mattb65

I'm a Neurologist, I diagnose and treat various forms of paralysis. I'll comment on the three reports in your post and then in general. First case on the left sounds like bell's palsy but it started immediately after getting the vaccine. There's no way the vaccine could have caused this, the pathophysiology of bell's palsy is such that an immediate bell's palsy within hours of vaccination would be caused by something else. Case 2 sounds like a classic panic attack/hyperventilation syndrome. Of the 3, the third one could be a vaccine reaction or it could be a stroke or a number of other things. So though you say there's 1348, the ones you posted screenshots of are not generally what people think of when they think paralysis, most think unable to walk like after a major spinal cord injury not facial droop or panic attack. Of the 1348 there's going to be a very small percent that are concerning levels of paralysis and most are probably not vaccine related. There's only a handful of vaccine related reactions that cause paralysis, things like myelitis, stroke or guillain bare and there hasn't been an explosion of these despite hundreds of millions of doses administered.

I'm shocked that he hasn't provided any updates.

Sorry to hear that, has your associates co-worker shared any additional information about what caused them to get paralyzed? Did they have a stroke, spinal cord injury, something else? How do they know it's permanent?

You would need to see more information before making this sort of determination including is there a difference between the groups in the titer levels (multiple studies have shown that high titers matter in preventing infection and severe illness) and what are the titers at 6 months and 12 months in each group. There was a lot of discussion early on when shots were in short supply to give one shot and delay the second because the first shot gives a lot of protection. This should continue to be studied when considering how best to immunize globally.

Down below 30,000 on the 7 day average, we are experiencing exponential decay, the halving is happening about once every 3 weeks right now, if the rate of decay remains constant, we'll be below 10,000 on the 7 day average in ~5 weeks, approximately June 22nd. That would be cutting it closer than I'd like for my bet. Hopefully the declines gain more momentum.

Glad the unvaccinated folks are being so responsible and considerate. /s I bet if you could anonymously poll, the vast majority of those 25% are vaccinated and just generally cautious/anxious about covid. I'm looking forward to the governor here giving businesses the option to set their own policies on masks. We have over 70% of adults and 60% total with their first doses, our governor is saying he wants to wait until we have herd immunity to lift mask mandates but doesn't say the number he wants. I wish he would at least just pick a date or number or something like most other states are doing.

In just one month average daily cases dropped from ~66,000, to ~34,000 and this has happened with people being much more sociable and active even in states with relatively lower levels of vaccination. The seasonal effects to suppress spread of the infection are very powerful this time of year and when you thrown on top of that strong negative pressure from 55-60% of the population having immunity from prior infection and vaccination - you get big time infection decay. It's perfectly logical why the CDC has decided now is the time to say ditch the masks if you've been vaccinated. I'm going off of Lawyer Craig's numbers which I believe only include the 50 states and DC - they are often different from worldometers which includes puerto rico and other territories. On Worldo it's at 36,650 down from 72,300. No signs that the decline is slowing down yet, if anything the decline has been gaining steam. Sadly the lame Hawaii governor decided to keep in place the mask mandate including outdoors because he says there's no way to tell who is vaccinated or not. Really mind boggling - we are in the top 3 in rates of vaccination and top 3 lowest per capita case rate right now and he is not ready to implement CDC guidance. He's worried about people being able to tell who is vaccinated or not, at this point, why does it matter? Over 59% of the entire population and over 70% of adults in Hawaii have gotten their 1st dose. Vaccines are widely available at no cost to anyone that want it. Sure, young children can't be vaccinated yet but follow the science here they don't get any more sick than they do from the hundreds/thousands of viruses they get exposed to all the time, ugh. This is the kind of stuff that really rubs people the wrong way.

I'm still liking my chances here, the trajectory on the decline looks good. By July/August this thread is going to be dead anyways just like the pandemic.

My arm where I got the shot was pretty sore especially when I used it so I'm pretty sure you're not going to want to do any heavy exertion until it gets better. Took about 48 hrs for me after each shot.

As others noted, there are a number of problems here. 1. You can't add these two groups because there's a lot of overlap. 2. Vaccines give ~80-90% protection on average and infection probably also gives ~80% protection. So even if we somehow miraculously have no overlap, we're still at best around 75% population immunity which would definitely be sufficient. 3. Local level of immunity will be important, if the entire northeast is sitting at 70% of the population vaccinated + 10% with immunity through infection but not vaccinated then 80% total x 80% efficacy = 64% immune to virus introduced in that area, the virus will have a hard time finding new targets to sustain an outbreak. If you have the large sector of the southeast where only 50% get vaccinated + 15% immune through infection but not vaccinated then you get 65% total x 80% efficacy = 52% immune to virus introduction. Outbreaks still significantly mitigated but 12% would be a substantial difference. Fortunately it does seem like the elderly and high risk are getting the vaccine more so it may not matter in terms of the important metrics like death and disability. I'm still optimistic that things are overall going to be fine, everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated will deal with the consequences ultimately. We're at the point where it is about choice and not access.

As time goes on the total % vaccinated is becoming more and more similar to the 2020 election map, pretty remarkable, the consequences to the areas that have bought into the lies about the vaccines will probably be seen next fall and winter. I wonder if we see the per capita new infections and deaths start to look the same.

