Interesting data from the CDC. Sharp increase in hospitalizations of vaccinated individuals during the BA.2 wave. I’ll link the article. Some of the discussion in the article is not very clear cut.
From the article:
“During the BA.2 period, 27.8% of hospitalized adults were unvaccinated, representing a 60% decrease from 69.4% during the Delta period and a 41% decrease from 47.2% during the BA.1 period. The proportion who had received a primary series and ≥1 booster or additional dose increased from 1.4%, 15.6%, and 44.1% during the Delta, BA.1, and BA.2 periods, respectively. In May 2022, the monthly population-based, age-adjusted hospitalization rate among unvaccinated adults aged ≥18 years was 3.4 times as high (95% CI = 3.2–3.6) as rates among vaccinated adults who had received ≥1 booster or additional dose (CDC, COVID-19–Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network, unpublished data, 2022).”
My S23 just came home from a 12th grade outdoor trip; 7 kids came down with bad sore throats, fever, junky cough, and headaches.
My kid was in a van with them for 5 hours on the first day going to their destination, a day when one of them was feeling slightly under the weather and everyone else was fine. No one wore a mask except my kid, who wore a KN95 while in the van.
Then they were fully outdoors for 6 days. Apparently the kid who was slightly under the weather was fully symptomatic on day two, and then over the following 24 hours all the other kids in the van became symptomatic, too. Five of them took Covid tests twice, and all of them were negative on the antigen tests.
I drove home three of them this evening; we all wore KN95s and had the windows down by about 6" as well- I don’t want to get this, whatever it is!
Editing to add: My kid did not get it, the only one in the van who did not.**
But in 2022, the evidence and data has become clearer.
You can Google the info quick, then click Images to get the graphs.
Eg “covid deaths by age”
The majority of covid deaths are those 65 years+.
The totals and rates for the elderly are so high, it is a Big Health Concern.
On the flip side, the deaths below 25 years are minimal. In some datasets, the annual flu kills more than the covid for these youth. Ie. If you don’t freak out about the flu, covid is similar for the young.
Like HIV, there are many factors, especially genes and blood type, that affect the chances of catching covid, dying.
And like HIV, there are certain people who simply do not get sick due to their unique genes etc.
Every 2~ year old vaccine formulation - pfizer, moderna, jnj, etc are OLD.
Meaning even the CDC has data showing that vaccines are like pee water after 3~ months post injection.
They SIMPLY DON’T WORK WELL anymore.
Even after injections, the protection is at best a rough 60% reduction in infections even among the elderly.
Not enough data on the revised boosters just coming out on the market.
These again are targeting one, two 5.x omicron variants, but now there’s 7.x variants.
Variations in the covid virus structure can at times entirely negate the effectiveness of vaccines. Just like how in the past, flu vaccines designed for variants A, B, C don’t work one season when variant D is actually the one spreading.
Vaers
Vaccine side effect database.
The 100K’s+ of people reporting at times very significant side effects is real…like any vaccine (E.g. Look up the hpv vaccine re: deaths etc).
Man isn’t perfect.
But importantly, Machines man makes aren’t perfect.
Time Magazine as I recall detailed pfizers manufacturing process - 10,000+ step process to create the covid vaccine, and you BELIEVE ALL 10,000 steps will be Perfect each and every dose?
It’s just like when you open a bag of potato chips and despite everything in the manufacturing line designed to stop it, you get a black chip now and then.
Also, prior to the covid vaccines, there were no mRNA vaccines that passed stage 3 fda trials for commercial drug production. Experiential, in trials, still testing - in other words, not enough people or TIME PASSED, to properly detect bad side effects. (And 2 years later, still not enough. Regular drug development takes a decade+.)
Masks, Isolation, Behaviour.
Let’s face it.
We’ve all seen it.
Some kids sneeze into tissues, then dispose of them and wash their hands.
Some kids blast sneezes into the air, wipe on shirt sleeves.
Poor hygine will get others infected; good hygiene will help you from being infected.
…
Masks.
Only N95?!?
Why on earth did the cdc recommend n95 masks so late?
AND.....drum roll....
WHY NOT THE BETTER N100 masks?!?
We've all seen how haphazardly the government is run. Some might say the DMV is the devil's den.
Daily, consistent fit and wear of n100/95 masks significantly reduces your chances of infection vs poorer surgical masks, cloth etc.
(While covid masks studies are out, you can search for masks studies on sars, mers, cold, flu - consistently, n100/n95 do much better protecting.)
…
Isolation.
Go to a packed movie theater with nobody talking vs go to a packed football game with everyone talking, screaming.
Covid in spittle flies far - dozens of feet. Search the studies of people talking.
A simple choice of entertainment should one not isolate can result in big differences in your chance of infection.
Or try limiting exposure.
Rather than going out EVERY night, once a week.
Rather than shopping when it’s busiest, the least busy times.
…
Even simple things like turning your head while talking to the breath heads to the side, away from the person you talk to can help reduce exposure.
UV light, filters, Plasmacluster.
UV (sunlight, uv-c) shown to kill covid.
Study and get together outdoors, even under the shade with the benefit of tons if ventilation can help reduce exposure.
