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Dontshootrude

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Posts posted by Dontshootrude

  1. 21 minutes ago, Caponata said:

    Yeah he said him and his family have had all of the required vaccinations including for Covid. Seems like he wants vaccinations as well as treatments. I don't get the pushback against treatments but whatever.. I got vaccinated and if I were somehow to be hospitalized I would want access to the current available treatments.

    Which treatments was he referring to?  I have a big problem with the meme treatments that became political we've seen throughout the pandemic.  Hydroxychloroquine, for example, had little evidence to support it and only became a thing when President Idiot said it worked in a press conference.  Ivermectin quickly turned into a political symbol as well. 

    There has been an impressive push to get proven treatments (corticosteroids, monoclonal antibodies) to the people who need them.  Pfizer's rapid development of its COVID specific protease inhibitor is unprecedented as well.

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  2. 2 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

    I'd be curious about a theoretical explanation of how two doses could confer little protection and yet a third dose could confer a fairly high degree of protection. I know dose response is a thing, but that seems a little too much all or nothing. I assume it is partly because we have limited data. But assuming the observations are somewhat real, what is the best explanation for the results? 

    There is going to be little protection from becoming infected, but protection from severe disease/hospitalization/death is going to remain very high.  This aligns with what we are seeing on the ground as omicron is resulting in very few hospitalizations and deaths.

    To reinforce this, T cell data was released examining how well they should recognize omicron.  TL;DR, the T cell epitopes are largely conserved.  T cells recognize more of the protein than B cells/antibodies, so it makes sense that they should be harder for the variants to escape.  This will allow our immune systems to rapidly recognize, respond, and adapt to this variant.

    610117600_OmicronTcell.thumb.png.b4bc40aa41416630ae12b44dca2611c3.png

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  3. Just now, Bevo said:

    Ha, I traveled to Cancun during the ice storm earlier in the year. The government required proof that you had COVID previously along with a letter from a physician stating that you were no longer contagious or a negative PCR test within a few days of travel, regardless of vaccination status.  That policy later changed. But the point remains, for a long time public health basically only recognized natural immunity and did not recognize the vaccine. I bitched about it on this thread because I was fearful that someone in my group would get a false positive PCR result that would lead in us getting stuck in Mexico.

    Along the same lines, why does a US citizen need a negative test to reenter the country if they are fully vaxxed AND boosted?  The policies are way out of line.  

  4. 15 minutes ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

    I have seen studies and "experts" say both it is superior and inferior to unnatural immunity. There does not seem to be a clear consensus, at least in the US.

    When I see people discussing vaccination vs natural immunity, I often feel like people are treating the argument like a sporting event or a race.  I believe the entire argument should be reframed.  We don’t need to know which one is better, we need to know if they are adequate, and at this point we can conclusively say that both are adequate and are roughly equivalent for our end goals.  We know the vaccines are generating good long-term immunity.  We see that with the clinical, immune response, and booster studies.  Natural immunity is producing similar results, but like the vaccines, it isn't some magic shield that will protect you from getting COVID forever.  I'm certain we will see reinfections in recovered individuals as well because antibody response/immunity wanes after an infection is cleared just like after vaccination.  And I think natural immunity is a lot harder to study clinically, because enrollment of applicable patient groups, selecting controls, etc is much more challenging compared to designing the same studies looking at vaccine efficacy. As such we don't have the same data that shows reinfection rate vs time from recovery like we do with the vaccines, and that might be muddling the message some. 

    The example I like to give is to pretend there are two firing squads.  In one firing squad you put 12 soldiers on the firing line, and in the second you put ten.  Are the outcomes appreciably different?  This is closer to the reality of the differences between vaccinated and natural immunity. 

     Why our public health officials don’t recognize natural immunity is beyond me.  The data is there to support that decision, and several other countries around the world are doing so.  In the European Union, for example, their COVID digital certificate allows for travel and access to public places and it can be obtained from infection recovery.  At the very least, people in this category should only be required to receive one mRNA shot as there has been almost no documented benefit from getting a second shot that close after the first when recovered from infection. And again, many countries around the world have adopted this policy. I think we should too, especially now that people's jobs are on the line and we are already facing significant labor and supply chain issues.

    With all that being said, if you haven't had the infection and are left with the choice of the vaccine or infection, the choice clearly favors vaccination. The small added benefit from natural immunity is not worth the substantially increased risk and unknown long term effects of the actual infection.

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  5. 1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

    I wish we had a clearer picture on natural immunity. Like everything with SARS-CoV-2, it seems like the studies and "experts" say polar opposite things. I realize scientific examination is not always clean, but this feels like something that we should  have a pretty clear and aligned POV at least directionally.

