Covid-19 vaccination experiences

Peter said:
For what its worth.

Today I am 3 weeks after my second shot of Pfizer/BionTech.

My second injection experiences are very slim. And that’s good. I had some very slight soreness in the arm for about 24 hours, but close to nothing of what I call the two days of more “usual” immunological side-effects. So by today, it’s sort of the other way around of the “normal” here, then assuming that younger and relatively young people in general are having a greater immune response after second shot. At least that what the experts say. But most side-effects to first shot here.

It’s hard what to make of the longer though period (relapse) after shot one. It might not have been a reaction to the vaccine at all, but simply just a long period in PEM at level 9-10.

If I were an immunologist I would like to know what, if anything, to make of it, the worse reaction to first shot, then close to nothing after second shot. But I don’t have a clue.
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I share your experience and your thoughts, Peter. I have moderate ME but became bedbound after the first shot of Pfizer’s vaccine. It lasted for about three weeks. After my second shot though I was doing activities the next day. Had more sore arm after the last shot, but other than that I was doing fine. I do wonder why the reaction was much less the second time?

I had an immediate reaction though to both shots, probably MCAS related, but the reaction luckily resolved with antihistamines.

To my surprise, I am better now two weeks after the second shot than I have been for the last eight years. The body feels more like it did before I got ME. Love it! But, of course it’s not something that I count on will last. One can hope though... :) It also makes me really curious into what’s happening in the body??
 
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My daughter has decided to be vaccinated ( huge sigh of relief) - she is not anti vax, but not in a good place just now and the possibility of being made worse made it difficult. We discussed the issues and she did her own research .There are many experiences on social media to make this more difficult and the differences in age and type of vaccine compound things.

There does seem to be a hormonal element noticable in females -younger wth chronic illness report much worse period for the following cycle, those on HRT and perimenopause seem to have more of a reaction ( anecdotal from small sample size) .

I would urge anyone experiencing ongoing or outwith " normal defined" side effects to use the yellow card system - this is effectively a huge trial.
 
Merged thread
Two weeks ago, we took a family trip out of state, our first in eighteen months.

Three-quarters of us had been fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer shot, with the exception being our 11-year old daughter. We’d been extremely diligent for a year and half (often militant) in taking precautions: isolating and masking and distancing since March of 2020.

My wife, 16-year old son, and I all registered for vaccines the first day we were eligible in order to give our family the best chance at protection moving forward. I was ecstatic to get jabbed. We all were. It felt like we could exhale for the first time in a long time.

After our waiting period was over, we were hopeful we could finally begin doing some normal things and left for our first family vacation since lockdown began. We were being as careful as we could while traveling, but as vaccinated adults it’s easy to let your guard down and to generally be less attentive than you had been regarding wearing masks and hand sanitizing and distancing. False security began to set in.

A few days into the trip our daughter started complaining about headaches.............
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https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/07/06/our-family-got-vaccinated-then-we-all-got-covid/
 
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TigerLilea said:
This pandemic is far from over. I wish more people understood that.
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Yes.

IM's employer is keen to have people start going back into their offices. Especially now that many of them have had both jabs.

Of course, they also want them to sign a form which indicates they have read the guidelines the company wants them to follow and also a waiver in case they fall sick.

Basically, the company are trying to absolve themselves of all responsibility. Now, IM can & will follow the rules but he can't force other people to, that's down to the company bosses and HR.

I've heard of people who have had both jabs and still become quite sick (but didn't need hospitalisation) with covid.

Being sick for a week or so is one thing but do we know that those vaccinated definitely do not get LC? Not as far as I'm aware.
 
In the UK there are people who have had both injections and still died from Covid even after the two week period following the second jab, though this is obviously much much less likely than with people who haven’t had the vaccine. It seems that the figures for this are not being published. The behaviour of the Delta variant is still not fully understood, and we now also have the potentially worrying Lambda variant.

I thought I had read that it is still possible to get Long Covid even if you have been fully vaccinated, but I can not remember where I saw it, so may just be making this up.

