It has begun.... (COVID-19)

Excellent news, the Johnson&Johnson jab is not available to us in the UK. I don't think there are any single dose vaccines we are using yet. We mainly have the Pfizer and Astra Zenica variety. I am waiting for my second dose of AZ but I probably already have enough protection to keep me free of needing hospitalisation.
 
My husband and I, we are both in our 70's, finally got our first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Mar. 19th. We were getting extremely frustrated even trying to schedule an appointment No reaction except sore arms. I can't say my arm is any sorer than it is with a flu shot at times. My husband said his arm is sorer than it is when he gets the flu shot. Though I hear more reactions tend to occur with the 2nd shot and women tend to have reactions more than men. I asked the nurse who gave us the shot if it was safe to take OTC meds if I had reactions. She said yes and told me she had a headache, aches and pains and a fever for a day after the 2nd dose.
 
@plodr , Glad to hear you got it. From the numbers I see, I'm sure it's ok.

It's inevitable that any medication will cause adverse reactions in some. For instance, .9% (USA) are allergic to aspirin.

As some of you might recall, I had Covid during Christmas and feel I'm good for now. I go to my Dr. in May and will take her advice about the vaccine.
 
We had to wait to try and register because my husband got a shot for back problems. He was not to get the C-19 shot 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after the scheduled surgery. Since I was his driver, I waited just in case I'd get the C-19 shot and had a reaction.
The cases are again climbing in our county. The 7 day average is 112 new cases a day.

All the educational personnel (teachers, aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, etc) in PA are receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine so schools can re-open. On Friday one school district in our County had to close because 40 teachers called in sick due to the reactions to the vaccine.
Upper Perkiomen School District closes Friday after more than 40 staff members call out sick, citing reactions to COVID vaccines
 
I had a decent headache, and felt a little ick, but gone within a day. In 28 days from the jab, I should be good to prevent the worse. Not that I'm going to change much, but eventually once all my family is vaccinated, we should be able to get together

A Guy
 
Perhaps the one shot dose gives more of a reaction because it is a larger dose. Just thinking out loud. The nurse who administered our shots said the 2nd shot gives more of a reaction because the body's immunity system kicks in stronger.
I just looked and Pfizer is .3mg and is mixed with a diluent. J&J is .5ml and not mixed with a diluent
Sources: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Information | CDC
Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine Information | CDC

Moderna gives the same dose as J&J but also requires 2 shots like the Pfizer.
Source: Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Information | CDC

For the Europeans and perhaps the US next month, AstraZeneca news
AstraZeneca’s new COVID-19 vaccine trial data will give the shot a U.S. boost

The more drug companies developing drugs that will protect us from the spread of C-19, the better.
 
As a data point of one, I had the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson single shot vaccine on March 5th with zero side effects. I didn't even get my typical sore arm at injection site afterward.

My partner had the 2-shot Pfizer sequence, with very minimal side effects. We know a lot of people who've received that one, and only two out of all of them did have side effects. Both were after the second, and both had flu-like symptoms. Both also said even afterward that they'll take that over Covid-19.

I only know one person in my circle, so far, that's had the Moderna 2-shot vaccine; no side effects.

Not that there's any perfect correspondence, but if you're someone who's had reactions to any vaccine in the past I would mentally prepare myself to potentially have the same to a Covid-19 vaccine. If you haven't, then the probabilities are that you most likely won't, but may.

In any case, it's better than getting Covid-19. My brother who's almost a decade younger than I am contracted it last June, and he's one of the long termers still dealing with after effects. His advice to me, even before the vaccines began rolling out: Do whatever you have to do to avoid getting this! Now that the vaccines are out, getting one is (or was, in my case) at the very top of the list of things to do to avoid contracting Covid-19 (or at least contracting it in a way that was likely to cause either hospitalization or death).
 
A Guy said:
In 28 days from the jab,
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I find it interesting that while J&J is saying 14 days, a great many vaccine distribution sites are saying to hedge your bets with 28 days. Mine gave me the official J&J figure immediately followed by, "But we say 28 days."

I'm not changing my usual practices when I'm out and about with regard to masking in public anyway. But I'd love to know the reasoning in regard to many sites adding that extra 2 weeks beyond what the maker says should be the period during which full effectiveness (note: not full immunity, which may or may not occur) should take effect.

I'm just glad that I can actually see my mother, who suffers from dementia, after a one year period of no in-person visits. And let me tell you, telephone visits, even when they're on the other side of a window where you can see one another, are no picnic when every two seconds its, "Can I come out to see you?," or, "Can you come in and see me?," without any hope of the answer as to why one cannot do so will "stick."
 
And all I'll say is continue reading as far as the vaccines go and what the medical experts say. One of the things said, repeatedly, is that these efficacy figures are not directly comparable and that the myriad articles trying to compare them as rankings of "overall vaccine quality" should be dismissed.

But, I really care about the effectiveness in preventing serious Covid-19 infection that would lead to either hospitalization or death. And, so far, they're all at or very near to 100% in that measure.
 
There may be boosters at some point, maybe for all of them. Because of variants, more results over time, and updates. Every expert has said get whatever is offered to you, and I agree with that ;)

A Guy
 
I know two women who did have side effects after the 2nd shot. My sister-in-law had swollen lymph nodes. She did call the doctor's office because she was concerned. I'm not sure what the other woman had but I'll ask her husband today when I see him at a meeting. I'm also not sure which drug they got. My sister-in-law is hopeless when it comes to determining what is important. (She probably threw the card away indicating she had the shots. We've had to see that she got a copy of her birth certificate and later a copy of her vehicle ownership.)
 
britechguy said:
And all I'll say is continue reading as far as the vaccines go and what the medical experts say. One of the things said, repeatedly, is that these efficacy figures are not directly comparable and that the myriad articles trying to compare them as rankings of "overall vaccine quality" should be dismissed.

But, I really care about the effectiveness in preventing serious Covid-19 infection that would lead to either hospitalization or death. And, so far, they're all at or very near to 100% in that measure.
Click to expand...
I take the word efficacy, regarding medicine, literally. I try to stay with publications by people that have been to medical school. It's very hard to find them. For instance, the article I posted above, which is the same one as the first one you posted, was written by a person with a BS in Literature.
 
xrobwx71 said:
was written by a person with a BS in Literature.
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You will find that journalists often have these degrees. While I'd love to put out only links to scholarly journals, they're not something that "your average Joe/Jane" (which, I note in deep dives into medicine, includes me) are easily comprehensible.

Just like there's a tech press, which is more reliable about things tech than the mainstream press is simply because their writers specialize and they have easy access to subject matter experts for research purposes, the same exists in the medical field. Stat is one of those publications.

The second article, from the Atlantic, gets into all the reasons why all the data we have is still in the "subject to change with time and increasing numbers" category as far as efficacy, among many other things. That one is incredibly thorough but still comes out to the same conclusion that virtually any scholarly or popular article I've read does: Take whatever vaccine is offered to you as soon as its offered to you. The protection it offers makes any chance of serious, life-threatening Covid infection almost zero.
 
A Guy said:
The 3 Simple Rules That Underscore the Danger of Delta

A Guy
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This surprised me - higher numbers than I thought -

....As of June 21, the CDC reported just 3,907 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people and just 750 deaths.
Click to expand...

Even though I guess the author is emphasizing that these figures are low given the total number of people vaccinated, I would advise him to remove the word "just" used in that sentence twice as some would look at those numbers and ask "what is the point of getting vaccinated?". The answer is of course that those numbers would very likely be much, much higher.

John
 

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