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
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?
E. coli Outbreak with Unknown Food Source – CDC
As of February 1, 2021, a total of 16 people infected with the outbreak strain have been reported from 5 states. This map shows where sick people live.
Illnesses started on dates ranging from December 23, 2020, to January 7, 2021. This chart shows when people got sick. Recent illnesses may not yet be reported as it usually takes 2 to 4 weeks to link illnesses to an outbreak.
Sick people range in age from 10 to 95 years, with a median age of 31, and 88% are female. Of 12 people with information available, 9 have been hospitalized. Of 11 people with information, 3 developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). One death has been reported from Washington.
Investigation Details — https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2021/o157h7-02-21/details.html
“Unknown food source” bothers me.
Just Another SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Chart
Doctors keep making cool graphics. I keep finding them. Note Column six from the left in yellow.
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
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
Diabetes and Covid-19
Catching up on diabetes and found several interesting studies.
CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes status, both type 1 and type 2, independently increases the adverse impacts of COVID-19. Potentially modifiable factors (e.g., HbA1c) had significant but modest impact compared with comparatively static factors (e.g., race and insurance) in type 1 diabetes, indicating an urgent and continued need to mitigate severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection risk in this community.
COVID-19 Severity Is Tripled in the Diabetes Community: A Prospective Analysis of the Pandemic’s Impact in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes — http://Diabetes Care 2021 Feb; 44(2): 526-532. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc20-2260
CONCLUSIONS: Social vulnerability contributes considerably to the probability of hospitalization among individuals with COVID-19 and diabetes with associated comorbidities. These findings can inform mitigation strategies for populations at the highest risk of severe COVID-19.
Incremental Risk of Developing Severe COVID-19 Among Mexican Patients With Diabetes Attributed to Social and Health Care Access Disadvantages — http://Diabetes Care 2021 Feb; 44(2): 373-380. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc20-2192
This study shows that diabetes is associated with a greater risk of fatal COVID-19, influenza/pneumonia, and CHD in both sexes. However, unlike for CHD, there are no sex differences in the association between diabetes and death from COVID-19 or influenza/pneumonia. Our finding that diabetes is associated with higher risk of COVID-19 mortality is consistent with other studies (1–4). A study of 61 million individuals in England showed that over a third of all in-hospital COVID-19–related deaths occurred in those with diabetes, and those with diabetes had higher odds of in-hospital COVID-19–related death than those without diabetes (1). In contrast to our study, however, that study suggested that women with diabetes were at higher risk of COVID-19–related mortality than men (1). Our results suggest that worse glycemic control might further increase risk of COVID-19 mortality among those with diabetes. Some studies have also reported that individuals with undiagnosed diabetes are particularly at increased risk of severe COVID-19 infections (3,4). Although relatively few participants had undiagnosed diabetes in the current study, we showed that undiagnosed diabetes was associated with a 3.5-fold excess risk of COVID-19 mortality in men. Although there were no sex differences in the association between HbA1c levels and COVID-19 mortality, the finding that associations are broadly similar across sexes and diseases with the exception of women with CHD is interesting, and it is important when considering mechanistic explanations of the female disadvantage in CHD. Overall, these findings indicate that strategies to prevent diabetes, to promptly identify individuals with diabetes, and to improve glycemic control among those with diabetes could lead to better COVID-19 outcomes for both sexes.
Diabetes and COVID-19–Related Mortality in Women and Men in the UK Biobank: Comparisons With Influenza/Pneumonia and Coronary Heart Disease — http://Diabetes Care 2021 Feb; 44(2): e22-e24. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc20-2378
Take home lesson: don’t develop diabetes.
Does Vitamin D Deficiency Raise COVID-19 Risk? – JAMA
Despite Fauci’s recommendation and claims by many supplement sellers, conclusions about vitamin D blood levels’ connection to a host of diseases, including infections, cannot be determined because of mixed or sparse evidence, according to a recent report written for the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is updating its recommendation on vitamin D deficiency screening. The draft updated recommendation, like its 2014 predecessor, concludes that the evidence is insufficient to assess the benefits and harms of screening in asymptomatic adults for any reason.
Sorting Out Whether Vitamin D Deficiency Raises COVID-19 Risk — https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775003
The comments to this JAMA article are as educational as the article itself.
But as the debate rages on, I’ll continue to take 1000iu D3 daily. It can’t hurt.
The Incentive Salience Theory – Kent Berridge
How is everyone’s Sunday morning going? I’m learning more about incentive salience theory. Old video but still quite informative.
