The Vaccine(s)

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middle.road said:
They're saying that the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at -70°C (-94°F).
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I dunno about you guys, but I sorta hope they at least rub the vial between their hands before they shoot me up with it. I suspect that an icy chunk of blood or two could have an unintended consequence in this old body. ;)

Tom
 
I will most likely wait out the initial vaccinations. I would like to see some of the results first. I have been in vitual quarantine since the beginning of March, having ventured out only about a dozen times and more than half of those alone on a boat in the middle of a lake. With winter coming on, the likelihood of me leaving my 12 acres is even less. My wife has taken over food shopping and we order our food on line and it is deposited in our vehicle with no human -human contact. We quarantine all incoming mail packages, etc. for period of several days and wash hands often.

That is not to say that there is a zero probability of me contracting COVID but the probability is about as low as it can be. As such, I feel fairly comfortable with waiting to see the effectiveness pf a vaccine and if there are any complications. Ultimately, I would get vaccinated as I don't believe that this virus is going away anytime soon. Taking all the precautions will lower the probability of contracting the virus but it won't reduce it to zero.
 
There is no way they can know at this point in time how long the vaccine will protect you. I will wait a while to see how things go and make my decision once it has been around for a while.
 
There are definitely a lot of unknowns left to be resolved. Certainly, a 10% chance of contracting the virus anyway doesn't sound too good to me, considering I'm betting my life on it. However figuring probabilities as a matter of multiplying all the individual probabilities so adding a factor of 0.1 to the product is a good idea. So if I combine the probability of the virus getting past the vaccine, the prrobability of it getting past my mask, that of a person being within striking distance for a significant amount of time, and the person actually being contagious, the odds are in my favor.

Anyone who has done an FMEA for failure knows that the cause for concern is proportional to the product of the probability for failure and the severity of the consequences. As someone of advanced age and with underlying health issues, the severity part is fairly great.
 
7milesup said:
My concern regarding the Covid vaccine is whether I can have it at all.
I am allergic to the flu shot, so haven't had one in a number of years, which bums me out. Not sure if the Covid vaccine will fall under the same "family" as the flu shot.
The last time I saw my doctor he wanted to know if I wanted a flu shot. I asked him if he was itching to practice his tracheotomy skills?! "Oh, nevermind".
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I'm in the same boat. I also am allergic to many pain killers. I was exposed to morphine for an extended time while in the hospital in a 3/4 halo years ago and it was some 23 other drugs in succession to phase my body system away from the morphine. So now I have too be very careful with even x-ray dyes. So NO vaccines for me.
 
graham-xrf said:
I recognize the risk you run, and the awful choice, but it is worth saying that while the new vaccines are made to work against a virus with similar features (it's a corona shape), there is reasonable chance that the vaccine substances are very different, and might reasonably not cause an allergic response. For you, it might use up two vaccines. One to check allergy, and one the real deal.

Can you not check out sensitivity from a little test surface scratch, like they do to identify other substance allergies?
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Thank you for the insight as to how this stuff works.
I have a meeting with my new doctor in December so I will ask him about this situation. The other doc I had just retired a couple of months ago. Maybe I won't say anything to the new doc, get the Covid vaccine but only after making sure I can stumble over to the ER. LOL. (just kidding)
 
jpackard56 said:
I'm in the same boat. I also am allergic to many pain killers. I was exposed to morphine for an extended time while in the hospital in a 3/4 halo years ago and it was some 23 other drugs in succession to phase my body system away from the morphine. So now I have too be very careful with even x-ray dyes. So NO vaccines for me.
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Yikes. That is not a good spot to be in...
 
Flyinfool said:
There is no way they can know at this point in time how long the vaccine will protect you. I will wait a while to see how things go and make my decision once it has been around for a while.
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This is a very valid concern as well as the long term effects of the vaccine which will be unknown for several years. Of course the potential long term effects of the virus itself will not be known for years as well. We have heard so much hype about different things that it is impossible to not have a large grain of salt along with anything anyone tells you these days.

There was some indication early on that getting the virus itself didn't confer immunity so if you had it once you were not out of danger of getting it again. If that is the case then the likelihood of permanent immunity from a vaccine are very low indeed. Let's not forget that many of the viruses with cause the common cold are in fact coronaviruses themselves and there has never been any indication of long term immunity from colds. But even that is a virtual unknown as there are several hundred confirmed viruses which cause cold-like symptoms, so there is no way of knowing without testing everyone who "catches cold" and sequencing the genome of the virus precisely which virus is responsible and if the patient is reinfected with the same virus again or not. That would get awfully expensive for "just a cold".

There have been reports of significant organ damage in those who have contracted the virus. Now, I don't know how much of those reports are valid and how much is hype, but selling newspapers and ad time on news channels is all about hype over truth these days. Which muddies the waters considerably.

And that is before you even get into the mutation of the virus. The question becomes when the mutations happen, will they reduce this virus in lethality or just make it so it is unrecognized by the antibodies generated from the last exposure and make everyone susceptible to another round of the same illness? Even if there is widespread vaccination will the mutations make that effort moot?

There really isn't anything political about that. Just a bunch of unanswered questions. Could vaccination cause a loss of fertility in those who receive it? The truth is we don't know and won't for a long time. Of course that is an extreme example of a side effect and for a large percentage of people, particularly those most at risk, not a concern. But the other side effects which are being published by those in the vaccine testing phases should be at least a little concern for those at risk. Why? Because the vaccine trials have been happening in young healthy people who were screened for preexisting conditions before being admitted to the trial. They report side effects of the vaccine which are virtually identical to the symptoms of the virus for a significant portion of those who are infected. What will be the result of those side effects on those with preexisting conditions like advanced age? Any of the other comorbidities which increase the chance of complications?

Just something to ponder.
 
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