quote:

If you're uncertain of your immunization status, it's safe, with a few exceptions, to go ahead and get an MMR shot now to minimize your chances of getting measles. And that's the point: As an adult, you're likelier to develop complications from the illness, which can include pneumonia and brain swelling, health officials say.

"There's no downside to getting a dose of measles vaccine," says William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University and an infectious disease and vaccine expert. "If you're [already] protected, it won't help much, but it won't harm you. And if you happen to be susceptible, it will give you over 90 percent protection."

This advice also applies to people born between 1957 and the early 1960s who may not have been vaccinated against measles at all.

Schaffner says it's not a blanket recommendation — do check with your doctor. But it's reasonable to consider getting the MMR shot, especially if you live in a community where there's an outbreak of measles or if you're traveling out of the country to places where there are outbreaks currently — including Israel, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines and some countries in Europe and Africa.

"If you were born between 1957 and 1963 and you are unsure of your measles immunization status, and you are so inclined, sure! Go ahead and get a dose of MMR," Schaffner says.

Another option if you're unsure of your vaccination status is to get a blood test to determine whether you are immune. But the CDC says this is likely to take two doctor's visits and cost more than a vaccination. So it may be easier to just get the shot.

Steve Yun posted:

how much was it

Soap Scum posted:

nice!

also curious how much it was >.>

Ham Cheeks posted:

I have been away from covid news for maybe a couple months. What is the big variant going around right now? Any new and terrifying information about what covid does to humans?

edit: only trust your respirator

Ham Cheeks posted:

Any new and terrifying information about what covid does to humans?

durrneez posted:

makes u wanna swab ur actual bussy for a sample

Platystemon posted:

Mola Yam posted:

uh so we're still pretty sure that you get the childhood mmr vaccine and you're good for life, right? i don't need to booster bandit for loving measles do i

Ham Cheeks posted:

(..)
Any new and terrifying information about what covid does to humans?
(..)

Ham Cheeks posted:

I have been away from covid news for maybe a couple months. What is the big variant going around right now? Any new and terrifying information about what covid does to humans?

edit: only trust your respirator

super sweet best pal posted:

Why the gently caress is measles back? That was one of the big triumphs of 20th century medicine. As in, eliminating diseases with high mortality and permanent disability rates was one of the things that allowed modern society to get as big as it did, and if we let them come back we're all hosed.

Rochallor posted:

Measles was already having a bit of a resurgence the past 10-15 years as anti-vaxxers refused to get their kids vaccinated. So you have a younger generation without immunity and an older one who either got the MMR shot or nature's vaccine starting to die off, meaning a more vulnerable population overall.

And that's before giving kids covid 2-4 times a year.

super sweet best pal posted:

Why the gently caress is measles back? That was one of the big triumphs of 20th century medicine. As in, eliminating diseases with high mortality and permanent disability rates was one of the things that allowed modern society to get as big as it did, and if we let them come back we're all hosed.

A Bag of Milk posted:

JN.1 consumed the entire variant soup that we've been swimming in for awhile. Its beefy and responsible for the second worst peak of the pandemic which we are still near the top of, coming down the other side now. Imo nothing has changed to the extent that should inspire people to change their behavior in years.

I do take a streptococcus salivarius k12 lozenge every day now. This probiotic binds to the covid spike protein and inactivates it. It was discussed in this thread awhile back. Some very promising small cohort studies, but I wouldn't call the evidence a slam dunk.

Dren posted:

Someone posted about S. Salivarius a couple days ago but I don't think the papers were posted directly. This first one is cool because they showed that S. Salivarius expresses proteins that mimic part of the spike, thereby inducing the production of antibodies in the saliva of vaccinated individuals.

Cross-regulation of antibody responses against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and commensal microbiota via molecular mimicry

One of the papers referenced by the first study points out that "the oral cavity is a primary source of the lung microbiota community" therefore it stands to reason that the oral probiotic is beneficial to the lung as well, though antibodies in the lung were not measured in the first study. They also point out that S. Salivarius has been "widely clinically investigated especially for its effective action in contrasting ear, oral, pharyngeal, and tonsillar infections caused by S. pyogenes, S. pneumoniae, M. catarrhalis, and/or H. influenzae." Which sounds great.

