A Great COVID Vaccination Story From The CBC's 'Roving Reporter' In Ontario...

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You can listen to Haydn Watters' CBC radio report about 104 year old Patricia McSwain....Here (scroll down).

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Meanwhile, here in British Columbia we're moved things up a little bit for those 80, plus, to make appointments to get their first vaccine dose.

The details of where to call or make your appointment online if you are in Fraser Health are...Here.

Again, remember, elderly folks are only getting the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines as part of 'Phase 2'. Thus, do not be concerned about the safety issue that has recently been raised about the AstraZeneca vaccine (see footnotes, below). 

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As we've noted before, now is not the time to let down your guard regarding viral transmission. 

We also noted that double masking has been shown to increase the barrier to aerosols both for the transmitter and the receiver....The NY Times has a great video of how best to double mask...Here.

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Regarding the AstraZeneca, adenovirus-based vaccine that has been rolled out heavily in the UK, last week we noted that the flagging of a small number of time-associated blood clotting events in Europe was likely soon to become an issue in some jurisdictions. Clearly, that has come to pass with all kinds of points of view being expressed on numerous fronts. Derek Lowe, whose analysis is always critical but data-based and fair, weighs in on the details of this and some comparative efficacy concerns...Here. The safety issue that needs to be resolved is whether or not these events have occurred at a greater frequency than in the same cohort of the population that has not yet been vaccinated. While Britain has crunched its data and has come to the conclusion that the number of clotting events time-associated vaccine administration are not greater than those in the population, other jurisdictions in Europe have not done so, especially when it comes to a small number of serious cerebral sinus thrombosis events as has been documented in Germany...The follow-up issue that will need to be addressed, if there an increase in incidence, will be to determine the mechanistic cause of it.
As alluded to above, there is another potential concern with the AZ vaccine that involves efficacy rather than safety, specifically as it pertains to protection against the South African viral variant (B.1.351). We previously noted that concerns were raised that the COVID-19 vaccines might be less effective against the South African variant based on laboratory results that showed a somewhat decreased ability of recipients of the vaccines to generate antibodies that neutralize that form of the virus...Follow-up laboratory and clinical trial data have now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine that the AZ vaccine also shows a decreased ability to generate neutralizing antibodies against the variant as well as a decreased ability to protect against the onset of mild to moderate disease after infection with the South African variant...A caveat here is the relatively small sample size of the trial which resulted in very wide 95% confidence intervals...As for here in British Columbia, the documented number of South African variant infections is still low - all the more reason to double-mask up and keep on social distancing....

And don't forget that it is the more prevalent  B.117/UK variant that is most worrisome locally at the moment due to its increased transmissibility together with its ability to cause a small but significant increase in mortality Importantly, the UK variant is well whacked by all the approved vaccines...Sure hope I've dealt with reader Booey's concerns here.

Update, Thurs March 18th: The European Medicines Agency, has ruled the AZ vaccine beneficial with no increase in the overall risk of blood clots; however, they do state that administration of the vaccine may be associated with very rare cases of clotting associated with thrombocytopenia (low platelet levels) that can contribute to rare cases of clots in vessels draining the brain (i.e. the cerebral sinus thrombosis mentioned above).

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