So how about the JJ? Bit confused as to what the final consensus was.
CDC web page on the matter:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
While it was a unanimous approval for J&J the first time, the second time it wasnât. I believe 4 noted no (there were abstentions both times, I think - the 2nd time one announced they had to abstain because they were involved in clinical trials of one of the vaccines. Since the majority okayed stopping the halt on J&J, the hold was lifted.
What about if one receives immunotherapy for seasonal allergies? Is there still a reason to space immunotherapy 14 days from a covid vaccine? Ty.
We were advised to space the COVID vaccine 48 hours from an allergy shot. Before or after.
Interesting perspective on the necessity of peer review and proper methodology in Covid studies (all studies really).
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@Hippobirdy I work for a large allergist practice; we require our immunotherapy patients to wait for their allergy injections 7 days after their COVID vaccine, but, they can receive their allergy injections 24 hours prior to their COVID vaccine. This has worked well for our patients and keeps them from being late on their injections if they are still weekly.
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@snowball thank you!
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Regeneron, a pharmaceutical company, has a web page showing what COVID-19 variants were detected at what levels.
In the US, it looks like the B.1.1.7 (Kent, UK) variant is becoming the most common one detected. In California, the B.1.429 and B.1.427 (both Los Angeles) variants became big last winter, but have since been displaced by the B.1.1.7 variant.
Wasnât naming diseases after cities/locations a no-no relative to best practices (per WHO and NYT)?
Only when China is involved 
The disease is Covid-19, and the virus that causes it is SARS-CoV-2. Neither are named after a place. The variants are still the same virus, and they cause the same disease.
Variants are named with letters and numbers: B.1.135, B.1.1.7 etc. People find these hard to remember, so they started referring to the geographical area where the variant was first recognized as common. That doesnât mean it originated there, nor is the variant named after that place.
I think preventing anti-Asian (or anti-anyone) sentiment and violence is a worthy goal, and I agree with the WHO that naming viruses or diseases after a place should be avoided. It would be good if virologists came up with a naming protocol for variants that made them easier to keep track of. The public is normally not interested in viral variants and therefore only scientists needed to keep track of the nomenclature in the past.
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yeah, I get all that, but convenience should not be the over-riding concern.
[quote]"With no easy alternatives at hand, people have resorted to calling B.1.351 âthe South African variant.â But Dr. de Oliveira pleaded with his colleagues to avoid the term. (Look no further than the origins of this very virus: Calling it the âChina virusâ or the âWuhan virusâ fed into xenophobia and aggression against people of East Asian origin all over the world.)
And the practice could distort science. It is not entirely clear that the variant arose in South Africa: It was identified there in large part thanks to the diligence of South African scientists, but branding it as that countryâs variant could mislead other researchers into overlooking its possible path into South Africa from another country that was sequencing fewer coronavirus genomes."
[/quote]
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I read that too!
âThe naming conventions for viruses were fine as long as variants remained esoteric topics of research. But they are now the source of anxiety for billions of people. They need names that roll off the tongue, without stigmatizing the people or places associated with themâ.
Funny Iâve never associated the names of viruses with places until Covid. I didnât know Lyme, Ebola and Marburg were actual geographic locations. I also find it interesting that there is a perceived stigma associated with naming a virus or itâs variant after the place itâs first discovered or an outbreak occurs. I never thought badly of the Middle East because of MERS I just know that the first outbreak occurred there.
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Side question for those in the medical field: There is so much division on mask/no mask or vaccine/no vaccine. Hindsight is 2020, but if we had gone into this pandemic with more resolve as a society, and more were masked and vaccinated, could the virus be erradicated? By doing so, would it have elimated most of the variants (current and future) by the herd immunity concept?
I have not heard this type of discussion on any of the traditional news media. It has been argued to mask or vaccine to get back to normal, or to protect the vulnerable, etc. If instead, if it could be argued that if everyone wore a mask for a month, or if a certain percentage would get vaccinated, we could wipe this thing out âfor goodâ, wouldnât there be more willing people?
Also curious what we might do better going forward for the next pandemic.
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Maybe not eradicated completely, but effectively eliminated for significant periods of time, with occasional action needed when someone slips up and an outbreak occurs, like in New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan, where daily life was much less restricted and people were much less fearful of the virus most of the time, but there was consensus willingness to go through short strict lockdowns to stamp out any outbreaks. In contrast, the US had âlockdownsâ that were enough to annoy people but not enough to stamp out the virus â the worst of both worlds.
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Once everyone who wants a vaccine has gotten fully vaccinated, most people can go back to normal â the vaccinated will be reasonably safe, while the voluntarily unvaccinated can play COVID-19 lottery themselves without threatening many other people.
However, those who are medically unable to get vaccinated, or who do not gain good immunity from vaccination, will find life more difficult if there is no herd immunity (which there probably will not be in the US), since âback to normalâ life will include the usual contagious disease threats without the social distancing, masking, etc. mitigations. Note that these are the people whom mandatory vaccinations in schools and other places are intended to protect by making herd immunity in those places. But opposition to vaccination is so high now that this is unlikely to happen in the US.
Why wouldnât the US reach herd immunity if you combine the vaccinated with those who already had Covid together with the unvaccinated who will probably get Covid at some point? The other issue is how well the vaccines/natural immunity protect against the variants. If they donât then weâre all in for a bumpy ride, including those island nations whose isolation has protected them so far.
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