Pulcinella posted:

Like you try to search for "covid" and you cant find anything actually useful, just a bunch of pages saying its real and to trust the CDC, but nothing useful like "where can I find a children's vaccine, damnit?!?!"

Why Am I So Tired posted:

Sure do wish we had a competent government that would shut down airlines, amusement parks, hotels, etc. so that people never even get a chance to make terrible decisions that put themselves and society as a whole in danger. Oh well.

mdemone posted:

update on student who was in ER after a Covid infection

his mother says he will be back in school tomorrow, because "they treated the cyst".

the gently caress is going on here ma'am

Mola Yam posted:

what is the deal with the death drive to go to florida

blatman posted:

they had to treat something and covid is over so might as well treat a few cysts

Pulcinella posted:

Read the OP. So is it true the update kid booster's still haven't shipped yet? Trying to get my child the updated booster and its impossible to find information. Google likes to throw up articles about the original child vaccines or just a million lages of, I don't know, "anti-fakenews propoganda"? Like you try to search for "covid" and you cant find anything actually useful, just a bunch of pages saying its real and to trust the CDC, but nothing useful like "where can I find a children's vaccine, damnit?!?!"

Insanite posted:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JEB5DqLBVeA8BSnWg-0BA4e5-svhVP2z91Djtv1Xy3s/edit#gid=0

crowdsourced spreadsheet of pediatric vaccine prospects for desperate parents because lol we live in a society or something

Platystemon posted:

Orlando vacays be like:

RandomBlue posted:

My wife forced us to stop masking and go on this revenge travel trip to Florida, 7 days at Disney and universal studios plus 2 travel days. State
Started feeling like poo poo and tested. Two minutes in:



3.5 years COVID free until this poo poo.

We got the new booster the week it came out. Yeah i know it doesn't prevent infection.

RandomBlue posted:

We have to do this Disney trip now before he turns 18, and we'll never get another chance . Revenge travel bullshit.

Got my pax prescription but all the pharmacies around here are closed since it's late Sunday so I have to pick it up in the morning. That should be day 5.

e: sesame care doc didn't need a picture or any proof, just put that I was COVID positive on the notes when scheduling.

e2: FYI, didn't matter that I only have one kidney since my kidney function tests are good, for those of you who have/had kidney cancer.

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

That’s how you find and manage those conditions, there’s a reason high blood pressure is called “the silent killer”

People also need a professional sometimes to push them into addressing unpleasant truths, eg erectile dysfunction being a gateway to getting men in for heart disease care

Why Am I So Tired posted:

Sure do wish we had a competent government that would shut down airlines, amusement parks, hotels, etc. so that people never even get a chance to make terrible decisions that put themselves and society as a whole in danger. Oh well.

RandomBlue posted:

My wife forced us to stop masking and go on this revenge travel trip to Florida, 7 days at Disney and universal studios plus 2 travel days. State
Started feeling like poo poo and tested. Two minutes in:



3.5 years COVID free until this poo poo.

We got the new booster the week it came out. Yeah i know it doesn't prevent infection.

quote:

When she stopped getting her period in March 2022, Daryn Schwartz wasn’t especially concerned. At 42, she had recently come off birth control, and figured her cycles were still adjusting. When it hadn’t come back by the summer, she sought gynecological care, but was told to wait it out. So she did, with no changes.

She was having other symptoms, too — fatigue, chronic pain, and difficulty focusing. She would forget names, words even. “I started joking with my friends about cognitive decline,” she said, but “it was terrifying. It really scared me a lot.”

Eventually, an integrative care doctor offered an explanation. “She looked at me and she said: ‘You’re in menopause,’” said Schwartz, who had none of the risk factors for early menopause. She started hormone replacement therapy. It made her feel worse.

She was eventually connected with Traci Kurtzer, a gynecologist and menopause specialist at the Northwestern Medicine Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause, who validated Schwartz’s feeling that something was off. “I don’t think that this is just a naturally occurring spontaneous menopause,” Schwartz recalled Kurtzer telling her.

Lab results found markers for autoimmune disease, and Epstein-Barr virus. “I think that this is long Covid,” said Kurtzer. Schwartz had tested positive for the Covid-19 in December when the Omicron variant was dominant.

Women have been reporting period disturbances after a Covid infection or after receiving a Covid vaccine, though research has often minimized the relevance of such symptoms. A 2022 systematic review of research found that women can experience a range of symptoms following the administration of a Covid vaccine, including temporary increased bleeding and longer and more painful periods. But research specifically on long Covid and menopause is scarce, and mostly preliminary.

