Medical Discussion of Coronavirus

[triad]

And both showed mild symptoms, along with every other case that I’ve read about so far. I hope that I’m right, since I believe covid is mutating into a more contagious but less virulent virus.

I was expecting covid to turn into the seasonal flu for the jabbed. i worry that the unvaxxed will cause problems for us, hospitalizations in SA are increasing and are 90% unvaxxed last i heard.

[pysibal]

A hospitalist here mentioned to me that of those who get COVID more than once, it seems to get worse each time.

That seems odd to me, and most other infectious diseases don't work that way. Anyone else heard/seen this? If so, is there a hypothetical mechanism?

[StarTrekDoc]

A hospitalist here mentioned to me that of those who get COVID more than once, it seems to get worse each time.

That seems odd to me, and most other infectious diseases don't work that way. Anyone else heard/seen this? If so, is there a hypothetical mechanism?

If underlying residual disease, yes that makes sense.

triad - not surprised. Surge will affect unvaccinated disproportionately regardless of amount of vaccine evasion mutations will afford.

[triad]

If underlying residual disease, yes that makes sense.

triad - not surprised. Surge will affect unvaccinated disproportionately regardless of amount of vaccine evasion mutations will afford.

thats what i'm afraid of. we have so many unvaxxed the healthcare system could collapse and lead us back to lockdowns again.

[StarTrekDoc]

We're not locking down...not at national level. Maybe at state or local restrictions, but not federal.

[HikingDO]

I’m due for my covid booster (had my vaccines late since I had covid last winter), and with getting Pfizer for my first two vaccines, I’m considering Moderna rather than boosting with Pfizer. The CDC guidelines basically look like “do whatever you want”. Any opinions here either way?

[Sampter]

Pandemic of the unvaccinated....oh wait that's offense to say that now.

[StarTrekDoc]

Pandemic of the unvaccinated....oh wait that's offense to say that now.

It maybe offensive, but the truth. Daily census reports don't lie.

[CordMcNally]

I’m due for my covid booster (had my vaccines late since I had covid last winter), and with getting Pfizer for my first two vaccines, I’m considering Moderna rather than boosting with Pfizer. The CDC guidelines basically look like “do whatever you want”. Any opinions here either way?

Maybe a bit better to switch to the other but probably somewhat insignificant in the end.

[artemis]

Maybe a bit better to switch to the other but probably somewhat insignificant in the end.

Yeah, it's the medical equivalent of choosing between VTI and VOO: any differences between the two are minimal compared to keeping the money in a savings account yielding 0.1% interest. ANY booster is better than no booster, and the worst possible choice is to remain completely unvaccinated.

[CalMD]

I’m due for my covid booster (had my vaccines late since I had covid last winter), and with getting Pfizer for my first two vaccines, I’m considering Moderna rather than boosting with Pfizer. The CDC guidelines basically look like “do whatever you want”. Any opinions here either way?

The Moderna vaccines illicit higher antibodies compared to Pfizer. There was a NIH paper on that. Note the booster dose on the study, the Moderna was 100mcg and not 50mcg. Anecdotally, our hospital "may" have more Pfizer breakthrough hospitalizations compared to Moderna. The majority (>90%) of hospitalizations are the un-vaccinated, of course.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.10.21264827v1.full.pdf

[Lordosis]

I’m due for my covid booster (had my vaccines late since I had covid last winter), and with getting Pfizer for my first two vaccines, I’m considering Moderna rather than boosting with Pfizer. The CDC guidelines basically look like “do whatever you want”. Any opinions here either way?

I don't know if there's any evidence for this. But patients ask me this question all the time. So I've just decided that I'm going to tell people to stick with the same line. It seems to work and it seems like I know what I'm talking about. If for some reason you cannot get access to the same one then sure go with whatever is available.

Either way you will be protected for about 2 to 3 months and then all bets are off but at least you won't have a severe disease.

[Logan 6]

Well here’s a discouraging study in Science on potential mutations and antibody effectiveness on the resulting variants. Of course real world competitiveness of such mutants is not assured.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl6251

[CordMcNally]

The Moderna vaccines illicit higher antibodies compared to Pfizer. There was a NIH paper on that. Note the booster dose on the study, the Moderna was 100mcg and not 50mcg. Anecdotally, our hospital "may" have more Pfizer breakthrough hospitalizations compared to Moderna. The majority (>90%) of hospitalizations are the un-vaccinated, of course.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.10.21264827v1.full.pdf

Is antibody level a direct correlation with protection? I'm not an immunologist so won't even pretend to know. It would make sense on the surface but I doubt the correlation is linear.

[MadGasserOfMattoon]

The majority (>90%) of hospitalizations are the un-vaccinated, of course.

Really? In my hospital system, over the past 3 or 4 months about 30 - 40% of covid hospitalizations were vaccinated patients, with the high being 49% a few weeks ago.

The breakthrough deaths statewide reflect this as well, although the Department of Health doesn't seem interested in publicizing this and you have to do the math yourself using the raw numbers from their data.

Obviously this still implies a high level of protection, given that vaccination status correlates fairly well with risk for severe disease due to self selection. However, it might give pause to those sneering about the "pandemic of the unvaccinated".