Pfizer and Moderna 80% effective 2 weeks after first shot. Now that's great news!

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/cdc-study-shows-single-dose-of-pfizer-or-moderna-covid-vaccines-was-80percent-effective.html

Yep. Amazing news! The CDC study indicates that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not only highly effective in keeping people from getting sick, but they are also highly effective in preventing people from getting infected at all. This is huge, as it means that people who have been vaccinated are no longer a significant transmission vector:

Consistent with clinical trial data, a two-dose regimen prevented 90 percent of infections by two weeks after the second shot. One dose prevented 80 percent of infections by two weeks after vaccination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/world/pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines-infection.html

I'm 11 days into my first shot. Hopefully I'm already close to that 80%

Stanford scientists saved drops of the COVID-19 vaccine destined for the garbage can, reverse engineered them, and have posted the mRNA sequence that powers the vaccine on GitHub for all to see. The GitHub post is four pages long. The first two are an explanation by the team of scientists about the work, the second two pages are the entire mRNA sequence for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. "RNA vaccines have become a key tool in moving forward through the challenges raised both in the current pandemic and in numerous other public health and medical challenges," the scientists said on GitHub. "Despite their ubiquity, sequences are not always available for such RNA. Standard methods facilitate such sequencing."

According to Stanford scientists Andrew Fire and Massa Shoura, this isn't technically "reverse-engineering" a vaccine. "We didn't reverse engineer the vaccine. We posted the putative sequence of two synthetic RNA molecules that have become sufficiently prevalent in the general environment of medicine and human biology in 2021," they told Motherboard in an email. "As the vaccine has been rolling out, these sequences have begun to show up in many different investigational and diagnostic studies. Knowing these sequences and having the ability to differentiate them from other RNAs in analyzing future biomedical data sets is of great utility." [...] According to Shoura and Fire, the FDA cleared the Stanford project's decision to share the sequence with the community. "We did contact Moderna a couple of weeks ago to indicate that we were hoping to include the sequence in a publication and asking if there was anything that we should reference with respect to this... no response or objection from them, so we assume that everyone is busy doing important work."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/03/29/2049250/stanford-scientists-reverse-engineer-moderna-vaccine-post-code-on-github

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9gya/stanford-scientists-reverse-engineer-moderna-vaccine-post-code-on-github

https://github.com/NAalytics/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV2-spike-encoding-mRNA-sequences-for-vaccines-BNT-162b2-and-mRNA-1273/blob/main/Assemblies%20of%20putative%20SARS-CoV2-spike-encoding%20mRNA%20sequences%20for%20vaccines%20BNT-162b2%20and%20mRNA-1273.docx.pdf

Which part is the secret tracking transmitter?

My son was sent home yesterday because a classmate was diagnosed with COVID. For over a year I’ve been carefully avoiding everyone and everything and now that a vaccine is within a few weeks, we falter at the finish line.

Heading in to get tested today. I wish my government had got its shit together faster.

Next week New York opens to everybody over age of 16.

It was super tough to get an appointment 2 months ago, now it's easy.

Seems like a light at the end of the tunnel.

A real one. Not like the one they kept telling us about a year ago.

Today they opened up for everyone 30 and over.

Looks like there's a 3 week wait between booking and the actual appointment within a 125 mile radius from me.

Maybe it's easier in the city now.

Seems to be lots of next day appointments available. The drugstores entering the fray has really helped.

I'd get on some waiting lists for surplus shots near you. We've received a number of end of day calls from CVS but they never allow for enough time to get there.

My girlfriend is for sure 100% now. I have not even heard her cough in weeks.

Her brother is not doing too well, he is in the ICU.

His wife just went to the emergency room also.

I blame their Mom, and so does my girlfriend and her brother.

Nothing is wrong with their Mom, but she has that disorder that she thinks something is all the time wrong with her.

If a doctor even gives the Mom any pills she will not take them.

At this point they are all pretty sure that they caught this stuff while taking their Mom to her doctor in Alabama for just bull crap when there is nothing wrong with their Mom other than the usual back ache kind of stuff we all get as we age.

My girlfriend has told me forever that when she takes her Mom to a doctor they try to be nice, but they have to just roll their eyes sometimes.

There is a word for that condition, hypochondriac I think.

It sucks that my girlfriend was sick for about 6 weeks and in the hospital for 5 days. I hope her brother and his wife can pull through also.

