Coronavirus Vaccine: Would you/did you get it?

[Arkay]

@anneg thank you so much! I missed WS, but I needed to keep myself from being emotionally overloaded. It's been a tough year for all of us in different ways. Even fully vaccinated, I'm still mainly staying home, but I hope once the weather warms up I'll start to feel more comfortable going out.

Really hoping that everyone here has strength and hope and good health going forward.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

FDA recommends pause for Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine after extremely rare blood clotting cases (clickondetroit.com)

FDA: ‘Right now, these adverse events appear to be extremely rare’

United States health officials are calling for the immediate pause of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) single-dose COVID-19 vaccine after six recipients developed a rare blood clot disorder.

The FDA and CDC announced Tuesday morning that they are recommending a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine “out of an abundance of caution.”...

US recommends 'pause' for J&J vaccine over clot reports (detroitnews.com)

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be paused in U.S. after 'extremely rare' blood clots, FDA and CDC say (nbcnews.com)

Some 6.8 million have received the vaccine in the United States. Of these six have experienced the clot, the FDA and CDC said.

 

[drama_farmer]

Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be paused in U.S. after 'extremely rare' blood clots, FDA and CDC say (nbcnews.com)

Some 6.8 million have received the vaccine in the United States. Of these six have experienced the clot, the FDA and CDC said.

IMO, six confirmed cases are most likely "tip of the iceberg" as they say. Not all sudden deaths are privy to an autopsy, especially where the elderly or infirm are involved.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Report in progress on MSNBC. Phone call with three experts.

 

[gitana1]

Wow, I knew I hadn't been on Websleuths for quite awhile, but when I checked it turns out I haven't been on since April 21 of last year. I guess I was just overwhelmed with talking about Covid.

My perspective a year later, April 12, 2021....I'm enormously grateful for the vaccine. I'm in NYC and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get an appointment when I became eligible. At last, though, I've had both doses plus two weeks, which puts me as safe as can be, considering the variants et. al. First dose I had the same sore arm as with the flu shot. Second dose, I had the sore arm, fever and chills. That lasted less than a full day. As with @gitana1 and others, my thoughts were "thank God. If this were Covid, what a steep slope I'd be sliding down." But I knew it was nothing.

In this year I've lost several friends to Covid. One just two weeks ago, even though she knew everything about masks, social distancing etc. She hadn't gotten her shot yet and all I could think about was if only she had. My other friends died in March and April of 2020, and one in August. But this friend died after there was a vaccine. I also know several people who got Covid post-vaccine but before they reached immunity, shortly after the first dose, but their cases were mild.

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated IMO. I'm trying now to get appointments for my 39-year old daughter and 16- year old granddaughter. They are eligible here in NY but I can't find any availability yet.

I hope everyone is doing well. I've been indoors most of the year. I'm sure everyone has stories to tell, but I certainly can't catch up with a year's worth of WS posts, and just read this page.

So sorry to hear! Do you know how your friends who died caught it?

It’s awful. These are people we cannot get back from this nasty disease.

 

[gitana1]

IMO, six confirmed cases are most likely "tip of the iceberg" as they say. Not all sudden deaths are privy to an autopsy, especially where the elderly or infirm are involved.

One died out of the six. If we look at the millions who have had the J&J vaccine compared with those who had a bad reaction, it’s negligible.

And any sudden death after a COVID vaccine is going to be subject to a lot of scrutiny.

The government is taking this seriously. They want less death and illness not more. I check in with the CDC every day with any vaccine symptoms.

Despite the low numbers of possible complications, they’ve paused this vaccine.

To me, that points to diligence and caution.

 

[gitana1]

Four million J&J vaccines have been administered. Six blood clots. That’s 0.00015 %.

And yet they paused it.

Compare to COVID: 1 in 100 who get it, die. 10 in 100 need the ICU.

I will take the vaccine. (Which I did).

 

[gitana1]

Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be paused in U.S. after 'extremely rare' blood clots, FDA and CDC say (nbcnews.com)

Some 6.8 million have received the vaccine in the United States. Of these six have experienced the clot, the FDA and CDC said.

Ah. So the percentage is 0.000088235294118.

 

[IceIce9]

I have a dear friend who is 70 and has not yet received the vaccination, even though she has been eligible to register for an appointment since January.

Being a frontline healthcare worker and seeing firsthand the devastation COVID caused, I had tried to talk her into getting vaccinated.

She kept saying she was waiting for the J&J vaccine. Finally it was available in our area, and I had finally just convinced her to sign up.

 

[anneg]

I have a dear friend who is 70 and has not yet received the vaccination, even though she has been eligible to register for an appointment since January.

Being a frontline healthcare worker and seeing firsthand the devastation COVID caused, I had tried to talk her into getting vaccinated.

She kept saying she was waiting for the J&J vaccine. Finally it was available in our area, and I had finally just convinced her to sign up.

I hope she can be convinced to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine instead.

 

[anneg]

Cross-posting from main thread.

Very interesting article--well worth reading, IMO.

These Moms Work as Doctors and Scientists. But They've Also Taken On Another Job: Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation Online

These Moms Work as Doctors and Scientists. But They've Also Taken On Another Job: Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation Online

Last March, friends and neighbors began stopping Emily Smith in her town outside of Waco, Texas, with questions about the coronavirus. An epidemiologist at Baylor University, Smith knows all too well how viruses are transmitted. But as the wife of a pastor and as a woman of faith, she also holds a trusted position in her community, and she would speak to those who asked about why she personally thought social distancing was a moral choice.

As the weeks wore on, the questions kept coming: “What does flatten the curvemean?” “Is it safe for my child to kick a soccer ball outside with a friend?” So she started a Facebook page and called herself the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist. She adopted “Love thy neighbor” as the page’s credo.