What is worrying here in the UK is that children are not being vaccinated for the time being and many young adults are still to be vaccinated. However our PM is claiming we have ‘broken the link between Covid infection and death’, which is patently false, and is now looking to drop all restrictions in just under two weeks, including making mask wearing purely voluntary. The government is arguing now it is just like seasonal flue and it is up to individuals to decide their own precautions, at the same time as suggesting publishing regular statistics is unnecessary. This at a time when the Delta variant is spreading rapidly here with infection numbers doubling every two weeks currently.

Effectively the UK government is returning England at least (Scotland, Wales and Ireland set their own pandemic restrictions) to a herd immunity strategy and it is most likely the young will pay the price for this through increasing cases of Long Covid, but also some of the vaccinated through death.
 
Peter Trewhitt said:
In the UK there are people who have had both injections and still died from Covid even after the two week period following the second jab, though this is obviously much much less likely than with people who haven’t had the vaccine.
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Did they disclose the ages of these people who died? We've had a few elderly people die in Canada after 2 jabs, their immune systems are not as robust.
 
Mij said:
Did they disclose the ages of these people who died? We've had a few elderly people die in Canada after 2 jabs, their immune systems are not as robust.
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The only figures I have seen were just very small numbers in one small area; something like four out of nine deaths in one hospital (absolute figures not a proportion) were people who had been fully vaccinated (two jabs more than two weeks before getting Covid). Also these were not official figures, but cited by a local politician when defending his area against the suggestion by government ministers was that the high local levels of infection there were due to the high numbers of ethnic minorities who had a poorer uptake of vaccination, rather than it being down to then new Delta variant.

Since then I have not been able to find any other figures of the numbers dying after being vaccinated. So I have no idea of more general figures, just the knowledge that it can happen.

I suspect these early local variations were related to the fact that these were areas with close links to the Indian subcontinent at time when there was no restriction on travel to and from India. So the high infection rate here was because it was one of the entry points of the Delta variant into the UK. Certainly we are seeing a different pattern now. For example Cornwall around the location of the G7 summit became a Covid hotspot in the following fortnight, even though it did not have a low local vaccine up take or high levels of ethnic minorities.

I may be wrong, but it feels that the government having invested a lot of political capital into our vaccine programme is reluctant to share any data that might be seen to undermine that programme.
 
Just came across this figure, but it was quoted without any source:

“A reminder: the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccines are only 65% effective against the Delta Variant”

The Delta variant is now the dominant strain in the UK.
 
Hi Peter,

You mentioned that you had not seen data on death rates for fully vaccinated people with the Delta variant. I wonder if you've seen this. It's a Public Health England report with some data on deaths due to delta variant and compared vaccinated vs unvaccinated via age group.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201

name of report:

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England: technical briefing 17

Table 4

Attendance to emergency care and deaths by vaccination status among Delta confirmed cases (sequencing and genotyping) including all confirmed Delta cases in England, 1 February 2021 to 21 June 2021

Within the table the following data can be found.

Under 50s Delta death rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated
3689 received 2 doses – no deaths (I think)
52,846 unvaccinated – 6 deaths

However,

Over 50s Delta death rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated
3546 people received 2 doses (how long after second dose unknown) – 50 deaths
976 people were unvaccinated – 38 deaths

I'm not sure what it all means (a bit over my head) but just in case you hadn't seen it yet.

Edited: basic typos
 
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Chezboo said:
Hi Peter,

You mentioned that you had not seen data on death rates for fully vaccinated people with the Delta variant. I wonder if you've seen this. It's a Public Health England report with some data on deaths due to delta variant and compared vaccinated vs unvaccinated via age group.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201

name of report:

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England: technical briefing 17

Table 4

Attendance to emergency care and deaths by vaccination status among Delta confirmed cases (sequencing and genotyping) including all confirmed Delta cases in England, 1 February 2021 to 21 June 2021

Within the table the following data can be found.

Under 50s Delta death rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated
3689 received 2 doses – no deaths (I think)
52,846 unvaccinated – 6 deaths

However,

Over 50s Delta death rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated
3546 people received 2 doses (how long after second dose unknown) – 50 deaths
976 people were unvaccinated – 38 deaths

I'm not sure what it all means (a bit over my head) but just in case you hadn't seen it yet.

