All About Vaccines

[babyblob]

Kentucky Gov Beshear has signed an order requiring masks for everyone in school age 2+. This includes all students, teachers, staff, and visitors. Does not matter about Vaccination status. He hinted that he was going to do this last week so the first law suit is expected to be filed by the end of the week.

[Tami]

A German nurse injected patients with saline instead of coronavirus vaccines, sparking fury

Nutz

BERLIN — An outcry is brewing in Germany as thousands are set to be revaccinated after a nurse admitted to injecting patients with saline solution instead of a coronavirus vaccine.

Almost 9,000 people who may have received bogus shots in the spring will be offered new vaccinations, Friesland District Administrator Sven Ambrosy said at a news conference Tuesday.

The nurse, who has not been publicly identified, had initially admitted to giving six patients shots of saline solution after suspicions were raised in April. She said she did so to cover up the fact that she had dropped a vial of the Pfizer vaccine, German television channel NDR reported.

However, since antibody testing was carried out, a much wider group of people is suspected to have been affected. Police have also discovered that the woman, who worked with the Red Cross, had shared vaccine-skeptical posts on social media, NDR said.

Local authorities said they do not know how many of the 8,577 people who could have been affected were not given a real vaccine, but advise that all of them get revaccinated as a precaution.

Those who received the shots are all older than 70, German media reported — making them more vulnerable to covid-19, the disease that has killed more than 91,000 people in the country.

Police investigator Peter Beer said at a news conference that there was a “reasonable suspicion of danger” and cited witness statements.

This is not the first incident in which vaccine injections went wrong. Earlier this year, a 23-year-old Italian woman was mistakenly given six shots of the Pfizer vaccine by a distracted nurse who officials said “had an attention lapse.” The woman who was given the high volume of vaccine was closely monitored at a Tuscany hospital but did not have any adverse reaction, health authorities said.

[Tami]

They rejected coronavirus shots in vaccine-rich countries. In the hospital, they changed their minds.

LONDON — The fit and healthy bodybuilder in England. The religious woman from Canada. A conservative talk radio host in Tennessee.

All chose not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, despite living in countries where doses are plentiful. But after contracting the disease and falling severely ill, they have since expressed an overwhelming sense of regret and urged others not to make the same mistakes they did — some just days before they died.

John Eyers, from the seaside town of Southport in England, loved hiking, camping and running. The 42-year-old competed in ironman challenges, triathlons and bodybuilding competitions. Four weeks before Eyers died of the coronavirus in the hospital, he had posed for photographs posted on Facebook standing atop the Welsh mountains.

His twin sister, Jenny McCann, wrote on Twitter this week that he was the “fittest, healthiest” person she knew but explained that he had a “belief in his own immortality.”

She said the hospital did everything to save him, but he died as a result of infection and organ failure.

Eyers, who was placed on a ventilator, told a nurse shortly before he died that he “wished he had been vaccinated,” McCann said.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

They rejected coronavirus shots in vaccine-rich countries. In the hospital, they changed their minds.

It's damn hard to express even a tiny bit of compassion for irresponsible idiots who played stupid games and won the ultimate stupid prize. However, I do feel sorry for the people they left behind.

[Tami]

Moderna starts human trials for its revolutionary HIV vaccine this week

This week, the biotech company Moderna will start human trials for its HIV vaccine. Its HIV vaccine will be the first of its kind to use messenger RNA (mRNA), an approach that Moderna used in its effective COVID-19 vaccine.

The clinical trials will start on August 19 and end sometime around spring 2023, according to the National Institutes of Health’s trial registry. They will involve 56 HIV-negative participants aged 18 to 56. The participants will be given one or two forms of mRNA that cause the body to form defenses against HIV infection.

In the past, HIV vaccines used inactivated forms of the virus. However, previous trials showed that these forms didn’t produce any immune responses. In fact, researchers canceled one trial in Thailand during the 2000s after inactivated forms of the virus were found to actually increase people’s risk of catching HIV rather than preventing infections.

Instead, the Moderna trials will contain one of two different types of mRNA: mRNA-1644 and mRNA-1644v2. These get the body’s cells to develop a “protein spike” on their surfaces. These spikes are similar to those embedded by HIV on a cell’s surface when it begins to infect cells to reproduce. When the body recognizes the presence of the mRNA spike, it begins producing antibodies to protect against infection.

The mRNA may also allow scientists to make tweaks to the vaccine more easily.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I've heard there's been discussions about booster shots for people who've gotten the vaccine (Moderna and Pfizer, no news about J&J) some eight months after their second shot, but, nothing's written in stone yet. I have no problem with that myself, but I think it's a little early for that sort of talk when something like a quarter of the U.S. population haven't gotten ONE shot yet, never mind millions upon millions more in poor and developing countries with little to no access to vaccines. It's kinda like putting the cart before the horse.