At least now the Mom is upset about all of that, and I hope it gets her out of the funk that she has been in for way too long.

(one minute the Mom is like oh, I can not even walk. the next minute she is walking fine to the kitchen).

(I am a lot younger, and I am also stiff when I first get up. I guess their Mom has never figured out that is normal with age yet).

I wish all of you the best! Keep being careful! This is not over yet.

Now I am just hoping that my girlfriends brother and his wife makes it.

I am concerned about my Mom also. I think she is too careless. But I do know if Mom has not had a shot yet she is getting one soon, I forgot what she said.

So a few cases in Brisbane Queensland and a 3 day lockdown for the CBD. Trouble is one visited northern NSW. Big music festival supposed to start tomorrow is now cancelled. Full mask wearing mandate across Queensland so will be interesting to see how this unfolds over Easter, of all times to get an outbreak.

I just scheduled both shots. I'm getting the first dose tomorrow afternoon.

I got my first Moderna shot today, Washington State opened up vaccines to a lot more people today, I knew that was happening and was able to book an appointment yesterday. This afternoon Gov. Inslee announced that on April 15th they are opening it to everyone 16 and older. I feel I got in right before the floodgates, everyone is complaining tonight that can't book a vaccine shot anywhere in the state. I tried to help a few people find an appointment and they are booked solid everywhere!

I got mine at a mass vaccination center at the Boeing plant in Everett where they are doing 800 shots an hour. It was run so smoothly, parking lot attendants, quick checkin in, long line but it moved rather quickly, they had us staggered in groups of 200 with reservations every 15 minutes and 5 nurse stations doing the shots.

Everyone was super nice, friendly, and it felt a little like when we used to vote in person, everyone was doing it for the good of the community and the country, as well as their own safety. This was the day it opened up for construction workers and restaurant employees, so there were a lot of big beefy dudes with more tattoos than me gettin' jabbed. After the shot, I got back in my truck, cranked some punk loud as fuck and let out a loud scream. It felt like the hugest release and relief after a full year of isolation, pandemic, social distancing, and being so apart from my friends and family.

France appears to be experiencing another wave of infections, and is issuing new lockdown orders:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56597319

My youngest is getting her first Pfizer shot Monday (her first day of eligibility) on campus. UF appears to be taking care of business.

In other news, I was in line at Aldi's yesterday. This old, maskless prick walks around the barrier and gets face to face with the cashier talking and would not get out of his face.. Irritates the shi* out of me.

One of my cousins is anti vaccine. I won’t argue with him. Not yet. In time we will discuss it, I’m sure.

A couple years from now.

The bottom line my doctor said everyone should get it. The vaccine. So I did.

He was given a chance to get the vaccine.

Sounds like words on a tombstone to me...

Not trying to be so grim. More pinball!

9E9DD26D-82AD-44B0-8346-E4B096743BFF (resized).jpeg

You see that wiring pile? Dang. That gets me excited.

The harness you need might be in there.

Took my grandmother, aunt, and myself to get our first shots today at a local CVS. We were in and out in about 30 minutes, very efficient and easy process. 1 down, 1 to go!

Dammit the double masking didn’t work. Come on man! Get with team. You know the thing!

The second one contains the tracking device. (just kidding).

But seriously, my girlfriends brother must be in a lot worse shape than my girlfriend was during her 5 day hospital stay.

They made him sit up right all day doing breathing treatments, and they will not let him talk. They only let him text.

I worry about him. He has a tiny yard and just cutting his grass wears him out and he can not do it all in one day.

He is not overweight, just out of shape from sitting at his computer working everyday.

Canada and Brazil, especially Brazil, are having problems with the variant.

For the past 7 months or so, my son has maintained a tight bubble with 3-4 coworkers. They play D&D together, but they’ve been super careful that if any of them are around any new people, they shift to Zoom for a couple of weeks instead of hanging out in person.

My husband is fully vaxxed, I got my first shot a week ago, and I’d managed to score my son his first shot yesterday. We found out Weds night that one of his friends had exposed the entire group on Saturday, bc he went back to in person classes, but it didn’t register in his mind that he was around new people bc he’d been doing zoom for so long. And as you’ve probably already guessed, there was an outbreak at his school and he carried it in to their bubble.

