COVID-19 treatment and vaccine update thread

[Smoove_B]

My USPS COVID-19 tests arrived today, which is kinda weird given the above information. Maybe I'm just close to the distribution center -or- I'm one of 5 people on the East Coast actually ordering them. Who can say?

[LordMortis]

USPS sent me an email that said to expect them on Monday. Considering they never seems to deliver on Saturday and the don't deliver on Sunday, it's about the same as you.

[LordMortis]

Expected Delivery by
Monday
30 September 2024 by
9:00pm

Moving Through Network

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

PONTIAC MI DISTRIBUTION CENTER

September 30, 2024, 12:44 pm

USPS shipped item

GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49512

September 28, 2024, 12:30 am

I'm about an hours and fifteen or maybe 90 minutes from Pontiac and and it's 2030. I'm guessing that 2100 window isn't going to happen.

[Smoove_B]

Not to harsh the freebie but the tests I received were a brand I'd never heard of *and* they're only good through December of 2024 (originally expired in December of 2023).

So basically they've been sitting in a giant warehouse somewhere for 2+ years....

Free is free but I continue to scratch my head at this entire experience.

[$iljanus]

Not to harsh the freebie but the tests I received were a brand I'd never heard of *and* they're only good through December of 2024 (originally expired in December of 2023).

So basically they've been sitting in a giant warehouse somewhere for 2+ years....

Free is free but I continue to scratch my head at this entire experience.

From someone who has worked in a research lab for a few years I can say that some reagents in expired kits could be salvaged because we knew they had a really long shelf life. Other times there are certain kits that really dropped off in sensitivity past the expiration date. I figure the developing reagent and the antibodies on the strip are probably pretty stable…probably.

Kinda surprised at how loose they’re playing with the expiration date but if experts have randomly screened enough expired lots and they are still sensitive then why waste them. That said there is a bit of faith and trust we need to place in the powers that be. I don’t think I’m filling Smoove with confidence or comfort At this point I’m just thinking I’ll take your expired castoffs and get my vaccine which I know has gone through extensive testing.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I know the answer is always "it depends" and I'd like to think these have been in a temperature controlled warehouse and that the reagents are high quality, but you never really know. I've always been going by the control bar irrespective of the alleged expiration date - if it appears I'm assuming the reagents are good and the test is valid.

[$iljanus]

Yeah, I know the answer is always "it depends" and I'd like to think these have been in a temperature controlled warehouse and that the reagents are high quality, but you never really know. I've always been going by the control bar irrespective of the alleged expiration date - if it appears I'm assuming the reagents are good and the test is valid.

I’m a little concerned by the plethora of companies that are making the tests. Maybe I’m a snob but generic drugs I trust but for lab work I was more particular about the company producing certain lab kits. In research though you’re more stringent about these things but I’m sure we have a cadre of FDA inspectors making sure everything is working correctly.

[Max Peck]

It turns out that at least some pharmacies here have been stocking and selling COVID test kits after all. I had no idea!

COVID rapid tests may be trickier to find at pharmacies this fall. Here's what you need to know

Montreal pharmacist Aleck Brodeur just got a shipment of COVID-19 rapid tests. Ever since the temperature has been dropping, more people have wanted to buy them, he says.

"They go out so fast. We always have to order some every day, and we keep increasing the supply that we order, but they're still all going," he said.

He expects this shipment — 13 kits in total — to be gone by the end of the day. In Quebec, there were 3,882 new laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 between Sept. 15 and Sept. 21.

Unlike last fall, Brodeur doesn't have free rapid tests to hand out. The federal government stopped providing free COVID rapid tests to provinces and territories in May.

In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Health Canada said it is no longer procuring rapid tests en-masse. The agency also says there are no plans to replenish the federal inventory after it is depleted.

That means pharmacies have been purchasing the tests from suppliers and selling them, like any other over-the-counter merchandise. Pharmacists say the supply is sometimes thin.

"We kind of hunt them down and make sure they're Health Canada approved," said Kyro Maseh, a Toronto-area pharmacist.

Artron Laboratories Inc., which manufactures COVID test kits, said in an email it has increased test production in the past few months, and is expecting to ramp it up even more for the upcoming winter season.

[hitbyambulance]

getting double vax'ed (flu and Novavax C19) at Costco Pharmacy on Thursday

[dbt1949]

Got my first shot since the early ones in 20 was it? The VA gave it while getting my cancer treatment. My daughter in law has covid so I thought what the hell. How long does it take to be effective?

