Tag Archives: vaccine

We got our third shot of the Pfizer vaccine

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They’re calling them booster shots but I’ve read a few articles that say it was always the plan to give three shots. Not something you want to publicize when you can’t get so many to get one shot. Barb and I got our shots eleven days ago. From CNN:

For individuals 65 plus, we saw significant declines in VE (vaccine effectiveness) against infection during Delta for the mRNA products,” Link-Gelles told CDC vaccine advisers this past week.

In a study of 4,000 healthcare personnel, first responders, and other frontline workers in eight places who were tested every week regardless of symptoms, vaccine protection against any infection declined from 91% pre-Delta to 66% during Delta.

Pfizer says its studies show booster doses bring people’s immunity back up to what it was right after they got their second shots, or to even higher levels.

How much higher? From the New York Times:

At least 12 days after the booster, rates of infection were elevenfold lower and of severe disease nearly twentyfold lower in those who received a booster compared with those who had received only two doses, the researchers found. The researchers acknowledged that their results were preliminary.

I like those numbers. And if I have to get a “booster” ever six months? BFD. I see my dentist every six months. While we’re on the subject of vaccines… My doctor recently suggested I get a shot of the new and improved shingles vaccine, Shingrix. Shingles is bad shit so I headed for the pharmacy. Turns out there might be a bonus benefit:

RZV (Shingrix) vaccination was associated with a 16% lower risk of COVID-19 diagnosis and 32% lower risk of hospitalization, suggesting RZV elicits heterologous protection, possibly through trained immunity.

At this point I’m masking just to piss off the anti-vaxxers.

Kovid Karma

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(The Denver Post) “Conservative firebrand Bob Enyart, the pastor of the Denver Bible Church and indelible talk show host, has died from COVID-19, his radio co-host announced Monday on Facebook. […] Enyart and his wife refused to get the vaccine due to abortion concerns, he said on his website. In October, Enyart successfully sued the state over mask mandates and capacity limits in churches, a rare legal victory against broad public health mandates instituted during the pandemic.”

“On his old TV show, Bob Enyart Live, the host would “gleefully read obituaries of AIDS sufferers while cranking ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen.”

Enyart is the sixth conservative/anti-vaccine talk show host to die of COVID in the past six weeks.

Mass Murder Movement

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Author Tim Wise explains why COVID anti-vaxxers aren’t a MAGA death cult… it’s a mass murder movement.

When you would tell them repeatedly that wearing a mask was less for the wearer than for others, they shrugged. If other folks are at risk, they should stay home and let the rest of us get back to the gym, the hairdresser, concerts, movies, and tailgate parties before the big game. […] Their freedom to do as they pleased was more important than other people’s lives.

Suicidal people don’t act or think that way. Homicidal people do.

If you refuse a vaccine when you have no valid health reason to do so (as almost no one does), thereby keeping the virus alive longer by increasing the risk of mutations, you are saying that other people’s lives don’t matter to you.

I cannot weep for someone who thought the “blood of Jesus” was all the vaccine they needed.

On a personal level, treating deniers like pariahs means banishing them, metaphorically, to the cornfield. It means cutting them out of our lives entirely: no invitations to the cocktail party or backyard barbecue, no seat for them at the holiday table, and no invitation to the grandkid’s graduation, Little League game, or dance recital. Refuse to speak to them, break bread with them or communicate with them in any way until they get their shit together and learn to play by the rules of public health by which rational, decent people agree to play.

Till then, they have made their ICU beds. Now they can lie in them, and sadly, die in them — completely and utterly, alone.

“It’s too late”

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AL.com: Dr. Brytney Cobia said all but one of her COVID patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to fully recover. Some of the others are dying. In Alabama, state officials report 94% of COVID hospital patients and 96% of Alabamians who have died of COVID since April were not fully vaccinated.

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

Plum Island

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From Plum Island, a 1997 thriller by Nelson DeMille:

“Can you describe to the duties of the Gordons?”

