Why should you get the COVID vaccine?
1. A recent study showed that even people with mild COVID infections have a loss of blood vessel elasticity comparable to someone five years older.
2. A recent study showed that fragments of Sars-CoV-2 viral proteins—particularly the RNA replicase protein—can be found in circulating vesicles months after a COVID infection and could contribute to the symptoms of “long COVID.”
Beyond that, fewer vaccinated people means more virus in circulation, which increases the risk of infections. It also enlarges the pool of virus, making the evolution of more infectious strains more likely.
For your sake and for the sake of your fellow Americans, get the jab, peeps.
2. A recent study showed that fragments of Sars-CoV-2 viral proteins—particularly the RNA replicase protein—can be found in circulating vesicles months after a COVID infection and could contribute to the symptoms of “long COVID.”
Beyond that, fewer vaccinated people means more virus in circulation, which increases the risk of infections. It also enlarges the pool of virus, making the evolution of more infectious strains more likely.
For your sake and for the sake of your fellow Americans, get the jab, peeps.
The problem Joel is like the flu vaccine–because the virus is constantly mutating, the vaccines will reduce your likelihood of getting it and greatly reduce the likelihood of you dying from it. but do not prevent you from getting it. I know. I have received a Covid vaccine every six months since I was first eligible and regularly masked when indoors with large groups of people until I got it last September. I had received a booster 5 months before and for the life of me I do not know where I picked it up. Mild case and got the paxlovid. Tested negative 10 days after what in retrospect were my first symptoms. A lot better than a sister who died of it after 3 weeks on a respirator before the vaccine was available at age 57, but not like the polio and small pox vaccines of my youth. Do not get me wrong–RFK Jr is batshit crazy and is going to kill and maim millions. If the country ever comes out of this dark period he should be tried if found competent to stand trial and executed if convicted of mass murder. But the vaccines do not keep you from getting the virus and according to your research, my already old blood vessels are now 5 years older than the rest of me.
@Terry,
Whenever I’ve commented on the protection afforded by the COVID vaccines, I’ve always said that it will keep you out of the ED and the morgue. I never said it would prevent infection.
I was in the Moderna Phase III COVID vaccine trial starting in August 2020. I was in the vaccine arm, not the placebo arm. The trial I was in was conducted by our NIH-designated Vaccine Testing and Evaluation Unit, at the Medical School where I was a professor for 37 years. They provided briefings on Sars-CoV-2 starting in late January 2020, and I followed the virology and epidemiology of COVID-19 for a couple years after the pandemic began. I’ve since had 7 boosters. I’ve also had a mild COVID infection, probably contracted on an airport shuttle in Denver.
My BA was in microbiology, and I took college courses in virology and immunology. My PhD is in genetics, and I did further postdoctoral training in molecular biology before starting my faculty position. I’ve authored or co-authored over 100 scientific articles on genetics, molecular and cell biology that have been cited over 9600 times. I taught genetics and molecular biology to thousands of first year medical students, as well as hundreds of graduate, PA and PT students.
As a geneticist, I’m familiar with mutation and with evolution. I’ve also had my own genome sequenced at 30-50x coverage and have my annotated variant call file.
So thank you for your response. I assure you that I already knew everything you wrote and much more besides. Stay safe and keep getting those boosters!
I did not mean to in anyway question your knowledge, but the title was “Why get the vaccine?” and you then pointed out some obscure–to lay people like me– damage to the elasticity of blood vessels. I have no doubt that it does, but getting the vaccine is not going to prevent blood vessel damage if you in fact contract the virus.
On a larger point, the fact that the vaccine does not immunize you from contracting the disease like small pox and polio vaccines is a big reason why there has been less support for it.
Terry:
I believe Joel is most definitely agreeing with you and is just adding his knowledge base backing you up. As far as people not getting it? That is a risk I would not take. There are many things which are not 100% in Medicine. There is always a risk. Just some things are greater risk than others. Some other copy and paste thoughts:
The term non-responsiveness or primary vaccination failure is currently described by the inability of the host/vaccinee to mount sufficient protective antibody responses after primary or booster vaccination. This phenomenon affects about 2–10% of vaccinated healthy individuals1-4 but the immunological background, the clinical consequences, or the question of whether vaccine failure is antigen-specific or a general phenomenon are largely unknown. The most documented is non-responsiveness to hepatitis B vaccine in which up to 10% of otherwise immunocompetent persons do not respond with protective antibody levels to the hepatitis B surface antigen in the vaccine.
While vaccines may not always prevent catching COVID-19, they will protect you from getting severely ill. The 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine is safe. It works in the same way as the original COVID-19 vaccines and all booster shots. They are made using the same process.
For all versions of COVID-19 vaccines, serious side effects have been very rare, and they are treatable.
“2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness, Side Effects, Safety, and More,” Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
@Terry,
The fact that the vaccine will keep you out of the ED and the morgue is a big reason to get vaccinated. There’s also evidence that it reduces the chance of long COVID.