[LordMortis]

2 weeks to fully take effect IIRC but you'll know your immunity is building when your arm starts hurt and the headache settles in

[dbt1949]

Thank you

[LordMortis]

Two days later and my tests are still in Pontiac and the USPS put the kabosh on further details. Good thing I didn't need them for time sensitive purposes. It shipped from Grand Rapids, aka a 3 hour drive to 1 hour drive in the wrong direction, where it's "in the network" for three days. It's like they've become Amazon and me not paying for Prime.

Your item arrived at our USPS facility in PONTIAC MI DISTRIBUTION CENTER on September 30, 2024 at 12:44 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.

Edit:

Hi, Michael!

You have 2 mailpiece(s) and 0 inbound package(s) arriving soon.
Wednesday
2
October
2024

I guess today is out...

[Max Peck]

Two days later and my tests are still in Pontiac and the USPS put the kabosh on further details. Good thing I didn't need them for time sensitive purposes. It shipped from Grand Rapids, aka a 3 hour drive to 1 hour drive in the wrong direction, where it's "in the network" for three days. It's like they've become Amazon and me not paying for Prime.

They're just using your shipment as OJT for delivering mail-in ballots.

[hitbyambulance]

got Novavax and 2024 flu vaccines at South Seattle Costco today. i am a liiiiittle tired and my head feels a liiiiittle hot

[LordMortis]

Not to harsh the freebie but the tests I received were a brand I'd never heard of *and* they're only good through December of 2024 (originally expired in December of 2023).

So basically they've been sitting in a giant warehouse somewhere for 2+ years....

Free is free but I continue to scratch my head at this entire experience.

OHC? Mine literally just arrived with a big notification of check online to find out when these expired in Dec of 2023 tests actually expire.

So I'm guessing these weren't formulated with the dominant strain in mind, then?

Ah well. It's not like I'm hanging out with the unwashed masses at this point anyway... Though I'm planning on my first trip out among the populace on Saturday... Again planning... We'll see what happens. it will be among sloppy drunks, but it will also be outdoors, so...

[Zaxxon]

Same here. Good until Christmas. Great planning, Uncle Sam!

[hitbyambulance]

sore arm and i'm feeling a bit sleepy. that's all for side-effects. i remember this was the case when i got Novavax last year.

[Pyperkub]

Test are available to order

https://covidtests.gov/

Thanks - glad we have this here for reference - done!

[Smoove_B]

Kinda interesting. Not really sure what to make of it

Oct 4th update:

We're entering a relative lull for Fall. Infections were 72% higher in 2022 and 33% higher in 2023 and 2021 for the same week. No sign of slowdown in the decline. Estimates:

430,000 new infections/day
1 in every 78 people currently infected

[The Meal]

Interesting that its fundamental cycle does not appear to align with our yearly calendar.

[Zaxxon]

I was about to come here to post that this week’s Colorado numbers are the first meaningful drop in this wave. Wastewater numbers concur, with their own large drop. Woo?

[Smoove_B]

Interesting that its fundamental cycle does not appear to align with our yearly calendar.

I maintain the best descriptor is that COVID-19 continues to slosh around in a way we've yet to figure out.

[The Meal]

Yup. I wish I had a working model in my brain for how these things worked.

[Max Peck]

I just put the non-seasonality of COVID waves down to the whims of rapid fire mutation. That seems to be the dominant driver rather than the environmental/behavioural factors that cause the likes of influenza to be more predictable.

[Smoove_B]

Yup. I wish I had a working model in my brain for how these things worked.

The core issue is that we are still learning - we don't fully understand all the variables. By all accounts it's still an emerging disease in human populations and we're doing nothing do stop it from circulating (which, for the record, continues to amaze me).

So whatever models emerges after accounting for:

(1) Vaccination
(2) Prior exposures
(3) Seasonal / environmental conditions
(4) Variant virulence
(5) Individual, unidentified risk factors
(6) Wild factor X

And I guess we'll figure it out. Or not. We still don't fully understand Ebola (the reservoir) and we've been studying that since the 1970s. I mean, we have good guesses, but we don't have it fully modeled.

In short - this is what uncontrolled disease spread in a population looks like; it's a perfect example.

[Smoove_B]

Weekly U.S. COVID update:

- New cases: 91,800 est.
- Average: 122,641 (-18,476)
- In hospital: 4,187 (-470)
- In ICU: 509 (-42)
- New deaths: 1,209
- Average: 1,254 (-86)

...

