Coronavirus Discussion

[Astreya]

I thought it would rather alleviate the fears to say that even despite me being a severely at-risk person the anti-covid vaccination went without problems with me ^^

[Nalyua]

Yes worded like that.

 

I was just trying to say that modern medication is generally much safer (concerning unwanted side effects) than a lot of older ones. So comparing one with the other might be inaccurate.

 

Even Astra Zeneca is safer than it was a few months ago. I talked with a person working at a hospital and she said that since they now know what they are looking for they can detect the blod clotting problem during the stage where it is not yet a thrombosis and can be cured with medicine, allowing the patient to walk away with a few pills. It's a simple blood test and anyone with headache after getting a vaccination with Astra can be tested.

[Fuzzbucket]

My partner and I both had Astra Zeneca - both doses - no after effects at all. And I had a TIA a couple of years ago, so you'd think if ANYONE...

[Ruby Eyes]

1 hour ago, Nalyua said:

Yes worded like that.

I don't know, it seemed quite obvious to me the first time already. Someone states that they had issues "in the past" which is quite a vague timeframe, and someone else responds with an anectode from a more specific point in time - and clearly stated *which* point - and compares *that* with the current situation. It's enough information for a given reader to make a judgement, I would think.

It's still up to the person with the original issue ("in the past") to figure out whether this may help them or not.

 

The co-workers are already planning a party for the time when we all will hopefully have gotten our second shot (and the recovered colleague, of course). Let's hope the new variant from India doesn't destroy all those plans ...

[Astreya]

2 hours ago, Nalyua said:

I was just trying to say that modern medication is generally much safer (concerning unwanted side effects) than a lot of older ones. So comparing one with the other might be inaccurate.

 

Even Astra Zeneca is safer than it was a few months ago. I talked with a person working at a hospital and she said that since they now know what they are looking for they can detect the blod clotting problem during the stage where it is not yet a thrombosis and can be cured with medicine, allowing the patient to walk away with a few pills. It's a simple blood test and anyone with headache after getting a vaccination with Astra can be tested.

I'll be nonetheless getting my second jab with an mRNA vaccine, and I'm very happy about this as it appears that a heterologous vaccination (first vector, then mRNA) might be even more effective (at least in the mouse model, although there were also some anecdotal cases where people were tested and showed a higher antibody count than after homologous vaccinations (both times the same vaccine)).

 

I read somewhere that there is another medical company that appears to be working on a heterologous vaccine scheme right from the start, but I sadly forgot to bookmark it (and as I regularly clear out cookies and cache in my browser it was wiped from the history, too *headdesk*). I'll add the link when I find it again.

 

And while I'm at it...

----------

As of today, Wednesday, May 19, 10:00 GMT+2, my home town (population 211 000) has 274  (-35) active cases, while 10 149 (+53)  people are considered to have recovered. 340 (+-0) persons sadly died. 819 persons are currently quarantined. All in all there have been 10 763 (+18) people who suffered from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of newly infected people per 100 000 citizens in the last 7 days is 71.2 (+2.4).

 

Currently 28 (+1) persons are treated in hospitals, with 8 (+-0) of them in intensive care, 6 (+-0) of these needing artificial respiration.

There have been 82 197 (1st jab) and 22 053 (2nd jab) vaccinations so far.

[Source: Stadt Oberhausen]

Edited May 19, 2021 by Astreya

[trystan]

i feel i ought to pop in with a tidbit about my daughter, the vaccine-hesitant one.  she's 24, and as far as i'm aware, she has no allergies of any sort (!!), and no physical health problems.  we're pretty sure her hesitancy comes from living in a "red" part of the state for about 2 years now. really the only thing stopping her from getting the vaccine is herself.  i suggested to hubby we offer her some money, he said that i could if i wanted to.  he's hoping she does it because it's the right thing to do.  and also, she works as a waitress at a local winery - with the public.  so that's yet another reason to get the vaccine.  she wants to be able to just walk into a pharmacy and say "hi, i'd like a vaccine!" and they say "sure, here ya go!"  -- i think  my state is at this point now, too.  she's also kinda "meh" over the whole thing.  but covid scares the @#$%^&* outta me, y'know?

