The Vaccine(s)

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RJSakowski said:
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.
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This risk probability perception thing is something I have tried to impart to my son. I have made it pretty clear that he is the only vector, and I do not want him tracking the pestilence onto my patch. The isolation has not only stopped COVID-19. The last time I had a cold of any kind was around November 2019 !

I distinguish between the probability of getting it, and what my chances might be if I do get it. I am old enough to be in the high risk group, and I have a pre-existing condition. We have thus ..

1. The total population mass probability of catching it. This is low at any (say) hour, but given time, and a increase factor greater than 1, the so-called "R" number, eventually, pretty much everybody ends up getting it. Various test 'n trace & lockdown strategies get the number below 1, and it dies out.

2. The different probability of catching it and recovering. Another quite low number, but here comes a complication.

Does one recover without permanent damage that can affect later, or one's whole life? It depends on how great was the battle, which organs and tissues were infected first, and how much of your body was wasted in defeating it. e.g. A person with (say) lots of spare body fat where the virus got going can result in such a viral load that as the immune system fights it, other organs can fail. Suppose you win, and "recover". There can be nerve damage, brain, liver, kidney, and of course, lung damage. My point is, when the possible consequence is severe enough if you get unlucky, you are not impressed by any probability above zero!

3. You "recover". No, you are not immune forever, like you would be from chicken pox, where you have the fight with it daily. T-cells response to COVID-19 starts falling off after about 6 months. Also, I read that "second time round" infections, involving a boosted immune system battle, can be somewhat more "uncomfortable" than the possibly minor symptoms first round.

4. So suppose you are looking at a probability of between 2% and 16.6% of a bad outcome if you do get it. This could be from (say) age and pre-existing condition. The odds get worse if you end up in ICU, and if it gets to needing a ventilator - I don't even want to know!
Did you give up smoking 30 years ago? Do you have COPD? Do you have high blood pressure? I won't expand on the list, because my point is about probabilities. I don't want to get careless about even 2%.

[The larger number (16.6%) is also the probability of the first bullet being unfortunate in a Russian Roulette scenario] !
 
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I am73 and am in reasonable health. I will probably get the vaccine, but I will not be first in line. I plan to wait a month or so and see how things go, Then make the decision. There have been a couple of instances in the past where new vaccines didn't do so well. I would rather not be a guinea pig.
 
Some of these vaccines are a new idea of triggering the immune system, then the way the flu vaccine works, so allergies or previous reactions to the flu shot may not be a issue. But how much testing is really being done, as to long term bad effects.

After 30 years, they still do not know what the cause of the Gulf War Illness is. The Anthrax vaccine is still not ruled out. But i suspect politics is a big factor in the poor research done over the years.

I dunno, I am still on the fence as to whether I would take it, or let some around me take it. A lot will depend on which one will be offered in this area, and what I can find out about it. After many bad reactions, I research any drug quite a bit prior to taking any.
 
I still do some consulting in biotech, one company is involved with the COVID vaccines. The main vaccines being studied for COVID are completely different then previous vaccines which were traditionally killed or attenuated vaccines. The main COVID vaccines being evaluated are genetically engineered mRNA which is taken up by the immune system replicates the COVID protein/antigen to stimulate an immune response. Reactions to other drugs and vaccines should not have cross reactivity to these types of vaccines. So other allergies should not be a contra indication. It does get a bit more complicated if one has an auto-immune disease or is being treated with medications to suppress/alter the immune system. There have been limited clinical trails studying the vaccine in different age groups, and the majority of reactions were mild akin to getting the flu shot, and older people had similar reactions as younger. The activity of the vaccine was also found to have similar activity/efficacy with regard to immune response in all age groups. It was also found to stimulate an immune response to different strains of the virus which is encouraging. I know this is a medical article and they can be challenging, but I like to provide some reference from direct sources.

As far as storage and handling, what is know as ultra-low freezers (-80-90C) are common in the medical industry/hospitals, these may be needed for long term storage/stability, but there may be sufficient stability at lower temperatures for shorter time frames like months or weeks (this is based direct work experience). This also goes for the containers, although the supply chain is a limiting factor. The challenge will be gearing up for a massive worldwide vaccine programs and in many areas with very limited medical resources. There are a number of options as to how this may occur, and much is still an unknown at this massive scale that has not been seen in medical history. No one knows how the immunization programs will role out, most likely front line individuals at medical centers/clinics and higher risk groups will be addressed first.

