My plan is to get a COVID shot every year along with the flu. I imagine there are logistics issues with making a 2-in-1 vaccine every year.
I’ve been doing every six months and plan to keep doing so. Been mask free at the tables and doing some indoor dining for a few weeks now and so far still on Team Novid. Go booster go!
The official recommendation will at best be once a year, there are some rumors on Twitter that the CDC may recommend against boosters this year for healthy adults, which is extremely sus to me.
Everyone has covid again fyi
Awesome.
Is it kind of weird that it keeps surging in the late summer? I mean for a respiratory disease? Seems weird.
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It’s so hot people don’t do much outside. They’re spending moe time inside.
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The more robust protective immunity from shots and cases lasts around 3-4 months, and when it’s hot out everyone is inside. Seems like it makes sense for a new wave to start building 3-4 months after the winter cases die down, which would be in May/June, leading to a peak a month or two later. Then the clock resets and the people who don’t get vaxxed start getting cases in Nov/Dec.
I think the more interesting question is why the common cold and flu don’t do this.
Most coronaviruses are seasonal, but some or not. No one really knows why.
Right and it would be pretty good for scientists to figure out why, as it would improve our understanding of COVID.
My dad just caught it on a cruise.
Well people have been looking into this for sure, it’s just not easy to study.
Right, understandably so. I actually think perhaps the most interesting thing to study, and I’m not sure if it’s being done or not, is how often we get asymptomatic cases of common cold coronaviruses. Also, how often do we get a mildly symptomatic non-infection exposure to viruses. Like, you breathe in some coronavirus, it gets mostly into your upper respiratory tract, you cough, you sneeze, your nose runs, for like 24 hours, and you test negative and it all goes away.
Man feels like with little kids it’s just perpetual that at least one person in home is sick at any given time. Like maybe 1 week a month of all 4 people being free of any obvious illness
Welcome to golden age of agriculture!
So I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t been tracking much COVID news, but jumped back in after noticing cases rising. Obviously cases rising with this new variant is not good. But for now, I’ll stick to some of the good news I’ve found.
It appears that now that we have enough time passing since boosters, we have some decent evidence that they work to reduce risks for the long COVID stuff too.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1689684666348113921
The lack of a change in frequency of Long COVID since January of this year is bad news for those who already have it, but would seem to indicate that there aren’t a lot of people getting fresh long COVID cases.
https://twitter.com/TRyanGregory/status/1689663723567198208
USA#1 life expectancy still dropping, but the other 11 countries used as comparisons dropped less and are rising again. I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis that higher vaccination rates there are likely the reason for that.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1689732085953740804
A significant reduction in the risk of diabetes following COVID for the vaccinated. Still an elevated risk, but much closer to baseline.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1690065355815944192
New boosters available in October. Make sure to boost this fall! Might as well get your flu shot while you’re at it, too. I plan on doing mine about two weeks before Thanksgiving.
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https://twitter.com/kprather88/status/1690168546180141056
To clarify, the replies are scattered, seems like some people are catching it on one brand and not the other, but it goes both ways and is probably all down to variance/viral load/user error.
But still curious, is anyone hearing anything about different brands of tests not working for the newer variants? @CaffeineNeeded are you noticing anything? I know the tests you’d be doing in a hospital would probably be PCR anyway, but have you had any patients testing positive in the hospital and saying they were negative on the home test?
Been testing once a week since I relaxed my masking, and I have metformin on hand to take if I pozz and would get Paxlovid ASAP, so having a reliable test is important for my plan.
Paxlovid is effective when taken within 5 days of symptom onset, so if you’re negative on a quick test on day 1, but finding that you feel pretty sick on day 2, no issue with scheduling a PCR at the drug store drive in on day 2, with results by the next day (day 3), which is still enough time for you to get on paxlovid if necessary.
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Yeah I’ve had like rolling off and on allergy symptoms the last few weeks, but continue to test negative. If I got anything worse than that symptom wise, or any classic covid symptoms (smell/taste come to mind), I’d go get a PCR immediately.
The main goal with the weekly tests is to catch anything mild or asymptomatic so that I can take the Paxlovid and Metformin regimen anyway, and keep the duration and viral load as low as possible to keep the long-term risks as low as possible. And also to know to start testing my fiancee so she can do the same. So far I’m the one at a way higher risk of catching it, if/when that changes she’ll start doing weekly tests too.
Logically, I expect to catch covid one to three times before the pan-sarbecovirus vaccines start to become available - which I think is going to be in 2-3 years but may take longer. My goal is to just keep that number of cases as low as I can by not totally relenting in other public settings and by being more careful in the 1-2 months before re-upping the booster, and to keep my risks associated with those cases as low as possible too.
Also going to go pretty hard at trying to avoid giving it to my fiancee and vice versa if/when one of us pozzes.
The diabetes stuff fits. I’ve seen a lot of new onset diabetic ketoacidosis with Covid