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by trystan
clarification

[_Ro_]

Yeah they need to make sure the vaccine is easily available for everyone. A few people will refuse, but if the majority of people have it then we can still achieve herd immunity and significantly reduce the risks for people who can't have it.. I think it takes around 95% of a population being vaccinated to eradicate a disease.

Do you guys in america have to pay for it yourselves? Sucks for poor and homeless people

 

I hope your daughter gets it, for her sake. You should be safe though, the vaccine is very effective at preventing ilness.  Try not to be scared.

[Uther_Pendragon]

Trystan, I actually told my 27 year old son he had to get vaccinated 'because I said so' haha! (He's in Calif, so they're stricter. I'm deep in a red state. I am one of the few blues out here, lol!) I hope your daughter decides to go ahead and get it!

Roseora, yep, right now my mil, who is in her 80's, can't get the vax due to some big health issues, but her docs are actively trying to figure out how she can do it safely. That's a big difference from someone who just refuses because the conspiracy things, or the 'but muh freedum' stuff.

Astreya, I wish we would've had that info before I got mine! They were doing both Pfizer and Moderna at the site, and I would've asked for the other for my 2nd one. I wonder what they'll do for when we Pfizer's need the booster?
 

  The governor here is now trying to remove masks for schools, both students and teachers. He also said that covid vaccines won't be required. 🤦‍♀️ His reasoning is that kids don't get the bad cases, and he wants tourism back up (last part paraphrased).

   Ok, but kids can carry it to people who are vulnerable! How is no one addressing this? I'm reading that different counties, and school districts, are requiring different things, some in spite of what the governor says.

 I sorely wish everyone everywhere could get on the same page with it all. 
 

 

ETA: no, we don't have to pay for it! I'm not sure once it gets to pharmacies if insurance carriers will have to pick up any tab, but as far as I can tell, health depts still won't charge (but then there's the transportation thing for some)

Edited May 19, 2021 by Uther_Pendragon

[trystan]

@Roseora - no, we don't have to pay for it, as Uther mentioned.

oh i know i'll be safe now.... i got my second dose back on April 21st.  but that doesn't make it any less scary.

 

and @Uther_Pendragon - i hope my older daughter gets it too.  she has a bit of laziness to her sometimes.

 

on the other hand, my younger daughter (19) goes for her second dose next tuesday! (May 25th).

hubby had dose #2 back on saturday the 15th, and maybe had some tiredness as a side effect? one will never know, he's like a cat and is always taking naps anyway

[BlackMagicRose]

On 5/16/2021 at 4:28 AM, Nalyua said:

Some People are just not able to process the fact that not everything in the media is the truth. Combined with being unable to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources ... Aside of that many people feel much more informed than they truely are since everything appears to be on the internet. 

 

I had my first shot on Friday. Just had a sore arm  and I felt as if I was high 3 hours after the shot, which lasted about 6 hours. On the pro side it made for a fun evening.

I felt so tired like I was drunk for the first couple of days after the first one and the same thing with the second. Funny thing is I have been completely sober since March 21st 2019. LOL. I just chalked the drunk feeling up to being tired. That wiped out feeling.

[Nalyua]

@Uther_Pendragonaside of the fact that some kids have higher risk as well. And a lot of kids, no higher risk, get multiple organ infections.