So far, the evidence collected is primarily anecdotal, and Kurtzer is one of the few menopause specialists in the country working on the possible ties between long Covid and menopause. Awareness of the impact of the viral infection on the female reproductive system is gaining more attention, though.

Kurtzer said Schwartz was hardly the first of her patients to present such symptoms. Ever since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the gynecologist has noticed a troubling trend among her patients who had been diagnosed with Covid-19.

“I’ve been experiencing absolutely a change in the number of women I’m seeing with earlier menopausal symptoms, and the severity of symptoms being quite a bit more intense than it used to be,” she said. “And I’m seeing menopausal women who have been menopausal for years and stable, whether on hormones or not, starting to have symptoms again.”

Other period disturbances include irregular and heavy bleeding, both following Covid-19 infections and the administration of vaccines, though those typically resolve more quickly. Kurtzer believes most of these issues, which can improve and even resolve themselves in a matter of weeks or months, though sometimes linger on, are linked to some ovarian abnormality caused by the viral infection.

Earlier this year, Kurtzer was asked to join specialists working at the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Covid-19 Center. “The physicians there who are quote-unquote long Covid physicians started to recognize one, [that] the majority of the patients they were seeing were women or people with ovaries. And two, it was not unusual for them to hear reports of menstrual changes or menopausal-type symptoms,” she said.

Kurtzer, too, experienced long Covid, with symptoms including fibrosis of her heart, damage to her lungs, and extreme fatigue. Despite her initial hesitation in joining the roster of specialists at Northwestern, mainly due to the toll long Covid has taken on her, she decided to see patients at the clinic.

“I’m really almost the only person here that could have done that. I am the menopause expert for Northwestern. … I do take care of a lot of women, you know, menstrual disorders and premature ovarian insufficiency for their hormonal needs,” she said. “And I’m also somebody who has lived experience with long Covid. So I’m very familiar with and empathetic to what that experience is like for people.”

“It’s very, very clear that some people, after they get the SARS-CoV-2 infection … start having menstrual irregularities or some pain and other symptoms. Why is this really happening? We don’t really know,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies long Covid. Three years ago, he said, he would have been quite uncertain about any link between long Covid and earlier or worsening menopause symptoms. Now he sees this as an important, if still overlooked, area of research.

“There is actually not a whole lot of research in this area,” he said. Al-Aly thinks Kurtzer’s working hypothesis that the cause may be damage inflicted to the ovaries by the Covid virus is worth exploring.

Al-Aly said the investment in trying to understand the mechanism leading to reproductive health symptoms — in women and, often less visibly, in men — has been insufficient so far. “I really think it’s a much, much more important problem than we’re paying attention to. And … there are pockets where people are paying attention to it — but I emphasize the word pockets. You don’t you don’t see nearly in any way the amount of research that is needed to help us more deeply understand what’s happening,” he said.

Even with limited treatment options and no full understanding of the mechanism causing menstrual and fertility disruptions following Covid, Kurtzer said being part of the long Covid clinic gives her a chance to better help her patients.

Since she sees many women who experience menopause-like symptoms, she is able to identify what indeed is menopause, and what may be long Covid, as in Schwartz’s case. “Certainly perimenopause and menopause symptoms have a lot of overlap with a lot of the other long Covid symptoms,” she said. But she has ways to distinguish, such as looking out for post-exertional malaise, which is very different from the fatigue that can be caused by menopause, or noticing significant weight loss, which is rare in menopause.

Unfortunately the help she can offer is limited; as she knows from her own experience, a diagnosis of long Covid doesn’t come with a treatment. At times symptoms improve marginally with hormone therapy, although for some they don’t. “All I can do right now is say some of your symptoms may also be related to your ongoing long Covid symptoms. And right now, there are no approved treatments for long Covid. So it means really just symptomatic management,” she said. With that can come help from other specialists at the clinic, as well as important acknowledgement of symptoms that can often be puzzling, as well as debilitating for patients.

“On the one hand, just having some answers was really validating and helpful and eased a lot of my fears,” said Schwartz. “But on the other hand, to know that there is no quote-unquote cure, there’s no specific treatment for long Covid, that’s really frustrating.”

Steve Yun posted:

https://twitter.com/meetjess/status/1716238312657096855?s=46

Platystemon posted:

A vaccine may well do better if you could get a multivalent with Pirola, Fornax, and Eris.

Given that that’s not forthcoming and that the Kraken base of the “2023–2024 formulation” has major antigenic distance to anything circulating now, yeah probably your relative risk of infection is lower in the near future than that of someone who was vaccinated last week.

