On top of that, it is now much easier and faster to develop and produce booster vaccines, I expect any mutant virus to gets its dedicated vaccin within a few months, especially for those mRNA vaccines, they just type in the updated virus sequence and get the already existing production machinery going, trials can be much shorter because the recipy has hardly changed, most trials can be skipped.
I’m talking the rich first world situation here of course, sadly everything goes much slower in the rest of the world.
I got the J&J one week ago. Had zero reaction, no pain in the arm at all.
The nurse who shot me said her arm hurt so much she had to sleep on the other side for several days… but she is a lot younger than me.
Word is that people over 60 get less reaction than younger people. Possibly because younger immune systems are more active, and attack the vaccine more aggressively.
afaik, the present corona vaccines work on all the present mutations
specific to the J&J, there is a strain of corona in africa that is less responsive to the vaccine, as far as completely preventing infection, but the vaccine still prevents hospitalization and death.
Congratulations Don, and the others that have already been vaccinated! Good luck RC, I hope that you get your vaccine this time.
Here is some vaccine experience from my side:
Being in the EU and 54 years old my official turn for a vaccine will not be before the end of may.
But besides that, I’m in a phase 3 trial for the Curevac vaccine, a german vaccine of the mRNA type, like Pfizer and Moderna. I got my first jab 1.5 weeks ago but had 50% chance of getting the real thing or a placebo (mild salt solution).
The same day I got the jab I was pretty sure that I was in the placebo group because there was no effect at all. But that night I got restless dreams and the next morning I felt pretty lousy and developed a proper headache and muscle ache in various places, but had no fever that I could measure. Where I was injected felt itchy. That went on until the next day and then I was fine again.
So I suspect after all that I’m not in the placebo group, but as a trial should be, I’m not sure. Second dose in 2.5 weeks from now.
I used the NM equivalent site. I missed on the first notice they sent me. I saw it 44 minutes after it was sent and all the spots were gone. I saw the the second notice sent a week or so later and responded immediately. I got a spot and was able to pick a time. They were well organized. No lines, no waiting when I got there today. I hope everyone has as smooth an experience.
Yes, I get to know that at the end of the trial, and if the results are good, the placebo group gets the real vaccin after all. And if my regular turn for a vaccin from the government comes before the end of the trial, I can opt to leave the trial, in that case they will tell me which group I was in too.
I think that there will not be much of a trial leftover once the participants are eligible for their official jabs, it would be unreasonably noble, especially for elder people in the trial, to risk being in the placebo group, skip the official jab and get corona, for the good of the rest of the world (and a couple of dollars).
NL has a vaccination strategy for different groups, starting with essential healtcare workers, elderly people with underlying issues, ending with healty adults and children. I won’t go deeper into detail, because there is a lot of progressive insight going around, and things can change before the ink of the previous adjustment is dry. Same applies to the different vaccines. There is a detailed time table of who gets what, when and where.
Injecting AZ restarts next week. Everything is voluntary, of course. You can refuse, or ask for more time.
But if you want another vaccine, they move you to the end of the line for that vaccine.
So if you are destined to get AZ next week, and you prefer J&J, you could be waiting till end of summer.
Thankfully the silly political moves have been stopped and Oxford/AZ is being used again across Europe thanks to EMA declaring it safe and effective.
Tests mixing Pfizer and OxfordAZ doses are taking place and it appears this may even offer better protection than two doses of one type but time will tell.
In the average it does more good than harm I presume. If only we’d know exactly the predisposition of an individual for serious health issues with the vaccine and the virus, we could give everyone the figures he needs to decide for himself what risk he wants to take.
So very true. I like to think I’m noble and all that but if I was in a trial and my turn came up for a shot I’d definitely take it. To me the risk/reward of getting a real vaccine would be too great to not take it.
Not “I presume”, the data say that, it is not an opinion. That is what we have an EMA for, they figure it out from the data.
We do know, there is enough data on that by now, with the trials and now so many millions already vaccinated. Trust that!
A thing that keeps amazing me in this pandemic is that you can throw as many facts at a large percentage of people as you like, it appears that data do not change anything for those people, everything stays in doubt and is considered a matter of opinion :person_facepalming:
And something about the widely beloved individual freedom to do as you please: Unfortunately there is more going on than individual risk, personal decisions on being vaccinated have consequences for the population. Taking individual freedom to the max as an ideal, as has become common in the first world in the last 40 years, does not work very well during a pandemic. It would help a lot if the sense of freedom that we aspire would be more of a collective thing, how we can contribute to optimising freedom as a society, instead of maximising doing as you please as an individual.
