COVID-19

How to make COVID vaccines more effective: give people vitamin and mineral supplements

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For the immune system to fight off infection or generate good protection against a disease following vaccination, it needs a variety of micronutrients. This is likely to be just as true for COVID-19 as for other diseases. Given that malnutrition is common among elderly people, raising their vitamin and mineral levels before they get vaccinated could be a way of boosting the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.

How to make COVID vaccines more effective: give people vitamin and mineral supplements — https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-covid-vaccines-more-effective-give-people-vitamin-and-mineral-supplements-154974

Follow the link above to read the entire article. And take your multivitamin.

Vitamin D Treatment and Covid-19 Related Outcomes – Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain

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In patients hospitalized with COVID-19, calcifediol treatment at the time of hospitalization significantly reduced ICU admission and mortality.

Nogués, Xavier and Ovejero, Diana and Quesada-Gomez, J. M. and Bouillon, Roger and Arenas, Dolores and Pascual, Julio and Villar-Garcia, Judith and Rial, Abora and Gimenez-Argente, Carme and Cos, ML. and Rodriguez-Morera, Jaime and Campodarve, Isabel and Guerri-Fernandez, Robert and Pineda-Moncusí, Marta and García-Giralt, Natalia, Calcifediol Treatment and COVID-19-Related Outcomes. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3771318 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3771318

Preprints are early stage research papers that have not been peer-reviewed. I am not a medical doctor nor a scientist and any comments I have on this topic should not be considered a peer review or medical advice.

Take Vitamin D supplements. Let the experts debate this until the end of time. See Does Vitamin D Deficiency Raise COVID-19 Risk? – JAMA. And as the debate rages, take your vitamins.

Vaccination Lessons from Chick-fil-A

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What if we partnered with this restaurant chain and opened drive-thru vaccination sites on Sundays leasing locations and staff?

A Ph.D. microbiologist and immunologist, Bauman understands the best experiments don’t start from scratch. So, he decided to emulate the most efficient, customer-focused operation he knew. He went to the Chick-fil-A drive-through in Norman and recorded the entire process. Then, he did his best to duplicate it (minus the waffle fries and dipping sauce).

“Once you come in, you should never stop in line — just like Chick-fil-A,” Bauman said. IMMY staff walked alongside each person who entered, checking them in with iPads as they guided them toward the ballroom where nurses gave shots. “The only time you should stop is when you put your butt in the seat to get the vaccine.”

Vaccination lessons from Chick-fil-A (hold the fries) – https://oklahoman.com/article/5682352/vaccination-lessons-from-chick-fil-a-hold-the-fries

Just Another SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Chart – Updated 02.11.21

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Doctors keep making cool graphics. I keep finding them. Note Column six from the left in yellow has been updated.

Vaccine table produced by Monica Gandhi MD MPH. Downloaded from Twitter 02.11.21

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine and Associate Division Chief (Clinical Operations/ Education) of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF/ San Francisco General Hospital. She also serves as the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Medical director of the HIV Clinic at SFGH (“Ward 86”). Dr. Gandhi completed her M.D. at Harvard Medical School and then came to UCSF in 1996 for residency training in Internal Medicine. After her residency, Dr. Gandhi completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, both at UCSF. She also obtained a Masters in Public Health from Berkeley in 2001 with a focus on Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

https://profiles.ucsf.edu/monica.gandhi

Covid-19: How close is the light at the end of the tunnel? — Tim Harford

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Will it ever end? In November, we were celebrating the announcement that the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine seemed to be highly effective against Covid-19, followed with bewildering speed by similar claims for the Sputnik V, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines. Nearly three months later, hospitals are overwhelmed and the global death toll is climbing twice as fast as…

Covid-19: How close is the light at the end of the tunnel? — Tim Harford

Necessity of 2 Doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines – JAMA

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine be given within 3 weeks of the first dose for the Pfizer vaccine and within 4 weeks for the Moderna vaccine. No more than 6 weeks should lapse between doses, although if the second dose is not given during these time frames, it can be given without the need to repeat the first dose. It is not recommended to give the second dose any earlier than stated above, but if a person needs to get the second dose earlier, giving the second dose up to 4 days ahead of schedule is allowed.

Necessity of 2 Doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines — https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776229

Another Reason to GET VACCINATED

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Since the early onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the loss or distortion of smell and taste have emerged as one of the telltale symptoms of COVID-19, with an estimated 86 percent of mild cases displaying signs of olfactory dysfunction. In many cases, patients cannot perceive smells (known as anosmia) — and with it the nuances of flavor inextricable from aroma — or any kind of taste (ageusia). In others, the dysfunction eventually manifests as warped senses of smell and taste (parosmia and parageusia, respectively), rendering previously familiar scents and flavors rancid, like being assaulted with the overwhelming stench of rot, feces, and chemicals.

We Asked People Who Lost Their Taste to COVID: What Do You Eat in a Day? — https://www.eater.com/2021/2/5/22267667/covid-19-loss-distorted-taste-smell-anosmia-parosmia-symptom-food-diaries

Interesting set of short interviews with some long haul Covid-19 sufferers. Think about it. What do you eat when everything tastes like crap?

Just Another SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Chart

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Doctors keep making cool graphics. I keep finding them. Note Column six from the left in yellow.

Vaccine table produced by Monica Gandhi MD MPH. Downloaded from Twitter 02.03.21

Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine and Associate Division Chief (Clinical Operations/ Education) of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at UCSF/ San Francisco General Hospital. She also serves as the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Medical director of the HIV Clinic at SFGH (“Ward 86”). Dr. Gandhi completed her M.D. at Harvard Medical School and then came to UCSF in 1996 for residency training in Internal Medicine. After her residency, Dr. Gandhi completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, both at UCSF. She also obtained a Masters in Public Health from Berkeley in 2001 with a focus on Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

https://profiles.ucsf.edu/monica.gandhi

Love the Zeroes

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Downloaded from Twitter 02.01.21. Chart created by Dr. Jha

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, is a physician, health policy researcher, and the third Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Before joining Brown, he was the K.T. Li Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI).

https://www.brown.edu/academics/public-health/about/people/dean/ashish-jha