Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinations

Also relevant if you are deemed extremely clinically vulnerable and depend on a Personal Assistant/Unpaid carer/partner or family member for your care:

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.c...-people-to-take-control-over-pa-vaccinations/

 

My caree, who's down as extremely clinically vulnerable, has recently been contacted by her GP surgery to ask (presumably well ahead of schedule, since we were looking at mid-February for her group) whether she wanted the vaccine. Her answer was a resounding Yes. I feel I'd be happier if her GP gave it the thumbs-up - she's the one who decided on the "extremely" vulnerable bit, and knows the reason why - so I hope the situation can be run by her first. I'm assuming we'll be talking the AstraZeneca jab.

Also, considering that caree is largely housebound, I was quite surprised that the surgery offered to send a nurse round to administer the jab, rather than make her go down to the surgery. I'm wondering what happens in such cases, given that you are supposed to wait around for 15 minutes before leaving to make sure you don't get a bad reaction. Surely the nurse isn't going to hang around just on the off-chance? OTOH, I don't want caree being left alone without medical help in case something happens ...

In the meantime, if anyone finds any indications that the jab may not be good for pwME, please do post. Thanks!

 

I have spent weeks researching the vaccine as best I can online, and agonising over whether to have it or not - rather at least, whether to have it at this time or whether to wait a bit for more research results to come out when larger bodies of people have received it.

I had all the standard vaccines as a child, though as I am nearly 70 there were not so many in those days, and the last vaccine I have had was for rubella when I was 24 as I had just had my first child and they found that I had not had it, or had the vaccine.

I have not taken the flu vaccine so far. I cannot recall when I last had flu. I have agonised over that vaccine too each year.

I had Covid-19 in mid Dec, after close contact with my son and his wife (they did not know they were carrying it to me). They became very ill and I had almost no symptoms - headache if I stood up, and standard fluey feeling for a week or so, and very minimal cough for 2 days. I am assuming that it was my T cell memory reaction that protected me, though of course I do not know for sure.

Since then I have had plenty of weird symptoms afterwards, but many seem to be driven by histamine, and by reducing the histamine in foods they are abating, plus some other digestive issues that have been helped by digestive enzymes (I checked out the enzyme to help with carbs - amylase - and that has helped hugely). I also had an exacerbation of an autoimmune condition Lichen Planus, but I think histamine excess was involved in that too as it is much calmer now. I still have fatigue and some extra muscle and joint pain but that also might be related to histamine, so I am hopeful it will reduce. I still have ME with lack of stamina and PEM if I do too much.

I am not so concerned with the possible allergic reactions (as I I don't expect to get anything serious) but more with the fact that there are no people with autoimmune conditions in the trials so they do not know what will happen to them in the slightly longer term than say, 24 hours. I want to read about reports overall of possible adverse reactions over time before I decide, and some vaccines may have more of them than others, and we don't get to choose in the UK. I read a report of a chap in the US who I think had the Moderna vaccine (it's been widely reported) who then developed thrombocytopenia and died. I have had idiopathic thrombocytopenia (ITP) in my last pregnancy and my platelets have always tested below range since then (but not severely so), so I have some concerns about that for example. I also have the Lichen Planus and Hashimotos Thyroiditis. I just feel that it is an unknown at present.

 

I have decided to have the Astra Zeneca vaccine (and so will my mum), a district nurse is coming round. I managed to get in contact with the GP practice nurse who is really lovely as she has family with ME, and after contacting her I am now feeling that it is safer for me to have the vaccine than to not. Mainly because of having to go into hospital at some point in the future and the contact I will need to have with medical staff and outside my home over a period of several days. And even if I have a relapse with ME now, I will try to rest as much as I possibly can - and it would still be better than me potentially getting covid in hospital or when people come into my home, which could be very dangerous for me.

So I think if I can have any protection at all, it will be better than nothing. The nurse also said the immune response is better in younger people, so hopefully even one dose can give me better protection. I know it’s very likely I will get an increase in ME symptoms after. I’m still very iffy on the figures being thrown around by the govt, but with the way the covid situation is in the U.K, and my other medical issues, I think I’ll do it. I will post about how I get on.

 

Good luck, @lunarainbows! Any idea when it will be?

 

That's good Luna and hopefully getting the vaccine will reduce your anxiety a bit which will make it easier for you to rest.