“Yes… They were involved mostly with… genetic research. Genetic alteration of viruses to make them unable to cause disease, but able to stimulate the body’s immune system.”

“A vaccine?” Beth asked.

“Yes, a new type of vaccine. Much safer than using a weakened virus.”

“Next target is cancer”

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(AP) “The scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the shots are safe, and the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge — cancer.

The vaccines made by BioNTech-Pfizer and U.S. rival Moderna uses messenger RNA, or mRNA, to carry instructions into the human body for making proteins that prime it to attack a specific virus. The same principle can be applied to get the immune system to take on tumors.

“We have several different cancer vaccines based on mRNA,” said Tureci, who is BioNTech’s chief medical officer.

Asked when such a therapy might be available, Tureci said “that’s very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that within only a couple of years, we will also have our vaccines (against) cancer at a place where we can offer them to people.”

Before you say, impossible, consider that the best scientific minds in the world were certain it was impossible to create a COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year.

Coming Out Day

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It’s been two weeks since I received my second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Time enough for my immune system to generate antibodies to the virus which means exposure to the virus probably won’t put me in the hospital or kill me.

A year ago I was still having lunch with friends in restaurants. And wiping down table tops with antiseptic wipes. (We hadn’t figured out the virus was air-borne.) Soon after Barb and I went into lockdown. We quarantined more diligently than anyone I know and maintained that diligence for a year. When Barb visited her sister they wore masks and did their brief chats outside, twenty feet apart. No birthdays, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas. Serious isolation. You know the drill.

Now that we’ve both been vaccinated, we’re venturing out. Barb going for walks with (vaccinated) friends; sitting in her sister’s (vaccinated) kitchen; going inside the supermarket instead of curbside pickup. We’re still masking in public and will do so until the scientists tell us it’s safe to stop.

Barb and her sister will spend a week at our place in Destin this spring. Just the two of them. They have a lot of catching up to do.

In recent weeks I’ve realized how much the year of near-isolation has affected me. The stress has started to show and I’m eager to get out of the house and be with some friends. “Have you been vaccinated yet?” has become a common refrain. I feel like I’m in a zombie movie. I don’t see any but I know they’re out there. But it’s time to rejoin the living. Wish us luck.

Vaccinated

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Received second dose of vaccine (Pfizer) this morning so I guess I’m as vaccinated as I can be for now. Vaccinated. The word has taken on something of a magical quality (in my head). In a few weeks my immune system will have created enough antibodies (another word with big mojo) to keep me from getting sick or dead from the virus.

I feel like the kid who has been given a super power but can’t think of anything to do with it. “Go inside a grocery store” doesn’t seem very ambitious but I’m looking forward to it. And sitting in the same room with a (vaccinated) friend.

The Big Payoff will come from Barb spending time with friends (most of whom have been vaccinated) without worrying about infecting me with the plague.

I’m aware posts like this are a bit like “Here’s a photo of me with my new Lamborghini,” but perhaps it will encourage someone to get vaccinated that was reluctant to do so.

“I Miss My Mom”

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“She wasn’t always like this,” Sam said. “It just keeps getting worse.”

Children of QAnon believers are desperately trying to deradicalize their parents. Here’s what it’s like to lose the person who raised you to a far-right cult.

“Though she didn’t used to be very political, she now fears the president is a pedophile who stole the election. She’s scared of radiation from the 5G towers in her neighborhood and, as a white woman, she told her son, she’s afraid of being harmed by Black Lives Matter protesters — a movement she once supported. She worries that Sam’s brother and sister are being “indoctrinated” at their public high school and wants to move them to a Catholic one. She’s also refusing to get them immunized against COVID-19 as false rumors swirl that the vaccine contains a secret location-tracking microchip. (She was initially terrified of the virus but now considers the lockdowns an affront to her freedoms.)”

I think this would be worse than losing a parent to a fatal illness.