    What's not clear?  Serious question.

  6. 14 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    Is it a correct understanding that their are three channels?  S, N, and control?

    My understanding is that the omicron is easily picked up by PCR with the S drops. 

    Which might explain some curious trends in S dropped PCR results in UK and US even prior to SA identifying omicron...broad circulation of omicron before SA picked up on it. 

    There are actually 4 targets in the Thermofisher kit which is used by a large number of labs in the US and Europe.

    The PCR amplifies separate targets in the ORF1ab, S, and N genes, along with a control (MS2).  

    https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/clinical/clinical-genomics/pathogen-detection-solutions/covid-19-sars-cov-2/multiplex.html?SID=fr-taqpath-2

    The S gene drops because of a deletion in the region targeted by the TaqMan probe that coincidentally was also in the UK (alpha) variant.  The N and ORF1ab targets are conserved and therefore will amplify when omicron is present.

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  7. On 12/7/2021 at 8:10 PM, Newdoc said:

    Early data shows some protection against Omicron with previous infection but not a lot, vaccination alone seems to be better and previous variant infection and vaccination even better. There are so many variables within individuals as well. Omicron is going to spread very quickly with short doubling times. Cross fingers this doesn't end with serious disease for any percentage of the population. This could be more of an economic disrupter than serious hospital strain if large swaths of our population is at home on quarantine for 10 days at a time (even with mild illness). Outpatient clinics are going to potentially get overwhelmed. 

    There are only preprint in vitro studies for immune protection as well and the media is going to FUBAR the results and get everyone in a panic regardless if needed. Horse is out of the barn now. Best thing to do is get immunized, get boosted if due and stay healthy.

    Oh, and there is some concern Omicron is mutated enough to avoid certain PCR testing because the genetic markers PCR test for have changed. Rapid testing could be more accurate in some situations. Strange times. 

    FYI: the S gene PCR is never run in isolation.  The N gene is the major target of every assay I can think of, including the CDC and WHO tests, and those targets are conserved among all the variants seen thus far.  I don't worry very much about false negatives from mutations at this point, and PCR is still far more accurate than the antigen tests.

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  8. 55 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

    prior post was just a smartass post that came back to haunt me

    but to update - it is almost exactly 1 week since my surgery, I had my catheter removed on Friday and so far everything is working well, still some limited restriction, no heavy lifting and no sex for at least another week. 

    Moar details, if you really have nothing better to do with your life

      Hide contents

    It was a great relief to get the cath out, it was much more painful than the first cath; couldn't ever get comfortable and at times it seemed to be pulling. After removal there were several days of bloody piss; and still have a small amount of blood where the cath rubbed (tip of the penis - ouch). 
    But it is amazing to be able to pee and void my bladder and not have to feel like it is just a slow process.  
    Not something anyone looks forward to, and I know there can be complications - but I'm feeling so much better it is amazing.
    I don't get removal of all restriction until after my followup which is still about 2 weeks away.

     

    I've heard the recovery from TURP is not fun.  I'm glad you are already getting relief.  Were you having trouble sleeping through the night?  If so hopefully the procedure will give you relief from that as well.

  9. 22 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    The adenovirus vector vaccines creep me out.  Always have.  More comfortable myself with the mRNA tech.  That said, the benefit/risk argument for the youngest of kids is extremely thin.  People should be able to acknowledge this and have some reasonable posturing for educated parents taking different approaches.  Chances of anything involving reasonable in this discussion pretty slim though.  

     

    FTR, my adolescent daughter is fully vaxxed with PFE. Leaning towards just getting one PFE shot into the younger kids and slow playing the second shot. 

    I've scheduled my kids (7 and 5 years old) to get their first shot mid december, and then I'm going to wait 10 weeks to get their second shot.

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  10. On 10/14/2021 at 1:27 PM, immortal13 said:

    Liver and kidney failure. She had to be careflighted from Tyler to Baylor Medical ICU in Dallas. She recovered but it was very serious and she almost didn't survive the first couple of days. Around 33 years old, very healthy/fit, and no health issues. 

    I'm very sorry to hear this.  I hope she makes a full recovery.

    What I've always wondered in these rare circumstances is if the vaccine did this what would have happened if they were infected with the virus?  That reaction is more than likely caused by the spike protein or the mRNA which is less immunogenic than the viral RNA.  The virus has the spike protein along with 28 other unique viral proteins, some of which we know can cause significant reactions on their own, and the viral RNA is more likely to cause a reaction.  It wouldn't surprise me if these small percentage of people are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.  

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