Moody Monday: waiting for Novavax
2022-Sep-26, Monday 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerI'm not getting vaccinated with the new mRNA bivalent formulas. Wait, wait. I'm not turning anti-vax. Hear me out.
SARS-CoV-2 has evolved so much to successfully escape our immune system that vaccination lowers the risk of Long Covid by only 15%. Even treatment drugs are losing their effectiveness. Given how bad Long Covid can be, that's a very worthwhile 15% to gain, so we should keep getting vaccinated. Moreover, each new infection cumulatively adds to our risk of immediate harm to organs throughout our bodies, so even if vaccinated, everyone should remain masked.
The immune system is damaged by infection, as I've been repeating for a while now. This twitter thread on the topic is excellent. I did have one quibble, though. In tweet #9 where he cautions for the need to protect the brain from infection, I added this note: "Brain infection is a great place to mention immune privilege, explaining that people are still infected by SARS-CoV-2 and will always be infected, because our bodies will never kill our infected neural system willy nilly. See HSV-1, HSV-2, and chickenpox."
The damage done by blood clots is horrible. I see horror stories from dentists on twitter, sometimes with photos, but this study from 2021 April titled "Necrotizing periodontal disease: Oral manifestation of COVID‐19" tells you all you need to know. The lungs, brain, and placenta are hit especially hard. We've infected people of all ages with abandon, and now someone is reporting a hospital sending this memo to employees about recognizing signs of strokes in children. It is NOT the vaccines, people. It's the virus. We saw an increase in strokes back in 2020 April, long before mass vaccination began, even in people who were asymptomatic for infection. That article informs us, "The median age for that type of severe stroke is 74." In 2020, it was happening in 30-year-olds. In 2022, after giving up mitigation in schools, it is happening in children.
Even worse, the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and HIV infection is becoming more obvious, even details as obscure as erythrocyte deformability. This guy (who works in HIV/AIDS sector) says, "Yes, it is seen in HIV, just like damn near everything else. If you want to know how to manage Long Covid, Google as if HIV." He is adamant that we should be treating them with the same urgency and methods. He begins a long thread here about the similarities, and I urge you to read it. At the end, he warns that organ transplant tends to include organs rich in ACE2 receptors, and we've already seen a recipient of infected tissue develop complications (and infect the surgeon as a bonus).
So why am I not getting my next round of vaccine? Because we desperately need sterilizing immunity in the sinus and upper respiratory tract, where we are first exposed to the virus we inhale. That particular immune response is not promoted by current mRNA vaccines. The new Novavax vaccine does, at least in animal tests. Additionally, it includes the S2 spike protein (not just S1) which was highly conserved across variants (at least early back in 2021), so it should work even against future variants. WHO currently approves Novavax for primary or booster shots. Here in the USA though? Hard no. Our CDC disallows it. I contacted my doctor online about it, asking how to get it, and the only suggestion was to wait until it's approved here. I see on Twitter that some people are crossing state lines (where medical records do not cross) and lying to say they are unvaccinated, then they receive it. I dislike the idea of lying that way, so I'm waiting. I want to be eligible for it as soon as it's available. I am choosing to accept a calculated risk by waiting an unknown amount of time.
I will still take my usual precautions. This thread on how to protect newborns will remain topical for everyone. As always, you could build a Corsi-Rosenthal box for your apartment, your office, or your child's school room. Wear N95, P100, or elastomeric masks, if you can afford them, because your one-way masking is vitally important now.
SARS-CoV-2 has evolved so much to successfully escape our immune system that vaccination lowers the risk of Long Covid by only 15%. Even treatment drugs are losing their effectiveness. Given how bad Long Covid can be, that's a very worthwhile 15% to gain, so we should keep getting vaccinated. Moreover, each new infection cumulatively adds to our risk of immediate harm to organs throughout our bodies, so even if vaccinated, everyone should remain masked.
The immune system is damaged by infection, as I've been repeating for a while now. This twitter thread on the topic is excellent. I did have one quibble, though. In tweet #9 where he cautions for the need to protect the brain from infection, I added this note: "Brain infection is a great place to mention immune privilege, explaining that people are still infected by SARS-CoV-2 and will always be infected, because our bodies will never kill our infected neural system willy nilly. See HSV-1, HSV-2, and chickenpox."
The damage done by blood clots is horrible. I see horror stories from dentists on twitter, sometimes with photos, but this study from 2021 April titled "Necrotizing periodontal disease: Oral manifestation of COVID‐19" tells you all you need to know. The lungs, brain, and placenta are hit especially hard. We've infected people of all ages with abandon, and now someone is reporting a hospital sending this memo to employees about recognizing signs of strokes in children. It is NOT the vaccines, people. It's the virus. We saw an increase in strokes back in 2020 April, long before mass vaccination began, even in people who were asymptomatic for infection. That article informs us, "The median age for that type of severe stroke is 74." In 2020, it was happening in 30-year-olds. In 2022, after giving up mitigation in schools, it is happening in children.
Even worse, the similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and HIV infection is becoming more obvious, even details as obscure as erythrocyte deformability. This guy (who works in HIV/AIDS sector) says, "Yes, it is seen in HIV, just like damn near everything else. If you want to know how to manage Long Covid, Google as if HIV." He is adamant that we should be treating them with the same urgency and methods. He begins a long thread here about the similarities, and I urge you to read it. At the end, he warns that organ transplant tends to include organs rich in ACE2 receptors, and we've already seen a recipient of infected tissue develop complications (and infect the surgeon as a bonus).
So why am I not getting my next round of vaccine? Because we desperately need sterilizing immunity in the sinus and upper respiratory tract, where we are first exposed to the virus we inhale. That particular immune response is not promoted by current mRNA vaccines. The new Novavax vaccine does, at least in animal tests. Additionally, it includes the S2 spike protein (not just S1) which was highly conserved across variants (at least early back in 2021), so it should work even against future variants. WHO currently approves Novavax for primary or booster shots. Here in the USA though? Hard no. Our CDC disallows it. I contacted my doctor online about it, asking how to get it, and the only suggestion was to wait until it's approved here. I see on Twitter that some people are crossing state lines (where medical records do not cross) and lying to say they are unvaccinated, then they receive it. I dislike the idea of lying that way, so I'm waiting. I want to be eligible for it as soon as it's available. I am choosing to accept a calculated risk by waiting an unknown amount of time.
I will still take my usual precautions. This thread on how to protect newborns will remain topical for everyone. As always, you could build a Corsi-Rosenthal box for your apartment, your office, or your child's school room. Wear N95, P100, or elastomeric masks, if you can afford them, because your one-way masking is vitally important now.
no subject
Date: 2022-Sep-26, Monday 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-Sep-26, Monday 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-Oct-02, Sunday 08:00 pm (UTC)From this, I inferred (mightn't you?) the non-mRNA options are being offered with an eyeroll as a better-than-nothing option for those in the thrall of delusions and fairytales and conspiracy theories. On the other hand, I was bidirectionally uncertain about the latest round of mRNA vaccines—as I understand it, Canada's gone with a BA.1-based vax, and it's backed by human data, but we have to hope it's effective against BA.4 and BA.5 (and…). On the other hand, the US has gone with a vax devised for BA.4 and BA.5, but without human data behind it. Not that I was planning on visiting the states to get vaxed, but I didn't like the shrug-and-hope aspect either way. I'm booked for Novavax tomorrow.
Even when one is aware of the principles of scientific thinking and research and is paying attention, it's difficult to figure out what's best. I don't envy those who aren't so situated; it's got to be terribly confusing at best for them.