 

I think soon, within the next couple of weeks. I got a text now saying the GP practice manager has contacted the district nurse so I’ll see if we hear on Monday. And the nurse said it takes 2-3 weeks for the protection to kick in, once the vaccine has been done.

 

I think I’ll still be quite stressed! It’s after 2 doses that the protection is around 70% I think. So I think I’ll still be worried when seeing people at home or going to hospital, as I would have only had one dose and not sure on the data on that yet. So my mum and I will continue to take all precautions! But, I would at least feel that I’ve had some protection, and mostly I am hoping that’s enough to prevent severe infection, then after 3 months that protection should be even better. I think after 2 doses it’s supposed to be close to 100% protection from severe covid / hospitalisation (and around 70% protection from catching covid), according to their study.

edit: found some information if anyone here wanted to read more about 1 dose for different vaccines. Haven’t gone through it properly yet - have to scroll down to find info. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210114-covid-19-how-effective-is-a-single-vaccine-dose

 

I must admit, with all these apparently effective vaccines now coming online, I'm starting to get confused about which one is which, their efficacy, and what they're supposed to be particularly good at combating. How are we going to keep track of side-effects, effects and so on with half-a-dozen vaccines doing the rounds? Will people actually know which vaccine they've received, so they can report back on it? And how will we be sure, if someone assures you that "I've had the vaccine", whether they are unable to transmit it/be severely adversely affected/require hospitalisation etc.? Will we end up being given "specialist" vaccines tailored to our medical history, age, ethnic background etc.? I think I shall need a nice clear comparison table, if anyone knows of one ...

 

Yes, we need a friendly meerkat to help us

 

I'm not sure if some of what's on here COVID-19 vaccine - Wikipedia will help a little. Hopefully at some point wiki or somewhere there will be charts for all you wrote of.

There's a chart under
4 Trial and authorization status

• 4.1 Authorized and approved vaccines
• 4.2 Vaccine candidates

Also an area of vaccine types
3 Vaccine types

• 3.1 RNA vaccines
• 3.2 Adenovirus vector vaccines
• 3.3 Inactivated virus vaccines
• 3.4 Subunit vaccines
• 3.5 Other types

And a short section on
5 Efficacy

 

Moved post

If someone has been vaccinated but develops Covid 19, do we know if their symptoms would still be as severe? Or would the vaccine attenuate their severity?

 

Moved post

I don't think we have that knowledge yet. It requires tonnes of data that isn't available from the trials.

Edit: Add article: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-...-covid-19-vaccine-prevents-severe-cases-68109

 

It's hard to say as the trials don't have that many people infected in the vaccine arms to form strong conclusions.
It is also compounded by premorbid conditions and other risk factors - those who are likely to get COVID19, despite being vaccinated may have risk factors that also predispose them to severe outcomes. This is something that was not examined in most trials as they focused on healthy people - though the Novavax South African HIV subgroup is a notable exception (and note the efficacy was much lower, though not insignificant, at around 50%).
I'd also like to reiterate that antibody titre is not the same as efficacy as a certain manufacturer keeps insisting that their vaccine is great because their phase 1/2 trials showed strong seroconversion in over 65s, but lacks efficacy data for this group of recipients due to flaws in their clinical trial recruitment process.

 

A quick summary of the vaccines we're aware of thus far (potentially for the UK, at least):

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...d-vaccines/ar-BB1dfWnA?ocid=ASUDHP&li=AAnZ9Ug

 

@lunarainbows have you and your carer been offered pneumococcal vaccine? Might be an extra insurance.

https://theconversation.com/amp/unt...ccines-may-reduce-deaths-from-covid-19-147829

Pneumovax is often offered to immunocompromised. It has little side effects and it don’t have to be updated too often. (I think it varies how many years: some have it every 3-5 years, others every 7-10 years.)

 

Yes, my caree had it, I think "this" year - so probably last autumn. Either that, or the year prior to that.

 

More on the "accidental" half-dose in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trial:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/worl...tter-shows/ar-BB1dhpGw?ocid=ASUDHP&li=AAnZ9Ug

 

I've been meaning to post this; it's from last Fridays Independent Sage YouTube broadcast:
"Over 1 million people had their 1st dose by 3rd Jan. Now over 3 weeks out. Are they tracking outcomes? Will they make them public? And by age?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5YRGAk0Rdo

- see slide 14 minutes from the start

So I think the answers should be available - not sure if they'll (UK Government) make the information public though!