I am concerned about potential long terms impacts of the virus. Some people continue to suffer long term chronic issues due to the virus, such as lung, heart and brain issues. I don't know what even a mild case could lead to long term. Even some kids are seeing long term impacts. There's still a lot unknown. That's why I am going to be very careful still. Even fully vaccinated, some people will get sick and out of that number I don't know how many might see long term impacts. I haven't heard any statistics on that.
With cases rising in places, and more big events happening around, I'm going to wait for my routine dentist and routine doctor appointments until the end of summer at least. For something between routine and a necessary doctor's appointment, it depends on how comfortable people feel. There's certain things you have to go for, but other things that are simply a personal choice.
With the Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause I think herd immunity is going to take longer than expected. Not simply because of a delay in vaccinations from it, but because some people might be even more hesitant to take any vaccine now. The J&J vaccine is like the AstraZeneca vaccine and it seems like in extremely rare cases they both might be causing blood clots. For the J&J shot in the U.S., the odds are just about 1 in a million based on the vaccine administered so far and the blood clots reported. (though it's possible some more might be reported for people who just got a shot in past two weeks) It's important to take this pause though because when they do likely resume it, doctors need to be aware of what to do in these cases of blood clots. Apparently a common treatment for some blood clots may actually do more harm if they treated these particular blood clots the same way. So doctor's need time to be informed of that and patients need to be aware to tell doctors that they have had a vaccine, especially if it was the J&J vaccine. People who got that vaccine need to be aware of the symptoms that might give an indication there could be an issue. So far the six instances occurred in women and within the first two weeks of getting the shot. Eventually, perhaps soon, they will probably resume the shots after they get some more information to people about the potential issue. Then people will have to decide for themselves if they want this type of vaccine or the mRNA type vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Since the blood clots seem to be rare in the J&J vaccine, I assume they will likely resume it with hopefully some more information on how to treat it out there so that there hopefully won't be any more deaths beyond the one person that died. I still haven't heard of any blood clots from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine and combined they have been much more widely used in the U.S. It might be that the vaccine platform type might be the issue. (J&J and AstraZeneca are vector vaccines and Pfizer and Moderna are an mRNA vaccine.) There hasn't been a definitive link between blood clots of course, but it does seem like there is some kind of connection or we should have seen some with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines simply because blood clots occur in a certain percentage of the population and if it occurred that many times with the J&J vaccine it should have occurred more in the other two vaccines since they have been given out even more. Since it seems like it hasn't, it does seem like there is a link between the J&J vaccine and blood clots. (and the AstraZeneca vaccine too which has seen some cases of blood clots in Europe)
There will be a lot of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine in the U.S. for people who don't want the J&J shot. It won't be too long before all the adults who want it are vaccinated and then it's going to come down to public information campaigns to convince people while we wait for younger age groups to get the vaccine, younger than 16, once approved for emergency use.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/blood-clots-johnson--johnson-vaccine-wellness/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/jj-pause-covid-19-rollout/index.html
"If you experience a severe headache that does not go away, significant abdominal or leg pain that does not subside, or increasing shortness of breath, health officials want you to call your doctor immediately.
Those could be signs of an extremely rare, severe type of clot that may be linked to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine -- so rare that only six cases have been reported in the United States out of the approximately 7 million Johnson & Johnson doses administered to date.
However, if you received the J&J vaccine more than a month ago, the risk is 'very low,' said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during a virtual briefing on Tuesday.
The CDC announced six women between the ages of 18 and 48 had developed a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) -- a clot in the area of the brain that collects and drains oxygen-depleted blood. When this happens, 'blood cells may break and leak blood into the brain tissues, forming a hemorrhage,' according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The women all developed symptoms of this 'rare and severe type of blood clot' between six and 13 days after their J&J vaccination, the CDC said.
The cases prompted the CDC and the US Food and Drug Administration to recommend that administration of the J&J Covid-19 vaccine be paused to allow for further investigation."
"Out of nearly 7 million people who've received the J&J vaccine, there have been reports of six cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, the US Centers for Disease Control and the US Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday. One of those people died." |