Tag Archives: vaccine

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 49

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Covid Update #75

All new omicron based variants are extremely infectious but not really dangerous anymore to immunocompetent people. They are evading prior immunity as well as all vaccines to varying degrees. Morbidity remains very low now. The current bivalent vaccines are not showing any improvement over the ancestral vaccine. Death remains almost zero for all healthy previous infected or vaccinated individuals. This is likely the new norm from here on out.

This week we cover covid, vaccine effectiveness, skeletal muscle and dementia, human protein needs and function.

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 47

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Covid Newsletter #74. Why are we seeing massive waves of RSV and Influenza A right now? These viruses normally circulate in the winter only. The answer is nuanced, but likely primarily because of the pandemics social distancing and hygiene activity. During the 2020-2022 cycle of Covid fear and mitigation of viral risk, most of us avoided the normal trappings of viral spread. We masked avoiding the viral droplet portal of entry most commonly used. We kept our children semi isolated from other children where most year to year viral transmission events occur. We practiced enhanced hand washing and sanitizing reducing natural viral spread through contact. In essence we stopped the normal propagation of respiratory virus for 2 years. A whole cycle of children between 0 and 2 years old are RSV and flu immune naive leading to a perfect host pool for spread. The 2 to 18 year olds have had a long pause in exposure reducing circulating virus specific antibodies to negligible levels leading to stronger infections and more spread. Anyone who has a child in college (me) has seen infection after infection pound these students this fall. It seems like they are always dealing with a viral illness. Immunity country wide will return in the coming year to these viral illnesses reverting to the old reality of winter predominance.
Quick Covid Hits and other musings –
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 41

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Coronavirus Update #71 A look at the next pandemic

From a recent article, we see a 10 point series of mitigation measures for a future pandemic based on rational thought: “A more realistic public health approach is to adjust current mitigation goals to be more data-driven and to minimize unintended harms associated with unfocused or ineffective control efforts.”
a) Accelerate vaccinations, b) ease restrictions as fast as possible based on science, c) emphasize education and harm reduction, d) Encourage outdoor activity, e) reopen schools, f) avoid lockdowns, g) deemphasize ineffective mitigation measures, h) reassess testing, i) expand treatment and prophylaxis, j) prepare for future pandemics.
And more…
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 37

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Coronavirus Update 69.

Quick Hits and other musings –
1) In the interview with Dr. Offit there were a few big take aways:
  • Boosters for non risk based teen and young adults are unlikely to provide benefit while offering a small but real level of risk from myocarditis
  • Boosters are offering minimal benefit to the nation from a transmission perspective. At best 8-12 weeks of protection against symptomatic disease
  • Dr. Offit voted against adding omicron antigens to this fall’s booster as there was limited data that it would any benefit. He was in the minority at the FDA advisory meeting, thus this fall’s booster will have new strain genetics in it
  • The boosters could, not shown yet in humans, block future variant immunity to newer strains through viral immune imprinting

A lot more this week to digest.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 35

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Coronavirus Update #68

At this point the fundamentals completely point to a world of Covid mitigation based on personal risk tolerance and previous vaccination and/or disease. It no longer makes any sense for the entire population to be asked to change the way they live and exist. The messaging remains a struggle for me as people including the heads of major health organizations are pushing for measures beyond what is logical. Messaging continues to be unrealistic regarding Covid for society at large. Why?

We tackle these questions and more this week.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 33

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Coronavirus Update 67

Natural infection provides a much better route to transmission protection than intramuscular systemic vaccination because of the induction of mucosal immunity via IgA and tissue resident T cells. (Tang et. al. 2022) If you can tolerate a natural infection without much morbidity, this seems to be a reasonable choice at this time. This is especially important now with the immune escaping variants of Omicron lineage and the reality of the current vaccine booster pool is lackluster in its effect on transmission. This calculus may change dramatically with a newer Omicron BA.5 specific vaccine that is in the works. And much more this week!

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 31

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Coronavirus Update #66

This week is another close look at the current variants of the Omicron lineage, especially BA.5. What is the deal with this strain? Is it causing more heart ache in the United States or just an annoying highly infectious variant? In my opinion, when we have global flairs of Covid 19, there is clear evidence now that individuals that are immune compromised have unwittingly become breeding grounds for genomic mutations in SARS2 leading to variants of concern. These variants become our new circulating troublemakers. Thus, in my opinion, we should be making vaccines in this country that are high quality and targeted to the current strain. Then we should be releasing it worldwide very quickly to people in immune compromised states. This should have the effect of slowing down these emerging VOC’s that are evading our natural and vaccine induced immunity. Finally, we end with a discussion of chronic rhino sinusitis.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

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