[Astreya]

@trystan

At first  (January/February) my brother and his wife were rather vaccine-hesitant, too (particularly about the mRNA stuff as he "heard" alarming things about it like it could alter the DNA). I said "Time-out, let me explain how exactly this works." and used the following analogy:

 

Imagine you have a very expensive cookbook that contains a huge amount of fantastic recipes. As it is so expensive, you keep it in a safe in your living-room and not in the kitchen where it could be messed up, and when you want to use a recipe, you go into the living-room, take it out of the safe and copy the recipe you want to use onto a piece of paper. Then you put the expensive cookbook back into the safe, lock it up and return to the kitchen where you cook a delicious dish from the recipe that you copied onto the piece of paper.

 

Now a good friend of yours tells you about another yummy dish that you should use, comes over to your door and gives you a piece of paper where they wrote down the recipe for you. You then go into your kitchen and cook the recipe and it work fine. 

 

Now ask yourself - did the piece of paper that you friend gave you mess up your expensive cookbook that is safely locked away?

 

In this analogy the cookbook is your DNA, the living-room is the cell's nucleus, the pieces of paper are the mRNA and the kitchen is the cell interior outside the nucleus including the organelles. So while normally a cell reads parts of the DNA and transfers this into mRNA pieces to produce certain proteins and stuff, the vaccine is a piece of mRNA that is given to you from the outside and also tells the cell organelles to produce certain proteins that look like relevant parts of a virus (here SARS-CoV-2) and which then tell the body to produce antibodies against them (via programming the B lymphocytes) and CD8+ T lymphocytes to secrete specific antiviral cytokines that recognize and kill infected cells.

 

Funnily this led to my brother and my SiL to be vaccinated even before me as they got their appointment a week earlier...  

 

@Uther_Pendragon

Well, as it is not so long ago that there were the first heterologous vaccinations, it will only become apparent in the next weeks whether this really works better. The efficacy results of the Com-COV study are only expected in June 2021.

 

 

----------

As of today, Thursday, May 20, 10:00 GMT+2, my home town (population 211 000) has 278  (+4) active cases, while 10 187 (+38)  people are considered to have recovered. 340 (+-0) persons sadly died. 831 persons are currently quarantined. All in all there have been 10 805 (+42) people who suffered from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of newly infected people per 100 000 citizens in the last 7 days is 66.4 (-4.8).

 

Currently 26 (-2) persons are treated in hospitals, with 8 (+-0) of them in intensive care, 7 (+1) of these needing artificial respiration.

There have been 82 588 (1st jab - 39.4%) and 22 394 (2nd jab - 10.6%) vaccinations so far.

[Source: Stadt Oberhausen]

Edited May 20, 2021 by Astreya

[trystan]

@Astreya - ooh that's a very good analogy.  i also like this one too!   (it's a tiktok)

 

BUT.  we don't really know why older daughter is hesitant.  she says "she'll get there." originally she said she didn't realise it would be available to her as soon as it was and she had to rethink her plan.  honestly, i'm thinking she really really hates needles and just doesn't wanna. 🤷‍♀️ we try though.

[Lagie]

45 minutes ago, trystan said:

honestly, i'm thinking she really really hates needles and just doesn't wanna.

I hate needles. Didn't stop me!

[trystan]

55 minutes ago, Lagie said:

I hate needles. Didn't stop me!

same with hubby and younger daughter.  but they got the vaccine!

[Astreya]

2 hours ago, trystan said:

i'm thinking she really really hates needles and just doesn't wanna. 🤷‍♀️ we try though.

The tiktok thingy is neat, too!

 

As for hating needles - so do I. Thus I decided to go for a proper confrontation therapy and regularly donate blood. I can tell you, if you survive *these* needles, nothing needle-wise can shock you any more!

[trystan]

@Astreya - yeah i'm not a fan of needles either, but twice a year i get my blood drawn for cholesterol and blood panels, so there's that.

[Fly-by-Night]

10 hours ago, Uther_Pendragon said:

 

  The governor here is now trying to remove masks for schools, both students and teachers. He also said that covid vaccines won't be required. 🤦‍♀️ His reasoning is that kids don't get the bad cases, and he wants tourism back up (last part paraphrased).

