Mid-July covid-19 check

You were in the military Yak. Did you have to get vaccines?

 

Hey @GeneWright …… I know this new variant (Omicron?) is on the march and I suspect it will only be a matter of time that it makes it’s way around the world. Based on what I have read, this one is even more infectious than the Delta variant….. Do we have any knowledge yet of the effectiveness of the vaccines we have currently? In other words, will Omicron require a whole new investment in testing and creating a new vaccine? Has there been any news along these lines?…. Here’s why I ask. I caught Covid middle of October. I was vaccinated and wore my mask and I still became extremely ill. I believe my health was saved because of an antibody infusion that I was given. I just found it odd that I was never tested (to my knowledge) on which type Covid that I had. Wouldn’t we need to know if a person had Delta or Omicron to know the proper care procedure? Or are all varieties treated the same?

 

Early reports out of Israel and South Africa seem to be positive, that vaccinated people aren't experiencing severe symptoms just like the other variants. That could change, it's still pretty early, but so far it's promising!

The type you had has an interesting backstory. They almost certainly did test what type you had, but they can't legally tell you. If they perform the test and collect data not connected to a patient, they can get data on the types of variants spreading quickly. However, if they tell you or your doctor (a federal lab does the test), suddenly it becomes classified as a medical test. They could tell you in theory, but the test makers would have to get it approved as a medical test by the FDA. Since we treat them all the same, that information isn't as medically helpful, so to save time and money it was opted not to tell patients.

 

Now that is truly interesting. I totally get it and had absolutely no idea. Thank you for the response.

 

Not sure I can say the same @yakpoo . . . many of my friends are former liberals!

(old post I'm responding to, but just read it for the first time this morning, and couldn't resist)

 

I have a neighbor that I would presume is in his 70's. Fellow has always been the picture of health. I am a weekend woodworker and this fellows hobby is restoring old furniture so our neighborhood paths crossed frequently. I hadn't seen him out and about for a while and with the Holidays, I didn't give it much thought. Yesterday evening his wife came over and asked if I could help him out of the house and into his wheelchair... WHAT, wheelchair?? I didn't have a clue. Feel pretty bad about that... But I have a question here.

This fellow had Covid last May and recovered just fine. Had two Pfizer shots and his booster five weeks ago. A week after his booster his health suddenly deteriorated and he has been diagnosed with CJD disease which I am told is mad cow disease. His doctor has linked it to his bout with Covid last May..... Is there a potential link between Covid and CJD? I know we are still swinging at this thing, but I feel absolutely terrible for the fellow.

 

Here is / are potential explanations:

• https://www.chop.edu/centers-progra...and-other-conditions/vaccines-mad-cow-disease
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32681865/
• An oft-cited Fact Check by USA Today boldly declares claims of linkage between COVID vaccines and Mad Cow Disease to be false, yet internal to their article all they can come up with is that "there is no evidence", and their conclusion should instead have indicated that the jury is out on such claims.

Faced with dismissive denials, no more scientific and the claims made to the contrary, more investigation is warranted.

 

Sorry to hear he's going through that. Similar to @toughcoins I can't really find a link between the 2. CJD can be inherited, but there's also a similar disease that comes from cow meat.

I don't know a ton about prion diseases, but it seems a healthy immune system is actually helpful for their proliferation. So that ended my initial thought that maybe COVID distracted the immune system letting the prion spread.

 

That middle link is the most compelling (the case study) but I'm a bit skeptical as the timing may have just been coincidence. They write about the acceleration of the disease, but CJD is characteristically pretty rapid anyway, and prion diseases spread exponentially by nature within a person.

 

I struggle to understand medical documents, but from what I can glean it appears the thinking is CJD following a bout with Covid a coincidental occurrence. I'm sure there will be further studies along the way. I suppose even the most brilliant medical minds cannot forecast what the long range impact of Covid may be. God bless them all for their tireless work.

 

Holy crud!! For months now my state has been bouncing between about 300-600 Covid cases a day. In the span of a week we are now above 6000 a day. The chart I look at is from our state health department and it doesn’t distinguish Delta or Omicron strains. I feel certain it is Omicron as I had heard that strain was highly transmissible……. Is Omicron doubling back and reinfecting people that have been ill with a previous strain?