I seriously doubt that most people who avoid the COVID vaccine do so because it isn’t like the smallpox or polio vaccines. While they may use that as a facile excuse, it makes no logical sense.
Many people who get COVID infections have no symptoms. That includes vaccinated people. So how can anyone be certain that it won’t provide them complete protection from their next infection?
As for this: “. . . but getting the vaccine is not going to prevent blood vessel damage if you in fact contract the virus.” Getting the vaccine will prevent blood vessel damage if it helps prevent transmission. Herd immunity and its effect on virus pools in populations may seem obscure, but it is very real. That’s how smallpox was eradicated and why polio is rare when it once was common. It’s why measles was rare before anti-vaxxers started to gain political power. Only seeing value in vaccination because of personal protection is solipsistic. Anyone who considers themselves a patriot will get vaccinated.
The blood vessel issues, I knew nothing about (or forgot) with regard to Covid. A hardening or?
@Bill,
“Normally, arteries and veins stiffen gradually as part of the natural aging process. This study, however, suggests that Covid speeds up that change. Stiffer blood vessels are a concern because they raise the risk of cardiovascular problems, including stroke and heart attack.”
https://scitechdaily.com/covid-could-be-quietly-aging-your-arteries-by-five-years/
Joel:
Since our Pres had Covid, it may be a bit of an issue in his bruising . . .
In 2015, his doctor proclaimed in a letter that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” The physician, who has since died, later said Trump “dictated that whole letter.”
White House claims about Trump’s weight have spawned a skeptical “girther” movement, and the Washington Post has reported that his 2020 case of COVID-19 was “more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time.”
I am very familiar with bruising due to my disorder.
@Bill,
The fact that they’re so secretive is what’s causing the attention.
Joel:
If you have ITP, you bruise really easily as your platelets are low. I have been as low s 1000. Last draw, I was at 126,000
@Bill,
I don’t think anyone has claimed that Trump has ITP.The explanation that he’s taking daily aspirin had salience, but nobody has explained why he’s taking daily aspirin.
My suspicion is that he has congestive heart failure. But I’m not a real doctor.
Joel:
I am with you. I do know when my platelets are low, I can bruise when you look at me harshly. 🙂 Those bruises are significant and his lifestyle is terrible.
Again I am not arguing with you–the fact that I have gotten and will continue to get all Covid vaccines means I see the worth of vaccines in keeping me out of the morgue and ER. I also agree with you that the elites who point out that the vaccines do not give you complete protection from catching the virus are not rational but rather being political. Unfortunately non elites believe their nonsense. I call it “magical thinking” which infects every aspect of the Trump regime– rational thought be damned, lets go with what we want to hear.
I also have a question, not a challenge to your thoughts on herd immunity. I understand that the fewer people who have the virus the fewer people will be transmitting it and that getting the vaccine or catching Covid will make you less likely to contract it in the future thereby reducing the number of potential carriers and transmitters. That in turn reduces the likelihood of any person vaccinated or free rider catching the virus, but because the virus mutates so rapidly, I had understood that it was endemic and would not be wiped out like small pox and polio almost. Indeed, I understood it would be like the flu only historically a lot deadlier and with a lot more lingering side effects. In other words an ebb and flow virus with very little prospect for herd immunity. What am I missing?
@Terry,
If you compare the level of mortality due to COVID in the US today to that of the first year of the pandemic, you’ll see a dramatic reduction. That’s herd immunity.
I think you’re being confused by trying to make an analogy between COVID and other infectious diseases. In the case of smallpox, it could be eradicated because there was no natural host other than humans. We were on the way to doing the same with polio, but then anti-vaxxers shut that down.
Coronaviruses and influenza viruses have non-human natural hosts, so no matter how effective we become in protecting humans, the virus is still present and can still evolve. That doesn’t mean herd immunity can’t help, it only means that it cannot be eradicated by simply preventing human infection. Yellow Fever virus is still endemic to parts of Africa and South America. It used to be a big killer in the US, until it was recognized to be carried by Aedes mosquitos, and effective mosquito control was implemented. Influenza virus is carried by a variety of livestock, as well as wildlife. Coronaviruses are carried by a variety of wildlife. The path to eradication of these viruses is very steep.
Plague (Yersinia pestis) infection had an important role shaping human history. Recurring sweeps of infection yielded herd immunity (and lots of horrible death), until the next generation of uninfected people reached adulthood. Meanwhile, it lived in ground-dwelling rodents. It still appears in the US occasionally, where it is carried by prairie dogs.
Thank you–I knew that the viruses were present in animals but I did not know that was why you could not wipe it out and I did not know that was what was different about small pox as opposed to cow pox. I am still pissed about the anti vaxers keeping polio alive. Too few people alive today went to school with kids who had iron braces on their legs and used crutches to get around.