Clinical Effects of Streptococcus salivarius K12 in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: Results of a Preliminary Study

Another referenced paper is The administration of S. salivarius K12 to children may reduce the rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection, where 128 schoolchildren in Milan were enrolled in a study where half were given S. Salivarius for 90 days (this was pre-vaccine) and they were swabbed for covid if they showed any symptoms or had any reported exposures. There were 0 covid cases in the S. Salivarius group and 24 in the control group! And that is pre-vaccine! The authors of the first paper noted that there were some cross-reactive antibodies in unvaccinated mice so maybe some people have those too, or maybe there is some other mechanism.

Safety Assessment of the Oral Cavity Probiotic Streptococcus salivarius K12 addresses the safety of S. Salivarius.

I have started taking a lozenge once a day. This seems much better evidence than the nasal spray stuff since they've directly measured how it increases production of spike protein binding antibodies in the saliva and it is highly likely to do that in the lungs too. The recent nature article about inhaled vaccines noted that delivery to the trachea seemed more efficacious than delivery to the upper nasal cavity, which kinda makes sense since the lungs is where sars-cov-2 gets ya.

super sweet best pal posted:

Why the gently caress is measles back? That was one of the big triumphs of 20th century medicine. As in, eliminating diseases with high mortality and permanent disability rates was one of the things that allowed modern society to get as big as it did, and if we let them come back we're all hosed.

super sweet best pal posted:

Why the gently caress is measles back? That was one of the big triumphs of 20th century medicine. As in, eliminating diseases with high mortality and permanent disability rates was one of the things that allowed modern society to get as big as it did, and if we let them come back we're all hosed.

Milosh posted:

Girlfriend got Covid. seaweed spray and masks are keeping me safe. What’s the best recommendation for things she can do to minimize the odds
of getting long covid?

Ham Cheeks posted:

GIMME COUGHIN' GIMME MEASLES GIMME CHRONIC COVID WHEEZLES, OOH

super sweet best pal posted:

Why the gently caress is measles back? That was one of the big triumphs of 20th century medicine. As in, eliminating diseases with high mortality and permanent disability rates was one of the things that allowed modern society to get as big as it did, and if we let them come back we're all hosed.

Rochallor posted:

If anybody else was curious, I looked it up and the MMR vaccine confers lifelong protection of 97% efficacy against measles, the exception being for shots before 1963 which used dead virus instead of weakened live virus.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/29/716894110/measles-shots-arent-just-for-kids-many-adults-could-use-a-booster-too

This article is from 2019, so before the CDC turned into the Center for Disease Celebration.

dxt posted:

How well does that 97% stand up once covid wrecks your immune system?

NeonPunk posted:

If you got your measles shot before Covid, you're fine. Those antibodies basically hang around for like a life time.

However if you got covid before your measles shot...

mags posted:

unless covid dulls yr immune response by disregulating the complement system, but that would be silly, colds dont do that

Milosh posted:

Girlfriend got Covid. seaweed spray and masks are keeping me safe. What’s the best recommendation for things she can do to minimize the odds
of getting long covid?

NeonPunk posted:

Never mind that silly wacky mutated virus in SA.

Now this has some real potential

https://twitter.com/LongDesertTrain/status/1754639862504772044

Mardi Gras is just in a week so perfect timing for this thing

Steve Yun posted:

mechanism behind why some Covid infections cause immune deregulation and others don’t may have been discovered

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300644120

Most of this is flying over my head, but the main points:

Covid variants that cause more death have a proteome that’s higher in cationic amino acids than other variants

The proteome releases peptide shrapnel when the virion gets destroyed by the immune system

these peptide fragments spontaneously reassemble with RNA shrapnel

these reassembled junk piles are the right size and shape to trigger an immune response, making your body think it’s still under attack

Why Am I So Tired posted:

In addition to Paxlovid and serious rest, she might want to ask her doctor about Metformin.

https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/can-diabetes-treatment-reduce-risk-long-covid

The study showed that metformin was associated with a 41% Long COVID risk reduction.