Oracle posted:

with the sheer amount of variety of strains out there right now I dunno that this is accurate. course that’s the problem innit. nobody’s minding the store and we’re all flying pretty much blind.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/23/health/respiratory-virus-season-vaccination/index.html posted:

Respiratory virus season threatens to be a challenge again. Getting vaccinated now can help

The first signs of respiratory virus season are just starting to show in the United States, but experts stress the importance of getting vaccinated now to stay healthy through the winter and reduce strain on the health care system.

Forecasts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that this respiratory disease season will be similar to last year — which saw hospitals more full than at any other point in the pandemic — and worse than pre-pandemic years once again.

At the peak of the respiratory virus season, there could be between 15 and 25 new weekly hospitalizations for every 100,000 people in the US, according to the analysis. Covid-19 will probably account for half of those new hospitalizations, with flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) combined accounting for the other half.

“With the addition of a third virus (COVID-19) that can cause severe disease, even an average respiratory season can place significant strain on our healthcare system,” the CDC wrote in a summary about the outlook.
(..)
Covid-19 hospitalizations have been ticking down for about a month. There were about 16,000 new admissions in the second week of October, which will likely hold relatively steady over the next several weeks, CDC ensemble forecasts suggest.

The CDC also considers flu activity to be low currently, but some regions have seen slight increases. About 2% of outpatient health care visits were due to respiratory illness that included fever plus a cough or sore throat during the second week of October. That’s still below baseline level — but it’s already higher than it was at this point in any season since 2010, excluding last year, according to CDC data.
(..)
“Even with the end of the Covid-19 (public health emergency), our nation is in its strongest position yet to fight the three viruses responsible for the majority of fall and winter hospitalizations — flu, COVID-19, and RSV,” a spokesperson from the US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to CNN.
(..)
As of Friday, nearly 12 million people have gotten the new Covid-19 vaccine since they were authorized last month, according to HHS. That’s millions more than the week prior, but still less than 4% of the US population.
(..)
Hospitals always plan and prepare for respiratory virus season, but it becomes more important as respiratory viruses compound amid a system that’s strained for other reasons, too, said Dr. Kedar Mate, president and chief executive officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

“Emergency rooms are already bursting at the seams. Add to that the respiratory season that’s coming in the next couple of months, and we’ve got a recipe here for a very challenging winter for our hospitals,” he said.
(..)

Pingui posted:

Srice posted:

I'm glad I got my booster thanks to folks in this thread being vigilant about when they were made available, but even a month out from them being out there most of my friends and relatives that want to get the booster haven't been able to. Maybe that's a factor wrt the low vaccination rates? Nah, clearly it's a moral failing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/10/23/new-covid-vaccine-harder-to-find/71171851007/ posted:

Despite promises, the new COVID vaccine booster appears harder to find. Here's why.

Americans eager to get jabbed with the updated COVID-19 vaccine in September were disappointed when they began looking for doses.

Some pharmacies weren't posting enough appointments, others didn’t have enough vaccines. Most hospitals and clinics hadn’t gotten their shipments, yet.

Patients who had been through the motions with previous rollouts swiftly realized they were going to have a harder time finding shots this time around.

This season’s rollout was the first time the COVID-19 vaccine had entered the commercial market.
(..)
One element has remained constant: the making of the vaccine is fluid. For manufacturers, it’s mostly business as usual.

However, industry experts say problems have arisen in every other stage of the process – with wholesalers and distributors, pharmacies and insurance companies.
(..)
Limited appointments
This season’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has put immense pressure on pharmacies during a time when they’re typically busy administering other vaccines required for children headed back to school, industry experts say.

In addition to the updated COVID-19 vaccine, federal regulators also recently approved and recommended a new RSV vaccine for older Americans.

Pharmacists at chains like CVS and Walgreens have had little control over the barrage of appointments their employers set up since the first rollout in 2020. After weeks of administering the fall 2023 vaccines with little reprieve, they staged a walkout citing concerns over working conditions as staffing dwindled.
(..)
Delayed shipments and orders
As patients struggled to find appointments at chain pharmacies, others tried turning to local hospitals, community health clinics and independent pharmacies. But they didn’t have vaccines on hand.

Providers at some facilities said they've just begun receiving their first shipments of vaccine in the past few weeks. Others say they’re still waiting for supplies they've ordered or they have been unable to order shots altogether.
(..)
One problem is that wholesalers and distributors prioritized larger accounts with chain pharmacies, such as Walgreens and CVS, before satisfying smaller orders from other healthcare facilities, industry experts said.

“When the market mechanism takes over… bigger accounts get priority,” Yadav said.
(..)
It remains to be seen whether wholesalers can satisfy smaller accounts as these facilities have already begun running out of their first doses.

