Vaccine reluctance & General COVID Discussion

What “evidence” there is for the claim that Hamlin’s incident was vaccine related appears to be suspicious: Zero Evidence 'Dr. Benjamin Eidelman' Gave Damar Hamlin COVID Booster Days Before Collapse | Snopes.com

“Suspicious” is far to kind of word. It is made-up nonsense. Same as the vast majority of the antivax nonsense on twitter and elsewhere.

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A little leaguer here had this happen about 20 years ago. A parent in the stands recognized what had happened immediately because he was an ER doc. He had also spotted an AED on the wall of the rec center ( unusual in those times). He had the kids heart restarted in minutes. Kid was fine in a few days (His mom jokes that she still hasn’t recovered).

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A little silver lining from the report/study……

“But they found little damage to brain tissue, “despite substantial viral burden.””

I’m also curious whether this is the case with other viruses such as flu? It seems we know (or atleast it’s more discussed/published) so much more about COVID and how it’s affecting us than other viruses.

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Crazy question. I am on day 6 of infection. I tested today and was negative. I will follow all guidelines about masking, as well as avoid any indoor activities.

This is the weird part: Is there any risk for me keeping my mask off around my currently infected child (who got it from me after she kept coming into my isolation room despite my warnings because she trusted her recent booster)? My instinct says she and I are safe around each other but I remember seeing some things about avoiding subsequent exposures. I’m assuming that means after one exposure but before symptoms appear, but is there some research I have missed?

Yes, I can overthink things.

Assuming the negative is not a false negative due to a testing error, you are probably no longer contagious (if you are concerned about a testing error, you may want to retest in a day or two).

Given that your kid presumably has the same variant you had (unless she bred a new one), and your immune system appears to have killed it off quickly, it is unlikely that she can reinfect you (and if you are no longer contagious, you will not be giving her more virus).

Today’s variants like XBB.1.5 and BQ.1.1 are different enough from BA.5 that the BA.5-containing booster does not appear to be great protection against infection by them, although it is better than a booster against the ancestral virus.

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Thank you, @ucbalumnus . I suspect it’s the XBB variant that finally got her since it is very prevalent in our area. She did pretty well considering she never had the virus that we know of prior to this and was in contact with lots of people during the course of the pandemic through school and especially the type of part time jobs she had. Yesterday was very unpleasant. In terms of discomfort, she had the worst case of covid so far in our family because of horrible body aches and vomiting in addition to headache, sore throat and fever. But it seems like she has turned a corner today.

Assuming I had the circulating XBB variant, it wasn’t terrible but it was worse for me than BA1 was last year because I had two days of fever. One day of 102 degrees and another day in the 100-101 degree range. But otherwise, I only had mild nasal congestion. Last year’s infection was more like a vacation in my room.

I know in general, viral load was indicative of how bad some cases were compared to others (at least by correlation). If you’re no longer contagious, it’s not an issue. If you are, sharing viral loads might not be in either of your best interests. I would lean toward a negative test meaning you’re not contagious any longer, but I’m not totally sure TBH.

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So I have mixed feelings about getting any more boosters. I’m not an anti Vaxxer- quite opposite, I was first in line for it, had both shots and two boosters including bivalent booster. No issues until this last one. Two days after, I developed tinnitus and vertigo - vertigo came and went. Tinnitus never went away. Had brain fog and dizziness for over a week. It’s been over 2 months and though the vertigo is gone, just one drink seems to possibly set off dizziness. didn’t even drink at new years. Never had any of this before.
It took me two weeks to come to terms that this May last forever. I just sleep with sound machine because the ringing is awful at night otherwise.

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I completely understand your hesitance after your experience. Everyone is different and quite possibly can have a varying reaction to the same vaccine.

My elderly neighbor’s older sister seemed to have an almost immediate severe reaction to her first dose of the original vaccine and quickly deteriorated and passed away within a couple weeks. The same neighbor’s daughter (similar genes) had a horrible time (week long extreme reactions) after the two vaccines she received but thankfully was able to get past that. The neighbor has forgone the vaccine out of fear of how it might affect her and I don’t blame her one bit. Everyone has a different body “chemistry” and although most people have no issues with certain things, others could have completely different outcomes. I suppose in a way it’s just like the body’s natural reaction to covid, for some it’s asymptomatic, the sniffles, a fever, etc. For others it could end up affecting them long term or even leading to their death.

We’re all different and I don’t blame anyone for looking at their individual circumstances and trying to make the best decision for themselves. I personally have had two initial shots and one booster. With each I had about 12-16 hours of a pretty miserable experience. I then contracted covid about two months after the booster, most likely omicron, and had an extremely mild case. It was much easier on me than even the vaccine reactions and so I’m personally not inclined to receive another booster. I do believe the initial vaccines probably led to me having a mild case when I caught the natural virus itself. Alternatively, it might be that I would have had the same reaction to infection without having been vaccinated. I have my personal history and experience as data to help me make my own personal decision. Also, since everyone in my household was fully vaccinated at the time covid came through and infected all of us I don’t believe it personally makes much difference at this point. Right now I’m leaning towards just riding it out as is.

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I’ve heard of a lot of people forego second booster. I’ve had COVID as well and I agree with you, it could have been mild due to original vaccine or not (and I have asthma so Im one of the higher risk people for COVID and although it wasn’t a walk in the park, it wasn’t awful). We’ll never know. I don’t second guess my original decision to get it - I made the right decision based on the amount of information I had at the time, but if I could go back, I wouldn’t have gotten second booster. And I’m a little bit more understanding/sympathetic to those who are mistrusting or reluctant to get it for fear that it hasn’t been tested enough - I was the first one originally to say things like “it’s been field tested on millions of people” - which was true but how many of those people developed non life threatening but other life altering reactions afterwards and it wasn’t announced from the rooftops just May or may not have been self reported. I’ve looked online since and there’s tons of reports and articles about tinnitus as a result of this vaccine (and to be fair, other vaccines), but funny thing is I didn’t go and seek out information about things that may happen until after they happened and then, I was like crap, it was listed as a possible reaction the whole time (buried in possible side effects along with a hundred other things). Just like every medication out there.

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https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/bivalent-boosters.html

A new safety signal in bivalent vaccine.
No changes in recommendations but it will be investigated.

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Pfizer only, not seen with Moderna.

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It makes me sad because that age group is the one most likely to benefit, and it’s going to cause them anxiety. At least there’s another option.

Yes, at least anyone concerned about this can choose Moderna.

However, vaccine diversity is quite low in the US compared to most other countries, so that people who have medical limitations against a particular vaccine may not have much in the way of alternative choices. Basically, it is two fairly similar mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna), one viral vector vaccine (J&J, whose use seems to be discouraged these days), and one protein subunit vaccine (Novavax, which is barely known and appears less effective).

There also is little vaccine diversity in vaccines matched to newer variants compared to the ancestral virus – just two mRNA vaccines.

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Most people who were going to get the bivalent booster have already done so.

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Had my bivalent booster in September before H and I went on a road trip with my parents. On Thursday I started to feel like I was coming down with a cold. Woke up yesterday with a headache, runny nose and a low grade fever. Tested at lunch and I have Covid. This is my second time having Covid (first time was January 2022). I’ve had all my vaccines and boosters and I am not in a high risk group. Today it just feels like a head cold. We are expecting rain this weekend so I will just hang out at home, rest and do some binge watching.

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