[babyblob]

I've heard there's been discussions about booster shots for people who've gotten the vaccine (Moderna and Pfizer, no news about J&J) some eight months after their second shot, but, nothing's written in stone yet. I have no problem with that myself, but I think it's a little early for that sort of talk when something like a quarter of the U.S. population haven't gotten ONE shot yet, never mind millions upon millions more in poor and developing countries with little to no access to vaccines. It's kinda like putting the cart before the horse.

I am all for boosters and so is my dad. Anything that will help make the vaccine stronger. What I love are all the people who have gotten the vaccine and that anti vaxers who refuse to being made about a yearly coivd booster but being fine getting a flu shot ever year.

[InfamousBG]

Just got my 3rd shot, booster shot today. I am a healthcare worker so we always get stuff early. Did not even know it was available. Hospital I work for is now mandating vaccines or no work. Crazy times we live in.

[Tami]

Just got my 3rd shot, booster shot today. I am a healthcare worker so we always get stuff early. Did not even know it was available. Hospital I work for is now mandating vaccines or no work. Crazy times we live in.

Is it a set number of months after the 2nd shot? Or did they just give it to you as soon as it was greenlighted to do so? Last I heard it was about 6 or 8 months after the original vaccine shots.

[InfamousBG]

Is it a set number of months after the 2nd shot? Or did they just give it to you as soon as it was greenlighted to do so? Last I heard it was about 6 or 8 months after the original vaccine shots.

Yes it is after a certain amount of months. I was one of the first groups back in like late November or December of 2020 that got the first and second shot.

[Tami]

An Alabama doctor watched patients reject the coronavirus vaccine. Now he’s refusing to treat them.

In Alabama, where the nation’s lowest vaccination rate has helped push the state closer to a record number of hospitalizations, a physician has sent a clear message to his patients: Don’t come in for medical treatment if you are unvaccinated.

Jason Valentine, a physician at Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Ala., posted a photo on Facebook this week of him pointing to a sign taped to a door informing patients of his new policy coming Oct. 1.

“Dr. Valentine will no longer see patients that are not vaccinated against covid-19,” the sign reads.

Valentine wrote in the post, which has since been made private but was captured in online images, that there were “no conspiracy theories, no excuses” stopping anyone from being vaccinated, AL.com reported. The doctor, who said at least three unvaccinated patients have asked him where they could get a vaccine since he posted the photo, has remained resolute to those who have questioned his decision in recent days.

“If they asked why, I told them covid is a miserable way to die and I can’t watch them die like that,” wrote Valentine, who has specialized in family medicine with Diagnostic and Medical Clinic since 2008.

Valentine expressed his frustration on Facebook over similar cases of those who’ve hesitated or outright rejected getting vaccinated.

“We do not yet have any great treatments for severe disease, but we do have great prevention with vaccines. Unfortunately, many have declined to take the vaccine, and some end up severely ill or dead,” he wrote. “I cannot and will not force anyone to take the vaccine, but I also cannot continue to watch my patients suffer and die from an eminently preventable disease.”

[Tami]

Vaccine Effectiveness Against Infection May Wane, C.D.C. Studies Find

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released three studies on Wednesday that federal officials said provided evidence that booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines would be needed in the coming months.

But some experts said the new research did not back up the decision to recommend booster shots for all Americans.

Taken together, the studies show that although the vaccines remain highly effective against hospitalizations and deaths, the bulwark they provide against infection with the virus has weakened in the past few months.

The finding accords with early data from seven states, gathered this week by The New York Times, suggesting a rise in breakthrough infections and a smaller increase in hospitalizations among the vaccinated as the Delta variant spread in July.

The decline in effectiveness against infection may result from waning vaccine immunity, a lapse in precautions like wearing masks or the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant, experts said — or a combination of all three.

“We are concerned that this pattern of decline we are seeing will continue in the months ahead, which could lead to reduced protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said at a White House news briefing on Wednesday.

[Tami]

What to Know About Boosters if You Got the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna coronavirus vaccines should get a booster shot eight months after their second vaccine dose, federal health officials said on Wednesday.

The boosters will be available beginning Sept. 20, if the Food and Drug Administration agrees to the plan. They will go first to health care workers, nursing home residents and older adults, who were the first to receive the initial round of vaccinations after they were authorized in December.

But the recommendation does not apply to the nearly 14 million Americans who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“For people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, we anticipate vaccine boosters will likely be needed,” Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said at a White House news briefing on Wednesday.

He added: “We expect more data on J.&J. in the coming weeks. With those data in hand, we will keep the public informed of a timely plan for J.&J. booster shots.”

In the meantime, here are answers to some common questions.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What to Know About Boosters if You Got the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

I think it was pretty much a given that booster shots would be needed, if but for no other reason than, unlike the flu, COVID isn't seasonal, it doesn't go away, the concern being it might become stronger and more resistant to vaccines as it mutates. In any event, since I got the Pfizer vaccine, I'll be due for a third dose in mid-January.

[Phoenixx9]

What to Know About Boosters if You Got the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

The J&J was touted to be exceptionally good against the Delta from early on and even against the Alpha strains. But who knows?