 

Erm, unless tourists in your area enjoy visiting schools, that logic is very shoddy indeed.

[Lagie]

9 hours ago, Fly-by-Night said:

Erm, unless tourists in your area enjoy visiting schools, that logic is very shoddy indeed.

True!

I think tourism is part of the reason there's silence about the numbers of cases here.

 

53 new cases on Monday for a new total of 11,278, 27 of those on my island.

[Astreya]

For the fifth day in a row, Oberhausen is below the 7-day-incidenmce threshold of 100, thus the "federal emergency brake" will be lifted from tomorrow on, meaning there is no curfew anymore, a few more people are allowed to meet, and non-essential services and shops can be used when a person is either vaccinated twice, recovered from a Covid infection, or tested negative, even though the announcement on the city's homepage still urges caution.

 

----------

As of today, Friday, May 21, 10:00 GMT+2, my home town (population 211 000) has 253  (-25) active cases, while 10 233 (+46)  people are considered to have recovered. 340 (+-0) persons sadly died. 831 persons are currently quarantined. All in all there have been 10 826 (+21) people who suffered from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of newly infected people per 100 000 citizens in the last 7 days is 60.3 (-6.1).

 

Currently 23 (-3) persons are treated in hospitals, with 7 (-1) of them in intensive care, 6 (-1) of these needing artificial respiration.

There have been 84 825 (1st jab, 40.2%) and 24 539 (2nd jab, 11.6%) vaccinations so far.

[Source: Stadt Oberhausen]

[Lagie]

27 minutes ago, Astreya said:

For the fifth day in a row, Oberhausen is below the 7-day-incidenmce threshold of 100, thus the "federal emergency brake" will be lifted from tomorrow on

Yay!

 

Our numbers are going in the wrong direction.

 

75 new cases Wednesday from 371 tests (positivity rate 20.2%!!!), 61 of those on my island, for a new total of 11,396. One additional death takes the death toll to 222.  

 

Our vaccination rate is minimal. Fewer than half the medical professionals have been done. Of 28,000+ people over 65, just over 7,000 are done. There are a couple of care homes where no one's even had the first. They're calling it 'vaccine hesitancy' but a lot of it is people who will never have it done, not people who are hesitant.

[Astreya]

@Lagie

Your positivity rate is really worrisome! It suggests that there could be quite a large dark number of infections.

 

Are people on your island really so sceptical about getting vaccinated or is there just too like vaccine available? Do you have any numbers about how many people say that they want / don't want to be vaccinated?

[Lagie]

Just now, Astreya said:

@Lagie

Your positivity rate is really worrisome! It suggests that there could be quite a large dark number of infections.

 

Are people on your island really so sceptical about getting vaccinated or is there just too like vaccine available? Do you have any numbers about how many people say that they want / don't want to be vaccinated?

It is. I'm glad I'm vaccinated.

 

So many people here believe the internet carp and a few pastors have actually been spouting the Mark of the Beast nonsense. Bahamians are very gullible.

[Astreya]

@Lagie  Yuck.

 

By the way, I just checked - for Germany there was a poll published on May 6 that showed that by now

- 75% people definitely want to be vaccinated

- 11% probably will get vaccinated

- 6% probably won't get vaccinated

- 7% definitely don't want to get vaccinated

So it looks as if we can expect a vaccination rate of about 80+% in the end.

Source:  https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1147628/umfrage/umfrage-zur-corona-impfbereitschaft-in-deutschland/

Edited May 21, 2021 by Astreya

[Lagie]

8 hours ago, Astreya said:

@Lagie  Yuck

It gets worse. One of my customers won't get vaccinated because it will affect his reproductive abilities. 

 

54 new cases Thursday from 411 tests (positivity rate 13.1%), 50 of those on my island, for a new total of 11,450. Two additional deaths take the death toll to 224.