Limited vaccine doses
(..)
“In many cases, pharmacies are getting underpaid (by insurance companies) for the vaccine or won’t be paid for a matter of months,” said Amanda Applegate, director of practice development at the Kansas Pharmacists Association.

The limited cash flow has forced pharmacies to be conservative when ordering vaccines from wholesalers, industry experts say, which is why some pharmacies had limited doses despite the high demand at the beginning of the season.

“A lot of stores are afraid of leveraging more cash in a vaccine they don’t know they can sell,” said Winslow, from the Virginia pharmacists group. “They have to think about how many doses they can order and when they’re going to have to pay their wholesaler back and compare it to when they get paid with insurance to make sure they have the cash flow to keep the whole model going.”
(..)
Vaccine inequity: Who really suffers?
(..)
But industry experts said people who really suffer are residents living in marginalized communities, who, according to research, were most impacted by the pandemic.

These are the patients that Perez sees at her SOMOS facility in the Bronx: People who are underinsured or uninsured, don’t speak English, work multiple jobs and can’t navigate the health system with as much ease as their mostly white and affluent counterparts.
(..)
“Will the vaccine actually be received by those individuals? Will they be able to find the locations, the pharmacies and the health departments where these Bridge Access vaccines are available?” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
(..)

RandomBlue posted:

Look at the vax rates for the last booster: 17%
(..)

Poppers posted:

Anyone have any tips for making an aura more comfortable … ? I’m at work sick because hospitals are ftw and I’m already getting a headache from wearing one. If I crimp the bridge of the nose for an actual seal it blocks me from breathing through my nose and makes me really nauseous so I have no idea if I actually have source control. Would be cool if I had a normal job where I could just stay home whilst sick.

Poppers posted:

Anyone have any tips for making an aura more comfortable … ? I’m at work sick because hospitals are ftw and I’m already getting a headache from wearing one. If I crimp the bridge of the nose for an actual seal it blocks me from breathing through my nose and makes me really nauseous so I have no idea if I actually have source control. Would be cool if I had a normal job where I could just stay home whilst sick.

Poppers posted:

Anyone have any tips for making an aura more comfortable … ? I’m at work sick because hospitals are ftw and I’m already getting a headache from wearing one. If I crimp the bridge of the nose for an actual seal it blocks me from breathing through my nose and makes me really nauseous so I have no idea if I actually have source control. Would be cool if I had a normal job where I could just stay home whilst sick.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-023-01656-5 posted:

Abstract
Previously, we identified an antibody combination A8G6 that showed promising efficacy in COVID-19 animal models and favorable safety profile in preclinical models as well as in a first-in-human trial. To evaluate the real-word efficacy of A8G6 neutralizing antibody nasal spray in post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19, an open-label, non-randomized, two-arm, blank-controlled, investigator-initiated trial was conducted in Chongqing, China (the register number: ChiCTR2200066416). High-risk healthy participants (18–65 years) within 72 h after close contact to COVID-19 patients were recruited and received a three-dose (1.4 mg/dose) A8G6 treatment daily or no treatment (blank control) for 7 consecutive days. SARS-CoV-2 infection occurred in 151/340 (44.4%) subjects in the blank control group and 12/173 (6.9%) subjects in the A8G6 treatment group. The prevention efficacy of the A8G6 treatment within 72 h exposure was calculated to be 84.4% (95% CI: 74.4–90.4%). Moreover, compared to the blank-control group, the time from the SARS-CoV-2 negative to the positive COVID-19 conversion was significantly longer in the AG86 treatment group (mean time: 3.4 days vs 2.6 days, p = 0.019). In the secondary end-point analysis, the A8G6 nasal treatment had no effects on the viral load at baseline SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR positivity and the time of the negative COVID-19 conversion. Finally, except for 5 participants (3.1%) with general adverse effects, we did not observe any severe adverse effects related to the A8G6 treatment. In this study, the intranasal spray AG86 antibody cocktail showed potent efficacy for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection in close contacts of COVID-19 patients.

Potato Salad posted:

try a vflex

I'm serious, if that's the problem you're having with the bridge of your nose try a v-flex

Poppers posted:

Anyone have any tips for making an aura more comfortable … ? I’m at work sick because hospitals are ftw and I’m already getting a headache from wearing one. If I crimp the bridge of the nose for an actual seal it blocks me from breathing through my nose and makes me really nauseous so I have no idea if I actually have source control. Would be cool if I had a normal job where I could just stay home whilst sick.

Poppers posted:

They don’t have those at my hospital dude. It’s auras, duckbills, or those blue cup ones that are even worse

Poppers posted:

They don’t have those at my hospital dude. It’s auras, duckbills, or those blue cup ones that are even worse