Quote for Today – 01.30.21
“In the event that you have the choice to get vaccinated, I’d encourage you to take the vaccine that you’re given,” John Brooks, the chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 response, said at a briefing Friday.
Additional Covid-19 vaccines bring choices — and complications — to the rollout — https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/29/additional-covid19-vaccines-bring-choices-and-complications-to-rollout/
Let’s get one thing clear: I am not a medical doctor nor is anything you read on this blog to be considered medical advice. Now that we have mutual understanding…
This is NO time to be picky. You can be picky about the brand of coffee you drink (or how it should be brewed). Or you can be picky about which vegan eatery serves up the best tofu in your town. Go ahead. Be picky on pretty much anything in your life.
But when it comes down to a vaccine for a virus that to the best of our knowledge we have no known natural immunity I suggest you take whatever vaccine is available.
Leave the debates about efficacy to experts who know what they’re talking about.
Rant over.
We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties – Please Stand By
One question we see frequently – if you have a confirmation email, with a link taking you to a sign-up page, when all the appointments are full, should you expect an email telling you when they become available? The short answer, no.
Oklahoma Vaccine Portal problems persist as Oklahomans scramble to get a shot appointment — https://kfor.com/news/local/oklahoma-vaccine-portal-problems-persist-as-oklahomans-scramble-to-get-a-shot-appointment/
Officials with the Oklahoma State Department of Health said about 290,000 eligible Oklahomans are signed up on the scheduler portal. Plenty of people in the phase two distribution plan told 2 Works for You they are having issues scheduling a vaccination.
Senior citizens struggle with state COVID vaccine portal — https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/senior-citizens-struggle-with-oklahoma-state-covid-vaccine-portal
Tulsa Health Department posted on Facebook saying, that due to technical difficulties, there is no way for eligible individuals in Tulsa County to sign up.
‘Technical difficulties’ halts OSDH’s vaccine scheduling portal in Tulsa — https://ktul.com/news/local/technical-difficulties-halts-osdhs-vaccine-scheduling-portal-in-tulsa
Friday 1/29
Today began like any other workday. Wake up, coffee, shower, get dressed, more coffee, make the bed, power up the computer. But this morning I did not turn my workstation on. I took the morning off to get my SARS-Cov-2 vaccination shot. Total estimated round trip drive time will be about 3 hours. We’re headed to a mall in Enid, OK (that’s nearly Kansas IMO). This is my vaccine story.
Like the rest of the world we’ve been pretty much cooped up for nearly a year. Getting out of the house for “essential” activities isn’t the same as getting out and doing things. The arrival of vaccines for this horrible virus was good news. This certainly doesn’t herald the end of The Great Pandemic but it’s a hell of a good start. Somehow I knew with governments at multiple points in the vaccination process you just know there will be problems. Keep this in mind and carry on.
The state of Oklahoma is presently in Phase 2 of a four phase rollout. When The Boss and I became eligible for a jab we started hearing nightmare stories about actually securing an appointment. I knew the hiccups at the beginning were due to vaccine supply. The supply side is still a problem but not nearly as big of a problem as the steps you must take to register and find some vaccine. OSDH (Oklahoma State Department of Health) is the agency that set up the state’s vaccine portal. A lifetime ago I managed technology for two different companies and I know what can go wrong with systems implementation. Here we had a website set up by a government agency rolled out to the public with zero instructions on how the process would work. What could go wrong?
Yup, “technical difficulties”.
After hearing horror stories of a crashed website and other “technical difficulties” I waited a few weeks before signing up on the site. When I signed up I immediately received an email telling me I was eligible to be vaccinated. The email contained a link to the appointment scheduler. And that’s when the fun began. No appointments. Nada. Zilch. The instructions on how to use the site were nowhere to be found. After some time clicking around I managed to figure out how the site worked. First come, first served. If you can’t get an appointment come back later and try again.
So I went back to work and left my personal computer up with the vaccine portal website up. Every now and then I turned around from my Day Job Workstation and checked to see if any appointment openings popped up. After several hours of intermittent checking a massive number of slots opened up at a single site, the Oakwood Mall in Enid Oklahoma. So I used the home office intercom and yelled rather loudly:
“Get on the site. It’s number 47. Take the 10:30 am slot and I’ll grab the 10:45. GO!!!”
We both got slots for shots on January 29th. I suspect our experience was a lot better and a lot more successful than for others around the country. In my next post I’ll describe a few of the reasons why Oklahoma is doing a decent job with their vaccine rollout. Decent not good. Keep this in mind too because we haven’t opened up the process to the general population yet.
PS. My worst side effect so far has been an illogical urge to buy a 12 string acoustic guitar. Strange but true.
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