I wanted to give a (sad) update on my brother who has refused to get vaccinated. He caught COVID mid-April. He has been very hard to communicate with since then, I have only been able to get hold of him twice. Technically he’s been back to work, but for any given week he said he is typically unable to work all his scheduled shifts (he is a bartender). He is on antianxiety medication and it’s helping - sort of. He is even more against the idea of getting vaccinated than before. I don’t know what to tell him now. I have read that patients with long COVID have about a 10% chance of symptoms worsening due to vaccination. Given that fact, I don’t know if I could advise vaccination for someone in his condition, he’s really suffering. On the other hand, he works with the public every time he works, and they sure as heck don’t require masks where he works. This sucks. 
I’m so sorry. What I can say is that the covid virus continues to morph into new varients. And new vaccines coming out have new targets. Gotta sort them out. They aren’t all the same,
So very sorry to hear that your brother is struggling. I can tell it upsets you. 
Sounds like he has a very public job. Close contact with lots of people. I know you’re not making the decision for him but 10% chance may be a chance he has to take to avoid getting Covid a second time and worsening. Does he have a doctor he trusts to get an opinion??
I am not sure where you have read that there is a 10% chance of worsening symptoms of long covid with vaccination. I have read exactly the opposite. Here’s one such study showing improvement of symptoms after vaccination https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o988
My son had long Covid from early in 2020 when Covid first went around the country until he got his Moderna vaxxes in 2021. After his first vax most of his symptoms lessened. After his second they all completely went away.
We had been with him in Feb 2021 and he couldn’t hike a flat mile or spend much time playing Frisbee due to chest pains and fatigue, etc. Post Moderna he could hike and play as long as the rest of my kids.
A couple months ago he caught Covid again and was over it in a couple of days, never getting nearly as bad as the first time when it lingered for weeks/months/year (the cough, fatigue, and more)
YMMV, but he is very pro-vax now.
According to Why Vaccines May Be Helping Some With Long COVID > News > Yale Medicine , 30-40% of those with long COVID improve after vaccination, but 10-15% get worse. So the odds are favorable for improvement, but the chance of getting worse is significant.
This is basically like being in other medical situations where the available treatment has a significant risk of making the situation worse, but a higher chance of making the situation better. Whether the person would choose the treatment depends on how severe or limiting the condition is currently versus what the worsening could be like.
He does not and never has. I think I posted about this upthread somewhere - we come from a rural background and grew up in a culture that does not place a lot of trust in the medical community, and we have had a very different medical experience from the one I suspect a lot of CC posters enjoy. In addition, my brother has never had medical insurance as an adult, not until right before everything shut down. He has not taken care of himself. For example, he smokes. Actually I have been wondering if quitting smoking would help with his symptoms but suspect he’s even less open to that than to the idea of getting vaccinated.
With no doctor, he has been going repeatedly to the urgent care clinic for care. They really are not set up to handle his situation. He lives close enough to Seattle that I’m hoping he can get involved with their long COVID clinic.
I told him about your son before he first got sick. He has informed me (I won’t share a link because I don’t trust the source and haven’t found any better source) that vaccination is giving people long COVID and that the medical community is not sharing this information, so I used your son as an anecdotal counterexample.
Exactly. It’s not up to me, but honestly if it were me, I’d be pretty hesitant. And I’m strongly pro-vax, very worried about his likelihood of further exposure. From his anti-vax perspective, and given the fact that he can’t even make it to work some days, I am sure the 10% risk looks a lot bigger.
It’s hard to watch someone I love suffer, even if it is due to the consequences of what I feel is a series of poor and/or misguided decisions.
Sorry, I should have posted a link, but ucbalumnus’ link is the quickest one to point to. There are several studies out now showing some likelihood of improvement but also some likehood of deterioration, and more to come in the next few months.
Thanks, @ucbalumnus, I hadn’t seen that before. Can always count on you for the research!
Free covid test program will end on September 2. If you’d like to order tests, do so now
I think this has to do with congress not extending funding for covid relief. I’m not entirely sure but I think the next round of covid vaccines will have the same charges as other vaccines
I wonder if this includes the 8 tests/month for Medicare recipients. We got our August allotment–will go on Sept. 1 for our last set of tests if that’s the case.
Yes, and for all of the insured with ACA-approved plans, that charge is zero, as covid vaccines are considered under the no copay preventative benefit.
The Medicare test coverage is separate from the free government tests and apparently continues as long as there is a public health emergency.
Medicare now covers up to 8 over-the-counter COVID-19 tests each calendar month, at no cost to you.
- This coverage continues until the COVID-19 public health emergency ends.
I tried to order more tests, but it told me that I’ve ordered all they’re going to give me. Bummer - it was such an easy way to get my test stash, which is almost out.
ordered home tests the first day possible, but never used them so tossed them after they expired
I believe insurance companies are mandated to pay for up to 8 tests per calendar month per person insured. Both H and I got our free tests at Walgreens in July - it was super easy. We went to the pharmacy counter and told them we wanted our monthly allotment of 8 tests each, they took our insurance info and processed it like it was a prescription. We got the Binax tests. Not sure if this mandate also ends on 9/2 and whether insurance companies will continue to cover the costs. Worth checking into and getting them in August while you can! Expiration dates have been extended longer than when the test first came out, so they’ll be good through the winter.
Edited to add we were not charged for the tests, meaning we did not have to submit our receipt for reimbursement which was great.
Mine are expired, but they are actually still good. There is a way to check online. We didn’t use them for ages, then Covid just tore through our area. We had to test a couple times after our table mate at a wedding tested positive, and we thought we were in the clear. Then D & GD tested positive, so there went my stash. I think the jinx was that right before we needed them, H commented that he was glad we didn’t have to pay for them since they would have to be thrown out before we needed them.
Many antigen tests’ expiration dates have been extended, based on continuing stability testing. Many of them were initially given EUA with short expiration dates because there was not enough time to do longer stability testing.
Good to know, thanks.
This article. Tells you how to check if your tests have been extended.