Net result? Two people in the group definitely infected, 3 others now needing to isolate and get tested (and losing hours at work). My husband should be protected by his vaccine, and I’m hoping (based on the article I shared last week) that I’m at least partially protected too. My son had to cancel his appointment and get a nose swab instead, and all three of us need to keep isolating. (If my son is positive, we’ll get tested, but he’s thankfully not showing any symptoms right now). Luckily my next shot is after the 14 day quarantine window, so I don’t need to reschedule yet, but if my son does have it, that’s another potential blow.

And this whole mess is exactly what you are warning about. The first kid let his guard down and stopped perceiving that he was at risk for exposure, which in turn affected the other kids who had been so careful for so long, and we’re just becoming eligible to get their shots.

Just got my first shot this morning. Pfizer - no side effect so far (*), not even pain in the arm.
The place where I was vaccinated is the indoor Velodrome Stadium that will be used for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Very impressive!

(*) Well, one Side effect: I am going to buy tickets to watch in 2024 some cycling race there! This panoramic picture does not do proper justice to the place: it must be very impressive to watch a competition there.

IMG_2237 (resized).jpeg

Bloomberg has a nice interactive vaccine distribution chart. Screenshot below of usa rates.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

USA is going gangbusters, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like we were fast enough to avoid the next surge (British variant). I worry that what’s happening in Michigan right now is a harbinger of what will happen nationwide in a few weeks.

We were so close. So close.

5495A3F4-715B-49FB-B9BB-BE410C7E0CFB.jpeg

I got my second Moderna shot yesterday and woah, what a rough ride. First few hours were fine but 8 hours after the shot I was declining. Chills, body aches, shivering, and fevering all night long. Presently at 21 hours since the shot and seem to be improving but certainly not completely over it yet. My covid-hibernation has been very tight for over a year - I'm gladly taking this little "punch in the gut" with the hope of better days ahead.

If you happen to be in the DC area and are seeking a wait list that delivers, check the Hagerstown Walmart. It's not the path I took but apparently they consistently have many more doses than arms.

-Rob
-visit https://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or my replacement LED display board for model H & S Skee Ball

Hope you feel better soon. A couple days compared to what Covid could bring may not be that bad in the long run. I get my 2nd Pfizer shot next Friday so bracing for a possible weekend under the weather.

My sister lives in your area (Arlington/Falls Church area). What is the current criteria for accessing a vaccine in that area? She is in her late 40's so wondering if her turn is up or hopefully coming in the near future.

I received my first Pfizer dose 2 weeks ago. No side effects besides a sore arm for 1-2 days. Expecting possibly more after next week's 2nd dose but maybe not. My wife had her second dose over a week ago and had no side effects. My parents had some fatigue and felt off for a few you days after their 2nd but nothing too bad.

Even if I spend the weekend in bed with chills and some fever next week, it seems like a small price to pay to be protected from what Covid could do and to have protection going forward.

Pfizer here. 2nd shot was 2 weeks ago last Wed. No sore arm (was just like a flu shot), no side effects with either shot. Ditto with the wife. We both just turned 60ish.

Interesting sidebar: My financial advisor who is maybe right around 50 and who had COVID months ago got hit with a whammy for a couple of days after his first Pfizer (I think) shot. While talking to him, we sort of assumed it was because his body already had the antibodies from having COVID and the shot may have kicked them into overdrive. Just speculation tho.

Pfizer, 1st shot sore arm for a day, 2nd shot no side effects at all. I'ma so happy!

I had my second pfizer dose almost a month ago and the only side effect I got from either dose was a sore arm. Seems like I was on the luckier side of it.

My wife got her second pfizer dose early this morning and so far she has no side effects either.

My dad is finally coming to visit this weekend for easter. It's been a long time since he has been able to safely come but we are all vaccinated and ready to socialize. Bring on the easter ham and weekend games!

Wife and I had both Moderna shots. After first one we both felt a little fatigued for a couple days, sore arms for 3 or 4 days.

Second shot - 2 days of every ache and pain in my 54 yo body turned up a few notches, low grade fever and some chills towards the end. Tylenol every 6 hours for 36 hours or so and then it broke and I was 100%. Took my wife about 3 days.

I received my first Pfizer shot yesterday afternoon. My arm is sore today, but I have no other symptoms. My friend said that you should keep your arm moving for thirty minutes after getting your shot. Supposedly, it can help with the soreness. Of course, he didn't mention this until AFTER I got my shot.