Smith wrote from the perspective of a scientist but also a wife and mother. ....

A year later, she has more than 76,000 followers on her Facebook page, and her blog gets 1 million to 3 million hits a week.

But as her digital footprint has grown—she now has followers all over the world, including a strong contingent among evangelical mothers living in the South—so has the amount of misinformation that pops up in the comments of her posts. That, too, she tries to approach with a “Love thy neighbor” ethos.

“They come in with this bunk science, and I still try to be neighborly instead of jumping all over them,” she says. It’s not always easy. When commenters suggest that wearing a mask “signals you don’t have faith in God” or that attending church in person is a must because “worshipping is worth dying for,” she will post studies showing how distancing and mask wearing can save lives. If they spread misinformation, like that European countries have banned the AstraZeneca vaccine, she explains that those countries have paused, not banned it. If they start making racist comments, she blocks them.

Smith, who has two children, draws fortitude from a text chain with about 30 women, mostly moms, all with M.D.s or Ph.D.s. Among them are Katelyn Jetelina, who operates a page called Your Local Epidemiologist (181,000 followers) and the all-female team of doctors and scientists who run the page Dear Pandemic (76,000 followers). She calls them her “gal pals.” They have spent the little spare time they have during the pandemic trying to provide their communities with information about a virus that, especially in the beginning, few people understood. Now with vaccines available to Americans who meet an expanding range of eligibility requirements, they are trying to both demystify the science and debunk conspiracy theories.

(much more at link)

 

[IceIce9]

I hope she can be convinced to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine instead.

I hope so too. I’ll certainly try.

 

[scdiv]

The government is taking this seriously. They want less death and illness not more. I check in with the CDC every day with any vaccine symptoms.

Awesome. Do you use the V-Safe app? I think that's a great thing for people to register and use.

 

[Arkay]

So sorry to hear! Do you know how your friends who died caught it?

It’s awful. These are people we cannot get back from this nasty disease.

None of us know how any of them caught it. If their families know, they haven't shared that information. However, we all believe that the friends who died in March and April of 2020 were just victims of the overwhelming amount of virus that made NYC Ground Zero last year. We didn't know much about it when it was first circulating and we didn't know about masks and so on. It could be from being in the elevators and lobbies when we were ignorant. The one who died in August was a shock, and the one who died two weeks ago, none of us can figure it out.
They weren't in nursing homes or anything; they lived on my block. These are all 23-story buildings, densely populated, but we all know how to keep safe now, so it's just extra tragic.
Thank you for asking, @gitana1

I have some friends who had the J&J and they are fine. Even our now apparently crazy Gov. Cuomo had J&J (at least that's what he said publicly). If I hadn't had my shot and J&J were all that was offered, I would take it. The percentile of those who developed blood clots, while terrible for each of them, is still infinitestimal.

 

[Simply Southern]

The death was in Virginia

CDC investigating Virginia woman’s death in connection to possible side-effects from Johnson & Johnson vaccine

According to the state’s vaccine coordinator, Dr. Danny Avula, the woman’s death happened in March and was reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

 

[Seattle1]

I have a dear friend who is 70 and has not yet received the vaccination, even though she has been eligible to register for an appointment since January.

Being a frontline healthcare worker and seeing firsthand the devastation COVID caused, I had tried to talk her into getting vaccinated.

She kept saying she was waiting for the J&J vaccine. Finally it was available in our area, and I had finally just convinced her to sign up.

I had the J & J one week ago today -- without adverse effect.

I understand from my personal physician that the temporary halt to the J & J is more out of precaution to communicate the exact type of treatment required for the clots which may not be the first or typical treatment for a patient presenting with said reaction.

There's no direct link that J & J is causing a new condition but most likely a pre-existing condition reaction.

IMO, that's a big difference.

ETA: blood coagulation system - best addressed by those knowledgeable.

 

[Seattle1]

EXPLAINER: What's known about J&J's vaccine and rare clots

WHY SUSPECT IMMUNE RESPONSE?

The first clue: A widely used blood thinner named heparin sometimes causes a very similar side effect. Very rarely, heparin recipients form antibodies that both attack and overstimulate platelets, said Dr. Geoffrey Barnes, a clot expert at the University of Michigan.

“It kind of can cause both sides of the bleeding-clotting spectrum,” Barnes said.

Because heparin is used so often in hospitals, that reaction is something “that every hospital in America knows how to diagnose and treat.”

There also are incredibly rare reports of this weird clot-low platelet combination in people who never took heparin, such as after an infection. Those unexplainable cases haven’t gotten much attention, Barnes said, until the first clot reports popped up in some AstraZeneca vaccine recipients.

Health officials said one reason for the J&J pause was to make sure doctors know how to treat patients suspected of having these clots, which includes avoiding giving heparin.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later Tuesday provided advice on how to spot and treat the unusual clots.

[..]

WHAT ABOUT OTHER VACCINES?

The most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. -- from Pfizer and Moderna -- are made with a completely different technology, and the FDA said there is no sign of a similar clot concern with those vaccines.

What about people worried because they received the J&J vaccination? Marks said it’s important not to confuse the rare clot risk with normal flu-like symptoms people often feel a day or two after a COVID-19 vaccination. He said concerning symptoms, such as severe headache or severe abdominal pain, would occur a week to three weeks after the J&J vaccine.

 

[momrids6]

nvr mind

 

[weepingangel]

Awesome. Do you use the V-Safe app? I think that's a great thing for people to register and use.

I just got a vsafe message today. First time in months. I was a little surprised by it Had phizer in early jan.