 1,733 people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 in Wuhan had at least one symptom in followup appointments about 6 months after recovery. Muscle weakness or fatigue was the most common symptom, with 63% reporting it. Greater severity of the acute phase was associated with greater likelihood of lung function issues afterward.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32656-8/fulltext

Great article! loved reading this talked about development and logistics of the JnJ vaccine

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This is a bit frustrating. At least one expert has changed his mind about kids and Covid based upon one of the new variants and what he’s seeing: