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[XFool]

Um...

Leading Covid adviser quits Sage amid warning of ‘concerning’ virus levels

News Shopper

A scientist who was one of the Government’s leading advisers on coronavirus has quit as he warned levels of coronavirus transmission across the country were “concerning”.

"Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, left the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) at the end of October, he confirmed in a statement.

He said that Sage had provided scientific advice to the Government often under “huge pressure”."

[Nimrod103]

Had my COVID booster yesterday. I origannly has AZ and just felt a bit off colour after the first AZ jab.
However this Pfizer booster has completely knocked me out and feel like I have the flu badly.

[Mike4]

Had my COVID booster yesterday. I origannly has AZ and just felt a bit off colour after the first AZ jab.
However this Pfizer booster has completely knocked me out and feel like I have the flu badly.

Interesting. My experience was almost the reverse. My first vaccination was AZ and it knocked me sideways for a whole weekend. Second dose was AZ and third (booster, last week) was Pfizer, neither of which had any impact at all.

[Nimrod103]

Had my COVID booster yesterday. I origannly has AZ and just felt a bit off colour after the first AZ jab.
However this Pfizer booster has completely knocked me out and feel like I have the flu badly.

Interesting. My experience was almost the reverse. My first vaccination was AZ and it knocked me sideways for a whole weekend. Second dose was AZ and third (booster, last week) was Pfizer, neither of which had any impact at all.

It never ceases to amaze me how everyone's experience of things (not just Covid jabs) can vary so much. Apologies for the appalling typing of my previous post - a result of me trying to concentrate through bleary eyes and a headache.

[XFool]

Had my COVID booster yesterday. I origannly has AZ and just felt a bit off colour after the first AZ jab.
However this Pfizer booster has completely knocked me out and feel like I have the flu badly.

Interesting. My experience was almost the reverse. My first vaccination was AZ and it knocked me sideways for a whole weekend. Second dose was AZ and third (booster, last week) was Pfizer, neither of which had any impact at all.

It never ceases to amaze me how everyone's experience of things (not just Covid jabs) can vary so much. Apologies for the appalling typing of my previous post - a result of me trying to concentrate through bleary eyes and a headache.

Yes, me too. I can't help wondering if these differing experiences mean anything, are they of medical significance or not?

I normally don't get a reaction to injections and such like. I had five this year:

2 x AstraZeneca:

First time I may(?) have had a brief hot flush. 'Sore arm' - only when sleeping on and hardly really sore.
Second time nothing apart from the same (non) sore arm.

Shingles: Nothing

Influenza: Nothing

1 X Pfizer: No 'sore' arm. I vaguely remember once waking up briefly and feeling a bit something, another hot flush?

[pje16]

I know the different reactions are so weird
in the last 12 months
2 Flu
1 Pneumonia
2 Covid

Flu and Covid nothing
Pneumonia sore if I slept on it for a night or two (so easy fix, roll over )

Booster coming up in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed)

[Nimrod103]

I'm not a medic but I assume soreness at the injection site and generally in the arm is just due to how the needle went in, according to the skill of the doctor/nurse, and a bit of randomness about whether the needle hits various nerves etc.

I have to have regular blood tests, taken from the inside of my elbow. Most are just a little prick. Sometimes the phlebotomist has great difficulty finding a vein, but occasionally I get a phlebotomist who is so skillfull, I really feel nothing.

But the variability in real side effects, like the headache I am getting over now, must be due to how my body is responding and creating antibodies.

[daveh]

I'm not a medic but I assume soreness at the injection site and generally in the arm is just due to how the needle went in, according to the skill of the doctor/nurse, and a bit of randomness about whether the needle hits various nerves etc.

I have to have regular blood tests, taken from the inside of my elbow. Most are just a little prick. Sometimes the phlebotomist has great difficulty finding a vein, but occasionally I get a phlebotomist who is so skillfull, I really feel nothing.

But the variability in real side effects, like the headache I am getting over now, must be due to how my body is responding and creating antibodies.

Not necessarily true - I had a slightly sore arm day 1 after AZN, but it was much worse was after day 2, such that it was not possible to lay on it without significant pain, but it wasn't obviously warm or swollen at the site of the injection. If it was due to trauma from the needle you'd expect the pain early after the injection. I think the severe pain after a couple of days is much more likely to be due to a local inflammatory reaction to the vaccine, though I'd be more convinced of that if there had been some heat and or swelling at the injection site. In my youth I had yellow fever vaccine and that caused pain at the injection site, plus swelling and warmth, plus some mild flu like symptoms.

[pje16]

I'm not a medic but I assume soreness at the injection site and generally in the arm is just due to how the needle went in, according to the skill of the doctor/nurse, and a bit of randomness about whether the needle hits various nerves etc. y is responding and creating antibodies.

I think you have a good point there
I was in hospital for 5 weeks, a couple of years ago, and had dozens of jabs
One nurse was so good you never felt them at all, her "trick" was to slight pinch a fold of skin
obvioulsy works well in flabbier parts of the body

[XFool]

Covid: Hard months to come in pandemic for UK, says Van-Tam

BBC News

"Very high" coronavirus rates in the UK at present mean there are hard months to come, England's deputy chief medical officer has warned.

"Prof Jonathan Van-Tam told the BBC it was a concern that Covid levels were "running this hot, this early in the autumn season".

He said too many people believed the pandemic was now over."

[pje16]

He has a good point
when I am out now, apart from in the supermarket, for a lot of places it's like Covid never happened
quite often on the tube mask wearers are out numbered 3 or 4 to 1
In the pub no-one wears masks, not even the staff
not sure what it's like in other parts of the country, but have a good look wherever you live

[Hallucigenia]

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1003006/
The results suggest that the significant effect of ivermectin on survival was dependent on largely poor quality and potentially fraudulent studies. This highlights the need for rigorous quality assessments, the need for authors to share patient level data and efforts to continue to avoid publication bias for registered studies. These steps are vital to facilitate accurate conclusions on any clinical treatment.

There's more detail in this series of articles :
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin- ... c079278602
https://elemental.medium.com/ivermectin ... 913bb49483
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin- ... 475523b4e4
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin- ... 66aa6819b3
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin- ... 0eeb30d2ff
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin- ... 41044dab13

And now Samaha et al, authors of the much-publicised paper Viruses 13(6):989, Effects of a Single Dose of Ivermectin on Viral and Clinical Outcomes in Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infected Subjects: A Pilot Clinical Trial in Lebanon discussed in part 4 of Gideon M-K's series above and that concluded "Ivermectin appears to be efficacious in providing clinical benefits in a randomized treatment of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2-positive subjects, effectively resulting in fewer symptoms, lower viral load and reduced hospital admissions.", have admitted that they literally just made up the data in the paper and have withdrawn it :

https://retractionwatch.com/2021/11/02/ ... ile-mixup/
[Retractionwatch is kinda slow at the moment]

They're trying to maintain that they accidentally put the wrong data in the paper but they have "real" data that supports the conclusions of the paper - but let's just say that's about as plausible as the dog eating your homework. It's a joke.

[Julian]

He has a good point
when I am out now, apart from in the supermarket, for a lot of places it's like Covid never happened
quite often on the tube mask wearers are out numbered 3 or 4 to 1
In the pub no-one wears masks, not even the staff
not sure what it's like in other parts of the country, but have a good look wherever you live

I wonder how people's attitudes to colds might change this season, if at all. I confess that I didn't really think about colds that much in the past and in retrospect my attitude was entirely selfish during my working career. Except perhaps for the first 24 or 48 hours of a really bad cold where I might lose my voice completely and have a headache that wouldn't respond to over-the-counter medication, and never wanting to be more than an arms length away from a box of tissues for 24 hours of the day and night, it never even occurred to me to stay away from people because I might be infectious. As soon as I felt that my symptoms had subsided enough to get out and about again I would be back into work, meeting people in the pub, etc, etc even if I was still obviously symptomatic.

My reaction to a cold I've had in the last week and am just about over now is quite different however. Firstly I tested myself as soon as the cold started to check it wasn't Covid-19 and have tested myself a couple more times over the last week (all tests are lateral flow) to maintain my confidence that I don't have Covid-19. I have declined all social engagements where what I consider vulnerable people were to be present on the basis that I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone elderly and in some cases with other health conditions also having to contend with heavy cold symptoms. I have met up with one friend for lunch who is my age (60s), fit and healthy and has been somewhat more cavalier than me in her attitude to risk exposure during this pandemic but even then I contacted her beforehand to make her aware of the situation and get her informed consent for our lunch engagement and offer her the opportunity to reschedule if she preferred to do that.

I am left wondering whether simple winter colds might be an additional negative factor this winter. Prof Tim Spector from the King's College Zoe Covid-19 tracking project has been very vocal for quite a while about the fact that their research is indicating that, particularly for fully vaccinated people, the symptoms of mildly symptomatic Covid-19 are now far more like those of a common cold with only one of what were previously considered the top 5 Covid-19 symptoms, loss of taste and/or smell, making it into the revised top 5 most common symptoms list according to the Zoe research and even then it only edges in at number 5. If all this is correct and if too many people take my old "I'll go into work and to the pub even if I still feel a bit rough" attitude over the winter I wonder how much community spread could happen via people thinking they have colds but actually have Covid-19, or maybe having both but continuing to cough and splutter their way through an evening out in the pub and thus becoming quite an effective spreader of the virus. Previously in the pandemic I certainly felt there was some social stigma to be out and about in public places if one was coughing and sneezing all the time in case others thought you were spreading Covid-19 but has the general public now adopted enough of an "it's over, back to normal" attitude that now most people would simply think over the next few months "well, it is winter and colds are back so no big deal"?

- Julian

[pje16]

He has a good point
My reaction to a cold I've had in the last week and am just about over now is quite different however.
- Julian

can't remember if I posted this here or elsewhere
but I had a really odd cold a few weeks ago
it lasted 2 weeks, not a few days, had all the normal symptoms sore throat, blocked and runny nose and hacking, chesty cough
LFTs said it wasn't Covid as did a PCR test
BUT i felt perfectly normal so I suspect the Covid Vaccine kicked into action to mitigate the effects of a cold, especially as my PCR test turned to positive for antibodies when the prior month it was negative

[kiloran]

Had my flu and booster today. I had Pfizer for the first two jabs, and Pfizer again today. The jabber said they give Pfizer if the first two jabs were Astrazeneca, but do not give AZ if the first two were Pfizer. Had a choice of both jabs in the same arm or different arms (I went for the same arm), but my neighbour who was just ahead of me only had the option of seperate arms. All seems a bit random.
Didn't have any side effects for the first two covid jabs, apart from a slightly sore arm for a day, so I guess I can plame the flu jab if I have any problems.

--kiloran

[swill453]

[BUT i felt perfectly normal so I suspect the Covid Vaccine kicked into action to mitigate the effects of a cold, especially as my PCR test turned to positive for antibodies when the prior month it was negative

The PCR test doesn't test for antibodies.

Scott.

[swill453]

Had my flu and booster today. I had Pfizer for the first two jabs, and Pfizer again today. The jabber said they give Pfizer if the first two jabs were Astrazeneca, but do not give AZ if the first two were Pfizer.

Is that not just another way of saying all the boosters are Pfizer?

Scott.

[kiloran]

Had my flu and booster today. I had Pfizer for the first two jabs, and Pfizer again today. The jabber said they give Pfizer if the first two jabs were Astrazeneca, but do not give AZ if the first two were Pfizer.

Is that not just another way of saying all the boosters are Pfizer?

Scott.

Ah, you've decoded my over-complicated post correctly! I thought the policy was to use a different concoction for the booster jab compared to the initial two, but it does not seem to be the case. At least in west-central scotland

--kiloran

[pje16]

[BUT i felt perfectly normal so I suspect the Covid Vaccine kicked into action to mitigate the effects of a cold, especially as my PCR test turned to positive for antibodies when the prior month it was negative

The PCR test doesn't test for antibodies.

Scott.

Sorry I meant blood test

[Julian]

Had my flu and booster today. I had Pfizer for the first two jabs, and Pfizer again today. The jabber said they give Pfizer if the first two jabs were Astrazeneca, but do not give AZ if the first two were Pfizer.

Is that not just another way of saying all the boosters are Pfizer?

Scott.

I think a Moderna half-dose is also a booster option that the UK is using (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... 21-to-2022) although given the UK's number of purchased doses I suspect that Pfizer is much more commonly seen as a booster. Everyone I know who has had their booster has had Pfizer as the booster regardless of whether their original vaccination was AZ or Pfizer. I only know one person who had Moderna as their original vaccine and she is too young to be in the current booster program. I don't know anyone who was initially vaccinated using the single dose J&J vaccine which I think (although I could be wrong) is also approved for use in the UK. In the USA I believe that in considering their booster strategy they have a second dose of J&J listed as an acceptable booster option for people whose initial vaccine was the single-dose J&J vaccine (Pfizer and Moderna are also considered acceptable boosters for someone who previously received a single J&J dose).

Partly as a source to the J&J comments in my paragraph above, but maybe of more general interest to some, here is a 16 minute USA video discussing safety and efficacy for various boosters against the various initial vaccination types. Sadly being US-centric it does not discuss the AZ vaccine since it is not yet approved in the USA but as a viral vector vaccine, and also a vaccine that had lower initial efficacy against symptomatic disease than either Pfizer or Moderna in phase 3 trials and I think also in subsequent observational studies, the J&J vaccine might be at least something of a proxy for the AZ vaccine if one wanted to try and guess where the AZ-initially-vaccinated might fit into the picture. The video is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhMlZcz ... nedCLEARLY

- Julian