With more than 1,200 new COVID deaths in the U.S. this week, the death toll for the past 2 months has risen to more than 10,000.

At the same time, new cases are dropping across the country in the aftermath of the summer wave.

~45K deaths YTD. I was talking to someone last weekend about COVID-19 deaths and he guessed somewhere around 15K in 2024. When I told him closer to 46K (so far), he was absolutely stunned. When I pointed out over 10K had died in the last ~8 weeks alone, complete disbelief. You think you'd hear more about that, eh?

Regardless, it looks like we might be above the 2023 total (~49K) when the year ends, but I guess we'll see.

[Smoove_B]

Study confirms a lot of the anecdotal evidence we've been hearing:

Covid-19 could be a powerful risk factor for heart attacks and strokes for as long as three years after an infection, a large new study suggests.

The study was published Wednesday in the medical journal Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. It relied on medical records from roughly a quarter of a million people who were enrolled in a large database called the UK Biobank.

Within this dataset, researchers identified more than 11,000 people who had a positive lab test for Covid-19 documented in their medical records in 2020; nearly 3,000 of them had been hospitalized for their infections. They compared these groups with more than 222,000 others in the same database who didn’t have a history of Covid-19 over the same time frame.

People who caught Covid in 2020, before there were vaccines to blunt the infection, had twice the risk of a major cardiac event like a heart attack or stroke or death for almost three years after their illness, compared with the people who didn’t test positive, the study found.

If a person had been hospitalized for their infection, pointing to a more severe case, the risk of a major heart event in was even greater – more than three times higher – than for people without Covid in their medical records.

What’s more, for people who needed to be hospitalized, Covid appeared to be as potent a risk factor for future heart attacks and strokes as diabetes or peripheral artery disease, or PAD.

[Isgrimnur]

People who were hospitalized for Covid but who were also taking low-dose aspirin had no increase in the likelihood of a subsequent heart attack or stroke.

[Smoove_B]

The aspirin thing is interesting only because of the study done years ago suggesting that only a relatively small cohort of at-risk people benefit from taking a daily aspirin. I was on one for a while but then my cardiologist told me to stop as I was in the "high risk" (i.e. age) category.

Also from the study:

Researchers have known that people with certain non-O blood types – A, B or AB – are at higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Blood type also appears to play a role in how likely a person is to get Covid. People with O-type blood seem to be a bit protected there, too.

In the new study, people with O-type blood who were hospitalized for Covid didn’t have quite as high of a risk of heart attack or stroke as those with A, B or AB blood types. But that doesn’t mean they were in the clear, Hazen said: They were still at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, but their blood type was just another variable to consider.

The researchers believe that the gene that codes for blood type may be playing a role in the increased risk in heart attacks and strokes after Covid, but they aren’t sure exactly how.

[Default]

At the early stages of COVID, a lung specialist and a kidney specialist rode in a elevator together, and the lung doc mentioned that he was seeing a lot of blocked capillaries in his patients. The kidney doc said he had noticed the same thing.
The blood clots have been a known aspect of COVID, but that gets no press.
Seems like a prudent action to take low-dose aspirin.

[Isgrimnur]

My blood type is my elementary school GPA: A+

[Blackhawk]

That would make mine type C-positive.

[Isgrimnur]

It may not extrapolate to the community at large.

[LordMortis]

That would make mine Does not play well with others. Sounds about right. Also they used a numeric rubric to supplement comments and comment check boxes.

[Blackhawk]

It would actually make me AB, but C-positive was worth more of a chuckle. I'll just say that I averaged it with my high school blood type, which would have made me type D-negative.

[Punisher]

My blood type is my elementary school GPA: A+

Nice try. Bots don't go to school.

[Formix]

Ugh. Turns out my insurance doesn't cover the vaccine. $250 out of pocket to get the jab is a little too rich for my post-helene wallet, so I guess I'm rolling the dice this year.

[LordMortis]

Ugh. Turns out my insurance doesn't cover the vaccine. $250 out of pocket to get the jab is a little too rich for my post-helene wallet, so I guess I'm rolling the dice this year.

Wow. Just wow.

[Smoove_B]

Ugh. Turns out my insurance doesn't cover the vaccine. $250 out of pocket to get the jab is a little too rich for my post-helene wallet, so I guess I'm rolling the dice this year.

I would check with a different provider. It's possible your insurance only covers a limited number of venues for vaccination.

Also, it's total nonsense.