There are several Phase 3 trials that are ongoing in which you have a placebo (no active drug) group and a treatment group, both recieve vaccinations but no one knows who received which. They are evaluate for both side effects and also exposure/infectivity (cases) of COVID as well as outcomes. These studies are monitoring by an independent medical safety committee and there are often assessment points at statistical events (X number of COVID cases or safety events). These trials involve 30,000-70,000 individuals, I haven't looked at the specifics, but the bottom line will be looking at the safety and the number of COVID cases/severity between the different treatment arms. There are a host of other endpoints that are also incorporated into these trials to look at subgroups and immune response. Suffice it to say, it would be encouraging to see a high level of suppression/attenuation in the active arm. I personally would like to see a 80-90% level of suppression/efficacy, but the the FDA has set the bar at 50% for consideration of approval. There also may be some differences between the different vaccines as they become available. The unique characteristic of a genetically engineered vaccine is it can be easily and relatively quickly adapted to different strains, and can be mobilized much quicker to market. These mRNA vaccines are also being adapted to many other vaccines/treatments, so not unique to COVID. Long-term side effects are not known, but many of us do not have the option of waiting years to see what happens, there have also been numerous other similar mRNA vaccine trials that have been ongoing so this is just not a COVID thing.

So it comes down to should one take the COVID vaccine and to some degree which one, and when might I/we be eligible. I am assuming that many of us fall into the older (over 50) group, so we will probably be in the 2nd or 3rd wave of vaccinations, at that point several million front line workers will have been vaccinated and there should be further safety information as the vaccination program unfolds. There will also be quite a bit of post marketing surveillance with regard to safety and possibly efficacy. So at that point if the data looks promising I will get the vaccine, and although I have no allergies I did have severe paralysis from the flu vaccine 20+ years ago and have not had a Flu shot since then. Long-term, I think COVID vaccinations will be an ongoing recurrence as strains mutate, the hope is that there is enough homology (antigenic similarity) between strains that the severity of the infection well be diminished post vaccinations.

Just my thoughts on this subject.
Mark
 
Superburban said:
Some of these vaccines are a new idea of triggering the immune system, then the way the flu vaccine works, so allergies or previous reactions to the flu shot may not be a issue. But how much testing is really being done, as to long term bad effects.

After 30 years, they still do not know what the cause of the Gulf War Illness is. The Anthrax vaccine is still not ruled out. But i suspect politics is a big factor in the poor research done over the years.

I dunno, I am still on the fence as to whether I would take it, or let some around me take it. A lot will depend on which one will be offered in this area, and what I can find out about it. After many bad reactions, I research any drug quite a bit prior to taking any.
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I had a full course of anthrax vaccination because I went to Africa when my Dad was stationed there. The whole family got it actually. I'd say that it had no adverse effects but then y'all don't know my family like I do so I could say it and you might expect it to be true. But I know my family and really can't rule out any adverse reactions in the long term.
 
MontanaLon said:
I had a full course of anthrax vaccination because I went to Africa when my Dad was stationed there. The whole family got it actually. I'd say that it had no adverse effects but then y'all don't know my family like I do so I could say it and you might expect it to be true. But I know my family and really can't rule out any adverse reactions in the long term.
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Many of us got an untested/ unapproved/ classified form of an anthrax vaccine. They really thought we would be in some type of a biological, or chemical environment, that they went and gave this stuff out. Still classified as to what it was, but the Army says it was not the source of our mysterious issues. :rolleyes:

There is also several other possibilities, including giving us 15 vaccines within one month. So the true cause will never be known.
 
For so many of us HM members, our demographic is about an older part of the population. To get around to actively indulging one's hobby makes that so. Some of us get to the point of having more money than time, though possibly not a great amount of either. This affects how much we value what we have left, and inevitably also affects the risk we would take in going for a vaccination. One does not give two hoots for the downsides of "long term effects" as yet undetermined.

When I was a child, in Africa at the time, there was the worldwide effort to put down polio. Even at my junior school, there were some kids with leg-irons and crutches. The vaccine was novel - a "live" vaccine. My Dad was opposed to it. He didn't mind medicine, but he could not accept that putting a live sickness into a child could be good.

Wrongly, I steered clear of those kids. Then came the oral form of the vaccine. All us kids were lined up during school time, and given the sugar cube with the drop of vaccine. We came home de facto vaccinated, but I didn't mention it to him, to avoid a row. The polio scourge became a rarity. I guess that is the impression that drives my acceptance of this medicinal technique now.

Smallpox was also eradicated! The only place it remains is in a laboratory, and the ony recent incident involved a lab accident. There is a case for incineration. I get it that our methods involve tricking our own immune system into taking it on, and that we do not know to the last molecule exactly how this works, but at least we know that it does - because we try it out! This is not like believing the exhortations of a quack salesman, nor the hearsay of a socal media driven mob, repeatedly seeded by some deluded anti-vaxer zealot!

[Edit: I truly feel for those with the awful dilemma of being allergic to some vaccines!]
 
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