 

There is reinfection, but it still seems relatively rare. It's looking like the vaccines are having relatively little effectiveness on omicron, which is not great.

The best protected group now seems to be those who were first vaccinated and then infected later. I loathe the spin I've been seeing of this phenomenon, but they're calling it "super immunity"

So, it's looking like natural immunity from catching it works better than vaccines, but being vaccinated can make your bout with COVID less dangerous if you do catch it anyway.

 

Okay @GeneWright , this brings out the conspiracy theorist in me now.

Our bodies seem much better prepared to deal with Omicron . . . apparently a natural mutation of the original virus (would that not be the Alpha?), in an attempt to continue spreading . . . it has me thinking that the attack vector of this less deadly strain is not as effective, and that the original may indeed have been engineered to attack the bodies natural defenses.

My rationale? Evolution seems to drive change in the direction of greater effectiveness. As a virological ignoramus, I must question why a second or third generation mutation would be less effective against the unvaccinated than the original? All that I can think of is that the original was not entirely the product of Mother Nature, and that the changes she introduced to perpetuate its effectiveness somehow moderated the effectiveness of the original virus.

I'm really interested in reading and understanding your response.

 

So it has to do with how "effectiveness" is defined. Survival of the fittest really only applies to the point in which an organism passes on their genetic material. It should be survival of the most able to procreate.

In this sense, there's often a strong inverse relationship between a disease's ability to spread and it's deadliness. It has to spread before it kills the host (which is what makes COVID's long incubation time so scary) and it will spread even better and be naturally selected for if it doesn't keep the host bedridden. One of the most dangerous coronavirus, MERS, luckily is difficult to spread between humans. Due to its severity and near 1 in 3 fatality rate, it has not had much of a chance to mutate. Check out the chart below comparing deadliness and contagiousness of some diseases



There's also an interesting point about the vaccine, and how our distribution of them may be causing the virus to evolve to combat the vaccine. I had read a WHO official arguing against booster shots in favor of donating first doses to countries that can't afford it. As long as we have a massive reservoir of humans that it can spread freely in, it will be far easier for it to gain mutations necessary to overcome the vaccine. Once a mutation that can get around the vaccine develops, it spreads like wildfire in the vaccinated population because it's the only form that can survive in their bodies.

 

Thanks for that visual Gene, it helps me some.

I still have a very hard time reconciling how the Delta and Omicron mutations could naturally land so far from the original COVID virus on the virulence-transmissibility curve, unless the original was moved up the curve with help.

 

I think they're actually not all that different in innate virulence, they just happen to be better at evading the vaccines.

One other point on deadliness of this strain vs. previous ones we are FAR better at treating COVID now than we used to be. We had no idea what we were doing in the beginning, but now there's well document protocols and standards of care that make it less deadly. Still horrible, but less likely to outright kill a person.

My uncle-in-law was recently intubated for almost a month with it. I don't think he would have survived if it was near the beginning of the pandemic. It's still a real long road to recovery for him, and they expect it'll be months before he can get out of assisted living. The point being, survival rates are better, but outcomes can still be dire outside of survival alone. For context he's not in good shape which didn't help, but he's also just barely over 40. And yes, he was (and still is) extremely opposed to vaccines.

 

I have two confirmed cases of Covid in my office. Two potential cases awaiting test results and one more that just reported a sore throat and headache. I had my place professionally sterilized last night, but I am almost of the mind that I may need to close this office until this madness passes. I feel like I am in a bad movie right now.

 

That sounds rough, I hope they all make quick recoveries! As I understand it's still incredibly difficult to catch it twice, so hopefully it will all be in the past for your workplace after this.

 

I agree that outcomes definitely seem much better today than a couple of years ago, and partially attribute that to two year’s learnings. I also believe that many of our most vulnerable fell victim to COVID in the first wave, leaving behind a healthier, stronger population, better able to fend off / recover from their bouts with the virus.

 

I had not heard this before. Quite literally my entire office is sick with the exception of three people. Two of which had covid previously. The third fellow is an old retired fellow that came to work for me to supplement his retirement and his health is not great. He has not had Covid and I think I am going to banish him to working from home until this insanity ends.... But it does appear that those that have been infected previously are being spared from Omicron you think?