My wife’s high school friend, who just happens to be an oncologist and was her class valedictorian, remided people on Facebook of a couple things a) Not only are there two rounds of shots, but immunity doesn’t just happen magically right away. So people can’t just start jumping into mosh pits as soon as they get the shot, and b) people are going to feel sore and/or sick from the vaccine because that’s a totally normal thing that happens, so get ready for people complaining that the vaccine made them sick or gave them COVID. His point on the latter (both, really) is that the media REALLY needs to educate people.
4 Likes
They sort of buried the lede here:
In the meantime, Dr. Bhattacharya said, he was encouraged by recent work showing that people who received an intramuscular flu vaccine had abundant antibodies in the nose. And a study of Covid-19 patients found that antibody levels in saliva and blood were closely matched — suggesting that a strong immune response in the blood would also protect mucosal tissues.
Is it possible the antibodies don’t make their way to your nose? I guess nothing is certain yet, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
What’s his suggestion for here on Planet Earth?
10 Likes
The only thing that makes it to my nose is boogers. Mayhaps my boogers have antibodies.
Vaccines work by getting your antibodies (and by them, your immune cells) to recognize viral particles specifically for attack. There isn’t really a mechanism by which a vaccine would protect you but let viruses hang out in your system willy nilly to eventually spread to other people. Vaccines don’t treat symptoms, like the dexa-whatever steroid therapeutic, where you can treat adverse symptoms that can save your life without targeting viruses specifically. These vaccines don’t have any other realistic way of protecting you other than by getting your immune system to attack viruses directly, and if that’s the case, then that’s necessarily going to mean that the risk of transmission is dramatically reduced, too, because your immune system isn’t going to tolerate having enough virus in you to infect anyone else with appreciable probability.
3 Likes
yes thats the theory since the shot is taken in your arm the antibodies will fight the virus off once it gets into your body but that it can still hang around in your nose and spread through breathing. But I dont know enough about the biology as much as a lot of people here do to know if thats possible.
It’s definitely getting to your bloodstream which means it’s getting to your nose. Only plausible explanation is that the immune system can’t get to your mucus membranes. I’m not remotely competent enough to know how plausible that is.
A respiratory disease that can’t infect your lungs seems like it’s going to be very bad at spreading, at any rate.
Not worried as long as the spike protein isn’t significantly different.
https://mobile.twitter.com/sarahcpr/status/1338520546053672961
https://mobile.twitter.com/therecount/status/1338512887845969920
Even if there is a contagious window post-vaccination post-exposure it would have to be pretty damn reduced?
I’m in the theoretically possible but highly unlikely camp. But I am still 100% on board with wear a damn mask.
Having a high covid incidence running into a lot of vaccinated folks just ups the chance of a mutation that evades the vaccine (it should be a very very small chance but when there are millions of cases small probability events can occur).
It’s also good public policy until the infection rates drop to near 0. We want to wipe this thing out as fast as possible. Vaccine + masking + social D should do that the fastest.
But of course the masses need a simple message which is “you could still spread it”.
This one seems different from the other 40 variants the UK has encountered to date and early news hints at quicker / easier infection. None of the other 40 variants were worth reporting on. Apparantly the geneticists from Portland Down are currently analysing this one to ensure it won’t dodge current vaccines.
Yes, I won’t be early in the vaccination line, but if I were, I’d still wear a mask out in public, principally to encourage other people to continue to do so for their own good, but also the data are quite clear that some people still get sick after getting a shot, even after the 7ish day ramp up period post-shot. I wouldn’t want to be one of those people! So, it’s still worth wearing a mask while there are a ton of viral factories out walking around.
2 Likes
I think ever after this goes away I’m going to continue wearing a mask in the winter at grocery stores and other public places when the flu is going around. Seems like we should all be doing this even though we won’t.
6 Likes
They’ve been reports in the US of other variants that infect more quickly. But it’s not worth bothering about imo unless the researches start warning of significant changes to the spike protein.
1 Like
Wait what? I though we were getting scannable microchips.
1 Like
Do we know if Moderna and Pfizer use the exact same mRNA sequence and thus the same protein/antigen produced in the body?
we know they target the same mRNA subsequence but the two companies do not make the same exact vaccine
1 Like
I’m going to echo wookie a bit but we’ve been over this. Basic germ theory still applies. It is extraordinarily unlikely that this happens. In order to reach a critical threshold where you are likely to spread the disease, a certain amount of replication must happen unless you’re wiping fomites everywhere. That replication doesn’t happen effectively if you have the vaccine.
Not in any appreciable manner. Nose mucosa is a highly vascularized area, which is why nosebleeds happen so easily for some people.