Edited: basic typos
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Thank you for this link. So the government is not suppressing these figures, it is just they are not being widely reported.

It looks like in the UK now more vaccinated people in the over 50s are dying from the Delta variant than the unvaccinated.

The figure I cited above for some vaccines only being 65% effective with the Delta variant looks like an over simplification (see https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/...hing-you-need-to-know-about-covid-19-vaccines ). And for many it may not be as bad as the 65% figure might suggest, but still vaccines are less effective against this variant and no vaccine is 100% effective.

[added - another more accessible link relating to the effectiveness of vaccines against the Delta variant https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...AD4arpFN2Sj4PoytrGJmJqVDMPd326edeMEl-Erok6J-8 ]
 
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There are now very few over fifties who aren't vaccinated (less than 1%in Scotland) so if anyone over fifty dies the chances are that they were vaccinated. So it is statistical rather than to do with the vaccine. It has always been known that the vaccine is not 100% effective. (This figure is being used by antivaxxers to make it look like the vaccine makes you more likely to die)

The important figure is how likely you were to die over fifty before vaccination.

The Scottish situation shows that the vaccines are working but the sheer numbers infected are beginning to bring the hospitals to their knees.

It is very worrying that the papers and the BBC are colluding with the UK government to play down all risks and make out the vaccine has made everything go away and normality is resumed. Especially as I think it is being done to try to persuade the population to go back to normal behaviour. Even when the numbers dropped very low in the Spring the shops were not very full. It does not suit business to have all nightclubs open but no one going.

Downplaying longcovid is just part of the same spin.

They are getting away with it because the numbers are low in the South but while it is being reported that Scotland has the highest numbers in Europe it is not so well publicised that the North West of England and Yorkshire are up there too.

The epidemic has been conquered HERE with just a few problem THERE which don't count.

Definitely going for herd immunity.
 
Lindberg said:
I share your experience and your thoughts, Peter. I have moderate ME but became bedbound after the first shot of Pfizer’s vaccine. It lasted for about three weeks. After my second shot though I was doing activities the next day. Had more sore arm after the last shot, but other than that I was doing fine. I do wonder why the reaction was much less the second time?

I had an immediate reaction though to both shots, probably MCAS related, but the reaction luckily resolved with antihistamines.

To my surprise, I am better now two weeks after the second shot than I have been for the last eight years. The body feels more like it did before I got ME. Love it! But, of course it’s not something that I count on will last. One can hope though... :) It also makes me really curious into what’s happening in the body??
Click to expand...

That’s good.

First, I do believe the statement “greater immune response after jab two are common for “normal healthy” people», to be something like a main rule and a valid description. But it also seems to be experiences in many directions, both for the “normal healthy” and among others. The immune system surely is complex.

It awakens curiosity when experiencing the opposite of the normal reaction, but then again, maybe it should come as no surprise at all, given that a lot points in the direction of a messed up immune system. So things that impact a “broken” immune system, could logically maybe turn things upside down from the normal reaction, meaning that some of us experience a greater immune response first jab, close to none the second? That’s the case for some of us, and surely also experiences the other way around for other patients.

And I’ll stop there. Knowing that I have limited knowledge of the immune system and no reason to speculate at this or that. But curious, yes! Can it point in any direction at all, working to much, to little or what?

Personally just very pleased with no adversity connected to jab two and hoping for the 90 something effectiveness. And wishing a speedy recovery back to baseline for the ones with opposite experiences
 
ukxmrv said:
I am now near the 4th month anniversary of my first jab (AZ). Still the same. Extra weak and shaky. My legs are like dragging weights on them. My stamina is much reduced and PEM has a lower threshold and longer effect.
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Same here, @ukxmrv.

Recovery from the transient paralysis, caused by the AZ vaccination, has stalled. Struggling with basic self care, the fatigue and muscle pain is unrelenting with no sign of improvement in sight. Life has been very much horizontal these past 4 months.

I hope you turn the corner soon, @ukxmrv.
 
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