Coronavirus pandemic - how are you affected?

[marurun]

Well, current vaccine trials are scheduled out 2 years. The reason they are expected to be used soon is that the magnitude of COVID 19's spread and health and economic consequences seems to pretty well justify emergency approval. Many folks suspect that this vaccine will not be a lifelong vaccine and offer only temporary protection. That 2 year trial schedule will allow us to better assess the vaccine should it be required annually as the flu vaccine is. And who knows how it will change. We already know cats and minks (among other animals) are capable of being infected, and that minks, at least, are capable of spreading it back to humans. That means SARS CoV2 is likely to be very capable of hanging out in other hosts and mutating while we try to ride out temporary immunity.

[Jagosaurus]

That mink story was nuts. Also saw some tigers at a zoo caught it. Really strange stuff. I remember from anatomy that surprisingly few viruses and diseases spread between species. There are obvious notable outliers, but overall not common.

My undergrad was in pre-med studies before I shifted to business for grad school so take my 10+ year old coursework memories with a grain of salt.

[MrPopo]

I think think as far as a worldwide vaccine... SmallPox was essentially eradicated & they were developing it for 60+ years. Medicine has come a long way of course, but reducing years to 9 months scares me a bit...

Disease eradication is not just a matter of having an effective vaccine; it's getting that vaccine delivered across the world, especially to the poor areas with a lack of infrastructure.

[PretentiousHipster]

I think think as far as a worldwide vaccine... SmallPox was essentially eradicated & they were developing it for 60+ years. Medicine has come a long way of course, but reducing years to 9 months scares me a bit...

Disease eradication is not just a matter of having an effective vaccine; it's getting that vaccine delivered across the world, especially to the poor areas with a lack of infrastructure.

That's precisely why the employees of hospitals and retirement homes are getting it first here. The infrastructure for this vaccine is complex, and it seems a hell of a lot easier to have facilities provide it instead of them transporting it to the home. Taking a group of seniors to a facility, especially the ones with cognitive and/or mobility issues, will be a rough time, so just sending the employees to the facility will be a lot easier.

[marurun]

That mink story was nuts. Also saw some tigers at a zoo caught it. Really strange stuff. I remember from anatomy that surprisingly few viruses and diseases spread between species. There are obvious notable outliers, but overall not common.

It's my impression that we're starting to discover that this is less rare than we think, at least with certain virus types. For example, we know that cats seem to be capable of catching COVID, but their symptoms are very minor. Most cat owners won't notice anything different. And because we don't notice symptoms and were less likely to check for this kind of thing with antibody and DNA tests in the past, we may not have have really had an adequate picture. Additionally, certain viruses seem to be more flexible in terms of being able to jump hosts (like H1N1 and H5N1).

[bmoc]

Here is the FDA's analysis of the Pfizer vaccine. https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download

It has a good breakdown of the potential side effects and how often people experienced them in the trial.

[Jagosaurus]

@popo... yeah. In Epidemiology they refer to it as herd immunity. Doable in regions. Very difficult worldwide.

Also.. if people are catching it multiple times... has me wondering how a vaccine will differ from that scenario... but not a doc obviously.

@marurun, if you want to trip out about cats and spread of diseases... Google toxoplasmosis. Estimates range up to 30%+ of US adult brains are infected. Passed to host by cats. We still don't fully understand the impacts on the human brain or psychology.

Yeah, my Anatomy & Physiology teacher was a retired vet teaching at a tier 1 university so I imagine she knew what she meant back then. Again it was 10+ years (~12?) ago though. So could have a lot more info now or she was comparing the 100,000s of pathogens and smaller % of those passable between species.

[marurun]

@popo... yeah. In Epidemiology they refer to it as herd immunity. Doable in regions. Very difficult worldwide.

Also.. if people are catching it multiple times... has me wondering how a vaccine will differ from that scenario... but not a doc obviously.

And sometimes herd immunity isn't possible at all beyond a very short window. The high mutation rate of the influenza virus means there's really no such thing as ongoing herd immunity, thus the annual vaccines. There are some indications SARS-CoV2 might be joining the flu. I sure hope it doesn't go the way of the common cold. We've never had a good handle on that...

@marurun, if you want to trip out about cats and spread of diseases... Google toxoplasmosis. Estimates range up to 30%+ of US adult brains are infected. Passed to host by cats. We still don't fully understand the impacts on the human brain or psychology.

Yeah, my Anatomy & Physiology teacher was a retired vet teaching at a tier 1 university so I imagine she knew what she meant back then. Again it was 10+ years (~12?) ago though. So could have a lot more info now or she was comparing the 100,000s of pathogens and smaller % of those passable between species.

Toxoplasmosis is fascinating, and also a little scary. We had two cats when my wife was pregnant, but we'd had cats for so long that if she had it she had it. We couldn't really isolate her from the cats. Some of the possible neurological effects are particularly worrisome. Despite that, I have not given up my love of cats.

I'm sure your teacher was pretty up on the science of the time (it scares me sometimes how quickly it changes). I'm not meaning to question that. Between SARS-CoV2, H1N1, H5N1, and the variant of Ebola that regularly surges through some parts of Africa, it doesn't actually take that many virus hopping around to cause quite a mess. Epidemiology is such a fascinating field, because on top of the biology you've also got to factor in human behavior. I'm betting that some folks out there are just totally nerding out over COVID.

[PretentiousHipster]

I'm getting the vaccine tomorrow.

[PretentiousHipster]

Just a heads up that side effects are more common the second dose. I booked the next day off of work to play it safe, and it turns I wasn't able to sleep because of having a really bad case of chills, even if it also felt like I haven't slept in days.