This is an interesting study on how well natural infection induced immunity protects against reinfection. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00158-2/fulltext It was prospective and looked at usmc recruits. 10% of those with antibodies got infected and roughly 50% of those without antibodies got infected over a 6 week period. Based on this study, evidence of prior infection provided about an 80% protection. The reinfected individuals also had a lower viral load so probably less severe illness compared to the control group. Higher antibody levels also provided more protection. The study population was mostly young males so it may not necessarily apply to other ages/genders. Still interesting. Though not directly tested in the study, I think it implies that the mrna vaccine provide more protection against infection than natural immunity from prior infection.

In this study there is exposure of lung cells in a petri dish to the spike protein. With the mrna vaccine, expression of the spike protein is induced in cells in the arm, and in the virus vector vaccines, the spike protein is also only in the muscle in the arm. The immune response then kicks in based on these foreign proteins in the arm. The theory from this paper is that the spike protein itself, not the immune response to the spike protein may contribute to the long term symptoms by affecting gene expression in cells exposed to purified spike protein. The vaccine doesn't expose lung cells to the spike protein, thus infection would cause these problems because lots of lung cells are exposed to the spike protein but not vaccination. This is all very theoretical though, there is not translational research to say whether or not the changes seen in this in vitro study would have the effects in vivo.

Things are still on track for a good summer. The decline in first doses of the vaccine has been a bit steeper than expected but the decline in cases has also been a bit earlier and steeper than expected.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56891016

Exactly, what's the point in him posting those pictures? Is it to prove that the NY Post is a garbage news source and a glorified tabloid? You don't need to convince me... Is it to downplay the covid situation in India? Seems like everything in India regarding covid is as bad as one could imagine right now. https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/27/in-covid-grip-india-gasps-for-air-if-there-is-an-apocalypse-this-has-to-be-one/

@Hoosier West Virginia is getting creative at trying to improve their vaccination numbers West Virginia Gov. Justice: State will use COVID-19 stimulus funds to give all residents 16-35 a $100 savings bond https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/west-virginia-gov-justice-state-will-use-covid-19-stimulus-funds-to-give-all-residents/article_3464b366-a6af-11eb-8cef-a3be246c97ac.amp.html

Catching on to what?

This is hard to measure, if you look at covidactnow.org you can sort by daily cases per 100k or current infection Rt. Louisiana and Alabama have among the top 5 Rt but their current daily cases per 100k is in the bottom 10 in states. Hard to declare winners and losers I don't think there's been enough time to show a negative correlation between vaccination rates and infection rates between different states. Maybe check back in 6 months to see if there's been a difference between cases per capita and deaths per capita between high vaccine and low vaccine states.

A private school in Miami, citing false claims, bars vaccinated teachers from contact with students. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/florida-centner-academy-vaccine.html

I thought this was a good and balanced take on the transition from the first phase of vaccination where there was a pent up demand and a supply scarcity to the current phase where supply had caught up and it's about outreach to those on the fence and those that aren't highly motivated. Efforts should be on making it as painless as possible to get vaccinated, public education about the facts with transparency about the risks and benefits, and reasonable incentives for example Hawaii is launching its vaccine exemption to avoid quarantine for interisland travel and hopefully will do the same for transpacific travel not to long afterwards. It sounds like the CDC is going to be providing more and more guidance that being vaccinated makes a lot more fun things safe. I'm still very optimistic about the way ahead, of course it would have been nice to keep the numbers averaging over 3 million per day vaccinated for a little longer but we knew that wasn't going to happen based on the large chunk of people that have decided against vaccines for their variety of reasons. I think most of their reasons are misguided but it's their life and their free will, as a provider I'll be happy to discuss this with my patients and provide facts to help then make their own decision.

This is a really good article that goes into the data on the blood clots from this vaccine and explains the rationale that different members of the advisory committee used in making their decisions. They also discuss the risks and benefits of different courses of action. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/23/health/johnson-vaccine-acip-recommendation/index.html They present a lot of numbers in the risks/benefits section. "For every million doses of vaccine given to women 18 to 49, 13 TTS cases can be expected, Oliver said. But 12 deaths from Covid-19 would be prevented and 127 ICU admissions would be prevented among those women if they had access to the Janssen vaccine."

This is definitely interesting, if the rough math I did before is still close to accurate this would correlate to a roughly 1 in 100,000 risk of this serious adverse reaction in women under 50. I wonder if there are other commonalities besides gender like being on combined oral contraceptives as an additional risk factor. I agree either a warning or even an outright restriction on giving it to women under 50 would both be reasonable. Even though the risk is small, the consequences are devastating. If I were in the at risk demographic I would 100% choose Pfizer or Moderna.

I've had my second dose of Pfizer since early January, no problems at all. Not sure why people are living their life in fear. Get out there, get the shot, be a patriot. We are at war with the virus, when you look back do you want to be a draft dodger/bone spur pansy or do you want to be a freedom loving american that did your part? Insert 1,000 american flag emojis.

Edit: misread your post the first time... By the end of June, total 62% of the total population immune 32% from vaccine alone, (45% of the total american population vaccinated aka 149 million people) 13% from vaccine plus infection, 17% from infection alone. By January 2022 the breakdown is 64% total protection, 38% vaccine, 16% vaccine plus infection, 10% infection alone. Link - https://covid19-projections.com/path-to-herd-immunity/ He posts all of the assumptions in his model in terms of rate of waning natural immunity, effectiveness of vaccines, etc. According to the CDC we are already at 41% of the population that has received at least the first shot. The model estimates 60-70% total will get the vaccine by the end of the year. As we know the protection isn't 100% from the vaccine in terms of preventing transmission, the model estimates an 85% vaccine efficacy rate which is why the total immune from vaccination stays below that number.