My first dose of Pfizer was a couple weeks ago. Sore arm that night and into half the next day. Plus I felt a little "off" for about another day. Really no big deal at all. Honestly I'm a bit fearful of the second shot and how I'll feel, but that is just a normal reaction. And I've heard from a lot of people that only had sore arms, and only a few that were a bit flu-like for 12-36 hours. So the worst that will happen will be not feeling great for a day. And the reward is hanging out with some people I miss (who are already vaccinated, or getting their second dose soon). Worth it!

I had noticeable fatigue about 36 hours after my first Pfizer shot, and my arm was mildly sore. BTW, you can log how you feel after the shots with the CDC so that they can get better info on how prevalent different side effects are.

https://vsafe.cdc.gov/en/?fbclid=IwAR08Wc8Py55t2PBkLm54a_yHNQRyAiUEk99X5NXxFatIplYvxgBF7ppaNxM

I received my first dose of Pfizer this morning. No symptoms except I feel a little sleepy tonight, but I did get up earlier this morning than I usually do. So far no noticeable arm soreness but I kind of expect the soreness to be on the day after.
When the shot was given I did not feel anything other than a sensation like if someone is lightly pushing their pinky into the skin.

Glad to hear everybody is getting vaxed up!

I had my second shot a week ago, feeling great.

We canceled Easter dinner with family a few days ago. My province is hitting new records with the new variant/strain. Even with staggard vaccinations it's very doubtful rising cases will drop before Christmas. We are locked down further at midnight and lines at grocery stores have already started.

My prayers to Brazil as well

I got my Pfizer shot on Wednesday afternoon. After a few hours my shoulder felt sore straight down to my elbow. The following day on Thursday my entire arm felt sore. It's as if somebody completely punched as hard as they could right into my shoulder. It was painful somewhat raising my arm to take a shower, etc. Today is Friday and it's still sore but more concentrated at the site of injection.

Better than ending up dead or on a ventilator though.

Thanks - I'm at hour 35 now and feeling the best I have all day. Spent the hours between my previous post and this one completely non-functional on the sofa. Ref your sister, I don't know who is officially 'in the batter's box' these days but I know many peers that have 'lucked into it' so it seems pretty widely available. She could get wait-listed into one pretty easily. My experience at Manassas Park community center was an immediate scheduling of the second appointment when the first dose was given and I understand the Walmart I noted earlier does the same. Another data point - my uncle has been volunteering for the Red Cross at a vaccination facility in Pittsburgh - they can do 1000 per day but recently have had days with only ~700 arms. So everybody who wait-lists there gets in. Allegheny County runs that clinic I believe.

More on my Manassas Park shot - I was enjoying nice weather waiting in the parking lot while my high risk wife was getting her second shot when the volunteer manning the door asked if I needed a shot. It was late in the day and they had just opened a multi-dose package to finish the scheduled appointments. They can't keep open doses for long so they were happy to poke one into my right arm. Right place, right time, or as TZ sometimes says, "Lucky!"

-Rob
-visit https://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or my replacement LED display board for model H & S Skee Ball

Got the Moderna #2 almost 1 month ago. It felt like a wonderful moment when I got the second.
Just really tired first 72 hours but that was only symptom.
Now almost 4 weeks after both shots, wife and I are feeling fine.
Got lucky and got in early (thank God for spying a Facebook post from a local pharmacy - at that time had 3 pending appts. - wait listed - with medical centers but none of them could get vaccines) - WTF??

Keep the faith, ya'll.

I mean, businesses can already not serve you for myriad reasons. Maybe we can think of vaccination like Club membership, Jacket required. There was a place in Detroit recently that refuses to serve you if you are wearing sneakers or smell like pot smoke.

I got my 2nd Moderna dose on March 5th. In both cases, all I had a was an arm that was sore to the touch only. Sometimes I wonder if I was given a placebo since nothing untoward happened.

Looking at daily vaccination doses, China massively leading the world with exponentially rising dosing, currently topping 5 million per day and counting. The US ramping up gradually @ 3 million, in second place. India catching up with 2.1 million in 3rd and rapidly rising now, presumably using the sequestered Serum Institute's AZ vaccine (so long Covax for now). The UK in 4th @ 0.5 million or so, desperately trying to keep its end up. Other countries mostly stable/flat but not in the same league as the top 3 in terms of gradients.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-19-vaccination-doses

I guess the learning is, you need to make the vaccine(s) locally! Global supply chains have not worked during the pandemic, particularly for critical things like PPE and Covid vaccine.