Indoors. Hepa filters in air purifiers can keep covid levels in the air low.
Sharp Plasmacluster is one air purifier with scientific studies done proving additional reduction and inactivation of the covid virus (and flu, cold).
Having one in the dorm can keep exposure rates low even if others stop by to visit.
Diet.
Just like zinc with colds and star anise (used to make tamiflu) with flus, a healthy diet with the usual lot of common anti-cold/flu ingredients can’t hurt.
But consistently across cros various types of infections, a poor diet, lack of vitamins and nutrients will increase infection time and severity.
Just drop that pizza/burger/hot dog/chips/fries/taco/etc!
Yes, you are correct. She should have but she didn’t and wasn’t willing to take any suggestions. Given CDC guidelines that after 5 days from the first day of symptoms, one can go and about with a mask, she felt that she could on the 7th day with a mask. So she went to classes, ran errands, etc. She continued to wear a mask in public places (classes, stores, party). On the 15th day, her symptoms returned.
“She does not have an antigen test available to check if the current sickness is COVID-19?”
As of last night she didn’t have any more antigen tests. I suggested that she goes out to buy them, but I do not know if she will. I’m frustrated.
They were in the van for five hours. Even if the mask were worn so that it is 95% effective, that would be equivalent to being in the van for 15 minutes without a mask. Since the van is a small indoor space, that makes it easy to get infected (whether it is COVID-19 or some other respiratory infection).
In December H, D1 and I rode for 12 hours in a closed car with D2 from Southern California to Utah. Two days after our arrival D2 felt sick and tested positive for Covid. All four of us had our boosters about 3 weeks prior. None of us came down with Covid from D2. D1 went to get a PCR test later that week (negative) before flying to the east coast week to spend Christmas with her fiance and his family. It has been strange since the beginning of the pandemic how some get Covid and others don’t when in very close contact.
I spent the whole day in the car with my daughter the day before she developed symptoms and never got it. We had both been boosted six months earlier (only one booster) so despite feeling pretty crummy she may not have been particularly infectious.
My son (who was the only one wearing a mask, and it was a KN95) was the only one in the van who did NOT get it. Everyone else got it, editing my above post to make that clear!
I edited to add clarity to my post: my kid, who was the only person wearing a mask in the van (and it was a KN95), was the only person in the van not to get sick.
As they were on a multi-day outdoor trip after they got out of the vans the first day, they didn’t have enough rapid tests to keep testing all throughout the trip, but “patient zero” tested the night before the trip and the morning before they left and was negative both times. He’d tested as he had a little congestion and wasn’t sure if it was allergies and out of an abundance of caution tested twice before leaving. He was then the first to become symptomatic, and then everyone else in the van, like clockwork, came down with the same symptoms.
They stopped twice on the way but it was almost all freeway driving so the windows weren’t down.
The other kids each tested once or twice while on the trip, none of the sick kids had a positive test. So it could well be another illness, and whatever it is I’m glad my kid kept his mask on as it certainly seemed to do it’s job!
DD got pregnant right after the first Moderna shot. She got the second one (CA docs were recommending - docs in other States, not so much - as per the mommy blogs). I guess we have our own in house experimental group. GD #1 mom not vaxxed. GD#2 Mom vaxxed during the earliest part of gestational development.
’ We bring experimental evidence that pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs or its LNP component affects innate and adaptive immune responses. Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs led to long-term inhibition of the adaptive immune responses, which the use of adjuvants could overcome. On the other hand, we report that after pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs, the resistance of mice to heterologous infections with influenza virus increased, while resistance to Candida albicans decreased. We also detected a general neutropenia in the mRNA-LNP exposed mice. Interestingly, mice pre-exposed to mRNA-LNPs can pass down the acquired immune traits to their offspring. In summary, the mRNA-LNP vaccine platform induces long-term immunological changes that can affect both adaptive immune responses and heterologous protection against infections, some of which can be inherited by the offspring. More studies are needed to understand the mechanisms responsible for these effects and determine this platform’s impact on human health."
Our synagogue got a COVID update from one of the members who is Deputy Medical Officer for the county’s HSS. Most of what she talked about was not new to me, but two points stood out for me.
(1) for home antigen tests, even if it shows negative after 15 minutes, wait the full 30 minutes. With the new variants, some of the tests need the full 30 minutes to register positive.
(2) COVID immunity from an Omicron virus infection may only last as little as 3-4 weeks, rather than 3 to 4 months.
I’m assuming both of these points are results of the information she gets in the course of her position, because they are not being discussed in national studies to my knowledge. And there’s a logic to them if Omicron is a weaker strain.
No, not for myself. But I’m a researcher at heart and like to read and share some of the differing opinions in the medical community, especially since most of what’s shared here tends to be one sided (though the articles I shared had many different viewpoints). It’s also interesting to see how different countries are handling the boosters. Denmark, for instance, is only recommending boosters for 50+.
It is not completely clear, but it looks like the base level of vaccination previously recommended in Denmark is 3 doses for age 18+ and 2 doses for under 18, based on the last FAQ answer at the bottom of https://en.coronasmitte.dk/general-information/vaccination . It looks like they intend to have annual seasonal boosters (beyond the base 3 doses) for age 50+.