I got my Covid-19 vaccine today

Here is the sticker they gave me, and I transferred to the top of my microwave.



OK, so both my wife and I got the Pfizer vaccine today. No side effects whatsoever, so far. My wife got it at 7 AM and I got it at 2:30 PM. Second dose on 1/21/2021. Full 95% efficacy, 1 week after the 2nd dose. In 10 to 14 days we'll have up to 50% efficacy.

Why am I saying it? In my thread The State of the Vaccines I've been talking about these vaccines since August, and I've tried to dispel myths and misinformation.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-state-of-the-vaccines.576983/

While I'm no national politician to serve as a role model, in this limited scope of this forum, maybe some people here value my humble contributions (I've been told so, by a few) therefore I hope to reinforce once more how I feel fully confident that accepting these vaccines is the best idea.

It's a way of saying that my arm is where my mouth is... and of showing that if I recommend it to other posters here, I didn't hesitate in taking it myself.

My friends, do the same when it's your turn, and Happy New Year. 2021 must be a better year than 2020... not so difficult, since 2020 set the bar so low, haha.

 

Good on you and your wife. My wife and I are getting ours this coming Tuesday. It's nice to see things pointing in the right direction.

 

Good! I hope you can convince some people to get a vaccine. I know that I want to livestream it to my class so they can see me taking it. Thank you for the idea!

 

I am a 59 year old man who is not exactly jogging 20 miles and lifting wts. I also have been working with the elderly for over 30 years. I don't see two choices here. The risk to me personally in getting this virus is simply intolerable. and the risk to the staff and residents is equally intolerable. I have always gotten my yearly flu shot. I see it as my responsibility.

My problem is that I feel so strongly and yet people I work with are making decisions based the internet gossip. I cannot lecture I cannot preach. Not my role. I simply answer the questions posed directly to me. There is no 'side effect; of this shot that scares me more than the 'side effects' of covid. There is no close call here. My name is at the top of the list for staff and we are due to get the vaccine in mid January.

 

Excellent, well done!

 

Good for you Center Field.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa

 

Please, Captain Nice, on Tuesday, post your experience and your wife's experience here. I invite everybody who gets the vaccine, to share here. This will encourage more people to accept it.

 

Only one sticker, crap, I have two motorcycles.

 

Great news - thanks for sharing.

 

Appears things have been postponed till next week. I'll be back.

 

I'm glad to hear this.
In Italy we had to wait for EU approval. So far EU authorities have approved only one vaccine and this is creating an annoying delay.
We have begun to vaccinate the sanitary personnel, but numbers are still low.

If EU will approve at least other two vaccines [after Pfeizer BionTech also Moderna and AstraZeneca] we could reduce the gap.

In any case, since I'm still enough young and healthy, I will have to wait ... probably until next late Spring [if not until next early Summer].
We will see.

 

You will see more vaccine production in late January, or early February, when bioNtech's production facility in Marburg/Germany starts up.
Moderna will be certified by EMA around the 7. January.
Astra still has a long way to go, maybe April, because of the screw ups in Phase 3 testing.

 

The 97 years young mother of my business partner got her first sho.
My former 82 years young employee got her first shot.

Both a peeweewitchy and happy to have been needled.

 

So this morning my cell rings and it’s the local tractor repair shop number on caller ID. It’s my neighbor that owns the place on the line and he asks me if I want a Covid vaccination. It takes me a minute to put it together—he’s the volunteer fire chief and I’m still a member of the department. LOL

Anyway, I told him to do his best to direct it to someone who needs it much worse than I do since I’m about as near zero risk as one can be.

 

Altruistic but nobody is near zero risk. Not even with the vaccines we'll be near zero risk. Have you seen this?

"SARS-CoV-2 501Y.V2, a novel lineage of the coronavirus causing COVID-19, contains multiple mutations within two immunodominant domains of the spike protein. Here we show that this lineage exhibits complete escape from three classes of therapeutically relevant monoclonal antibodies. Furthermore 501Y.V2 shows substantial or complete escape from neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19 convalescent plasma. These data highlight the prospect of reinfection with antigenically distinct variants and may foreshadow reduced efficacy of current spike-based vaccines."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.18.427166v1.article-info

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Anyway, I just got me second Pfizer dose, but the above did throw a bucket of iced water on it...

Given that vaccine antibodies are different than natural infection antibodies and monoclonal antibodies, at least partial protection is not excluded, though. We'll see.

 

If one is never within 1/2 mile of infected individuals risk is pretty near zero. Household secondary attack rates with family members interacting in public are only around 16-17%. Of course that will change with the new strains.

Yes I’ve been keeping an eye on variants. I appreciate your content on them the past few weeks. The good news in your study above is that not all specific neutralizing antibodies were tested, just representative samples and that only a few were 100% ineffective in neutralizing the variant. This means an individual with natural immunity or vaccine induced immunity is much more likely to “overpower” the variants with sheer volume of antibodies from B cell production than an individual given very limited amounts of antibodies through therapeutics.

Still, this is very concerning.

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The antibodies aren’t really different, it’s just that vaccines produce a much narrower spectrum of antibodies that target the virus most efficiently. Natural immunity produces many antibodies targeted to other parts of the virus whereas vaccines like the Phizer mRNA produce mostly antibodies targeting specific spike binding sites. (Your link talked a little about some of these non-neutralizing antibodies and how they retained their activities on the variant to a much greater degree than the neutralizing antibody cohort.) Also, the mRNA vaccines produce a titre 2-5 times that of natural immunity for the specific class of neutralizing antibodies. That’s it’s real advantage. But if a variant achieves 100% “resistance” to antibodies produced by vaccines or natural infections we are certainly in big trouble as sheer “numbers” of antibodies (titers) will no longer matter.

Have you seen any data on increased re-infections with these variants? Something more concrete than NPR speculation? I know you know people in Brazil who may know if actual documented cases of re-infection are occurring.

 

That's what I meant by "different." You know that at times I try not to be over-technical.

Anyway, here are the excellent news:

New research by my colleague Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University found that both the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines are highly likely to be effective against both new variants, the B.1.1.7 (British) and the B.1.135 (South African - that's another name for it; it's the same variant), contrary to other concerning findings reported above. This is such a relief!!!

About re-infection: my colleagues in Brazil have found re-infection with their own new variant that emerged in Manaus. They haven't been overrun with the other two, yet. So I don't know from them if there are reinfections to the new variants.

Michel by the way is originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil, but did his studies here (NYU and Harvard). He is a rock-solid cellular immunologist who has authored ground-breaking research. I completely trust his findings.

Wild-type virus immunity like you said is less robust than with the very targeted mRNA vaccines so even if the vaccines are protective, the natural infection may be less so and we may see re-infections more often. But it's good to know that both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines seem likely be protective against both variants.

BioNTech is already looking into adjusting their vaccine though, just in case.

 

Thanks. Good news is always welcome. Any data on how common re-infection is with the new strain?

It’s a very good idea to start updating vaccines now. We’ve learned some hard lessons in the genetic engineering world about not staying steps ahead of mutations. It’s always better to be out ahead than try to play catch up after a mutation has made your current technology worthless.

 

Just a dozen cases so far, clustered in a town in Northeastern Brazil. To be continued...

 

OK, this is the evening of my second Pfizer dose, about 13 and a half hours after I took it, and I can tell that it is definitely richer in side effects than the first dose. The vaccine does seem to be more reactogenic than the flu shot. My left arm where I took it is sore to a bigger degree than with the first dose, and I have some generalized myalgia (muscle aches), some fatigue, and my body temperature went slightly up - it is 98.3 now which is not fever but my usual temperature tends to run a bit lower than that, like one degree lower. I'm actually happy that this is happening, because the presence of some side effects seems to correlate with strong immunogenicity. So I'm hoping that in six and half days, I'll be developing the 95% immunity that the Pfizer is supposed to yield.

 

Final report on side effects: my 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine, now given 36 hours ago, caused a sore site of inoculation, some muscle pain, some joint pain, mild fatigue, a tiny headache and a temp of 99. By now all symptoms are gone and my temp is back to 96.5. I was able to work all day today. My wife's second dose - also Pfizer - caused much more pronounced side effects. She felt generalized muscle and joint aches that were more pronounced than mine, more severe headache, nausea, was very fatigued and sleepy, with general malaise and dizziness. She went to work this morning at 8 but couldn't get through her day; came home at 12 noon and slept the whole afternoon. She never measured her temperature but thinks she had a fever. She woke up now, 36 hours after her second dose as well, hungry and feeling refreshed and with no more side effects. A colleague of ours who got the Moderna was knocked out for two full days. Anyway, small price to pay for being immune.

 

557, the latest from Brazil: after further testing and sequencing, two confirmed cases of reinfection were describe, one caused by the Manaus variant, and another one caused by a new variant identified in Rio de Janeiro. Both variants have the concerning E484K mutation on the spike that has a potential for defeating antibodies resulting from previous infection with the previous dominant strain. However, neither variant has been shown to be more transmissible or more virulent / lethal.

 

Thanks for the follow up.

 

We've had several delays. My wife and I are now scheduled for March 5th. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

 

Darn, this is not good.
I wish we had approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca to increase the available supply.
I hope you and wife get yours on March 5th.