Covid Vaccination

[Trixie]

Thank you for this URL! I have subscribed to him.

Glad you're enjoying it. I love the way he just lays out the facts. Went out and bought a bottle of vitamin D yesterday because of him. :-D

[dubiousbystander]

I hope it really is the less virulent mutation as has been predicted and it's finally the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wanted to promote this guy's channel. Such a great source of info without the usual mainstream media fearmongering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r0AA41dgLU

Thank you for this URL! I have subscribed to him.

[Trixie]

I hope it really is the less virulent mutation as has been predicted and it's finally the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wanted to promote this guy's channel. Such a great source of info without the usual mainstream media fearmongering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r0AA41dgLU

[Cyrus The Great]

What I have been hearing about Omicron sounds like good news for the most part. It is more transmissible than previous variants, but the symptoms seem to be less severe for most people. Also, the vaccines are apparently still good against it.

[dubiousbystander]

I heard that Japan was very slow to begin vaccinating people because the approval process for new vaccines in Japan is very complex. Are most people in Japan getting Covid vaccines? I wish that were the case in the U.S. The rate of vaccination here has slowed to a crawl. So, far only about 60% of the population is vaccinated. And now we have the uncertainties of Omicron!

We do our best!

[Cyrus The Great]

My booster is due in March. Japan's currently going with 8 months between the first shots and this one. They tend to be cautious around here with medical treatment, leading some of my fellow expats to complain that, for example, when they need painkillers, the dose isn't very effective.

I heard that Japan was very slow to begin vaccinating people because the approval process for new vaccines in Japan is very complex. Are most people in Japan getting Covid vaccines? I wish that were the case in the U.S. The rate of vaccination here has slowed to a crawl. So, far only about 60% of the population is vaccinated. And now we have the uncertainties of Omicron!

[dubiousbystander]

I got my booster shot yesterday. I went to the same walk-in pharmacy where I got my flu shot last month. I only had to wait about 5 minutes. Once again, I got a Pfizer shot. My symptoms are similar to the previous two shots: tiredness, slight fever, and muscle aches. I expect that I will probably feel fine tomorrow.

I am gathering with a few (maybe 10) relatives for Thanksgiving. As far as I know, most, if not all, will be vaccinated.

My booster is due in March. Japan's currently going with 8 months between the first shots and this one. They tend to be cautious around here with medical treatment, leading some of my fellow expats to complain that, for example, when they need painkillers, the dose isn't very effective.

[Cyrus The Great]

I got my booster shot yesterday. I went to the same walk-in pharmacy where I got my flu shot last month. I only had to wait about 5 minutes. Once again, I got a Pfizer shot. My symptoms are similar to the previous two shots: tiredness, slight fever, and muscle aches. I expect that I will probably feel fine tomorrow.

I am gathering with a few (maybe 10) relatives for Thanksgiving. As far as I know, most, if not all, will be vaccinated.

[Cyrus The Great]

I heard about the newest variant "Mu". I looked for some info on it. Apparently, it is not as contagious as Delta, but the CDC is monitoring it as it has begun spreading in the U.S.

[Cyrus The Great]

That's a very good question. I was wondering that too.

[dubiousbystander]

Poor thing! In that case my secondary question would have been how long ago was he vaccinated.

[dubiousbystander]

I don't know if it was Delta, but of course that seems likely. I didn't ask.

[Cyrus The Great]

I was talking to a lady today and the subject of Covid came up. She said that her father-in-law, who was fully vaccinated, is in the ICU right now with Covid. I wished him well. Hopefully, the vaccination will help him get through the infection more quickly and with lessoned severity, but having to go to ICU is pretty severe already!

[Perfect Warrior]

Yowch! I've heard delta is nasty about being more contagious, as bad as the measles, and this really is an example of it. (I'd be worried about the baby the most.)

[dubiousbystander]

A friend's brother caught it, so the friend quarantined, exasperated, only to come down with it a few days later. If I have the sequence correct, then sister's baby got it, then his sister, then his parents. His grandfather did not catch it, being on a different floor of the house and having been vaccinated already.

[Cyrus The Great]

Sorry for your loss. I hope your uncle's wife will recover! Last year, my former father-in-law passed away after a long battle with Covid. He was someone who always treated me well and I really respected him. It really hits home when we lose someone we care about.

[Perfect Warrior]

Saskatchewan reported its highest one-day daily total of new COVID-19 cases in nearly nine months.

The province reported 418 new cases on Friday. The last time this many new daily cases were reported in the province was on Dec. 6, 2020, when 419 cases were reported.

Of those new cases, health officials said about one in seven (13.2 per cent) were fully vaccinated.

...& dad thinks we shouldn't be meeting for lunch until this smartens up. (Last time numbers were this high we were in the middle of mask mandates and outdoor crowd size restrictions.)

[dubiousbystander]

I am so sorry for your loss!

[Perfect Warrior]

New reason to bang my head against the wall:

My oldest uncle is one of the eight covid deaths in Alberta yesterday.

Mom's pretty sure he wasn't vaccinated, and his wife is in hospital with covid at the moment too.

(So my head's kinda kicking academic statistics to the curb at the moment.) But, nonetheless: It was only an 83% chance of the infected but vaccinated staying out of the ICU recently, but that was when the seniors' homes were having an outbreak.

(we're all over the place locally- city hall/buses require masks, some private businesses, but not a broad mandate since that's provincial jurisdiction.)

[Cyrus The Great]

Interesting math lesson. For people who are mathematically unsophisticated, I think that quite a few would make the mistake of thinking they would have a 25% chance of getting infected with Covid even if they got vaccinated. I would add a caveat to your example though. I have heard Dr. Fauci and other doctors say that the vaccine is not 100% effective at preventing Covid infection. Rather, a vaccinated individual is very unlikely to develop serious or life threatening symptoms from a Covid infection. From what I have heard, approximately 99% of Covid infected ICU patients are unvaccinated.

[Perfect Warrior]

Recently our local news did a thing about 'pay attention to the denominator of the fraction' about how a quarter of the infections being in the vaccinated group doesn't actually mean what you think at first glance.

To simplify: given a population of a million, that has a 75% vaccination rate, 100 infections, 75 unvaccinated, 25 vaccinated:

75/250,000= .03% of population infected.

25/750,000= .003% of population infected that day.

Therefore, you're ten times more likely to catch it, not the mere three times skimming the headline gives you. (16x if you change the numbers to 80% with an 80/20 split)

(& we're blowing up again. Daily deaths et all.)

[Cyrus The Great]

Thanks, I appreciate your concern. I have lived in Indiana for a number of years, but I still have friends in Alabama. All of my friends there got the vaccine, so I don't worry too much for them. There are a lot of Amish here in Indiana. I didn't know they had a religious issue about getting vaccinated. I'm glad some of them are going ahead anyway.

[dubiousbystander]

I have been pleased recently to see the vaccination numbers going up, but some States are still in big trouble. Alabama, where I lived for many years, is among the hardest hit. They currently have no open ICU beds and the number of people needing hospitalization is still rapidly climbing.

I am so sorry, Cyrus. I read an article from, I think, NPR, saying that Amish people have been stealthily getting the shots because it's against their religion.

[Cyrus The Great]

I have been pleased recently to see the vaccination numbers going up, but some States are still in big trouble. Alabama, where I lived for many years, is among the hardest hit. They currently have no open ICU beds and the number of people needing hospitalization is still rapidly climbing.

[Cyrus The Great]

One of my friends had a rather odd reaction to both shots. He had no fever or pain, however, he said that he felt more energetic. He joked that he should get a Covid shot every week.