The Oldest Man posted:

common winter illnesses now include

Asthma
Measles
Cold Sores
Psoriasis
Coughs and Colds (but dont say the word covid or the word flu it's all Just a Cold Bro)
Conjunctivitis
Heart attacks

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-factors-weaker-variants-mortality-covid.html posted:

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, together with partners in the Horizon Europe EuCARE project, have shown that the reduced mortality from COVID-19 is not necessarily due to the fact that later variants, such as omicron, have been less severe. Rather, the reduced mortality seems to be due to several other factors, such as immunity from previous vaccinations and previous infections.
(..)
"Overall, our findings suggest that the observed reduction in mortality during the pandemic is due to multiple factors such as immunity from vaccination and previous infections, and not necessarily tangible differences in inherent severity," says Pontus Hedberg, first author of the study.

Omicron variant no less severe
Understanding the disease course and outcomes of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 during the pandemic is important to guide clinical practice and to understand and plan future resource use for COVID-19. A particularly interesting finding is that the inherent severity of omicron has not necessarily been significantly reduced, but that other factors are behind the reduction in mortality.

"The fact that omicron can cause severe disease was seen in Hong Kong, for example, where the population had low immunity from previous infections and low vaccination coverage. In Hong Kong there was a relatively high mortality from omicron," says Pontus Hedberg.
(..)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666776224000218?via%3Dihub posted:

Summary
Background
Investigating outcomes of hospitalised COVID-19 patients throughout the pandemic is crucial to understand the impact of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. We compared 28-day in-hospital mortality of Wild-type, Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variant infections. Whether the difference in risk by variant varied by age was also evaluated.

Methods
We conducted a cohort study including patients ≥18 years, hospitalised between 2020 and 02-01 and 2022-10-15 with a SARS-CoV-2 positive test, from nine countries. Variant was classified based on sequenced viruses or from national public metadata. Mortality was compared using the cumulative incidence function and subdistribution hazard ratios (SHR) adjusted for age, sex, calendar time, and comorbidities. Results were shown age-stratified due to effect measure modification (P < 0.0001 for interaction between age and variant).

Findings
We included 38,585 participants: 19,763 Wild-type, 6387 Alpha, 3640 Delta, and 8795 Omicron. The cumulative incidence of mortality decreased throughout the study period. Among participants ≥70 years, the adjusted SHR (95% confidence interval) for Delta vs. Omicron was 1.66 (1.29–2.13). This estimate was 1.66 (1.17–2.36) for Alpha vs. Omicron, and 1.34 (0.92–1.95) for Wild-type vs. Omicron. These were 1.21 (0.81–1.82), 1.21 (0.68–2.17), and 0.98 (0.53–1.82) among unvaccinated participants. When comparing Omicron sublineages, the aSHR for BA.1 was 1.92 (1.43–2.58) compared to BA.2 and 1.52 (1.11–2.08) compared to BA.5.

Interpretation
The herein observed decrease in in-hospital mortality seems to reflect a combined effect of immunity from vaccinations and previous infections, although differences in virulence between SARS-CoV-2 variants may also have contributed.

https://apnews.com/article/covid-mask-free-speech-lawsuits-new-jersey-108abf877288999f34d1c604b731d34c posted:

Not wearing a mask during COVID-19 health emergency isn’t a free speech right, appeals court says

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A federal appeals court shot down claims Monday that New Jersey residents’ refusal to wear face masks at school board meetings during the COVID-19 outbreak constituted protected speech under the First Amendment.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in two related cases stemming from lawsuits against officials in Freehold and Cranford, New Jersey.

The suits revolved around claims that the plaintiffs were retaliated against by school boards because they refused to wear masks during public meetings. In one of the suits, the court sent the case back to a lower court for consideration. In the other, it said the plaintiff failed to show she was retaliated against.
(..)

Why Am I So Tired posted:

In addition to Paxlovid and serious rest, she might want to ask her doctor about Metformin.

https://covid19.nih.gov/news-and-stories/can-diabetes-treatment-reduce-risk-long-covid

The study showed that metformin was associated with a 41% Long COVID risk reduction.