New Variant woes

[specialmom]

I'm starting to think that vaccines are important but more so are therapeutics. I don't think we'll ever get passed these mutations occurring over and over. https://www.genengnews.com/a-lists/seven-up-and-coming-covid-19-drugs/  This article has a list of things that are undergoing testing/trials so they can be available for the public and to me? This is the key.  We need a tamiflu for covid.  Bring it on.  This is getting old . . .   New variant scaring people already.  But I have read that the seriousness of illness from it may be slightly less than previous strains. Hope so!

[orphanedhawk]

I wish from the start we'd been informed not only on ways to boost our immune systems but how to deal with the virus during early stages. Like most diseases, early treatment can make a difference. So far what I've read that helps, is taking vitamin D, C and zinc and quercitin, which helps the body absorb the zinc. Zinc is the main ingredient in many cold remedies and covid is related to the common cold. I had covid in September. I stayed home, drank lots of fluids and treated it as if it were the flu. As I improved, I still suffered from shortness of breath. Doing deep belly breathing exercises that I learned from yoga, helped immensely. One good thing about the new omicron virus is it is being reported as very mild.

[Barb135]

I don’t believe anyone knew at the start that there might be anything we could do to boost our immune system since this was a brand new disease.  Everything we’re learning today is hindsight.

Because I have autoimmune conditions, particularly, Hashimoto’s, I learned a long time ago that zinc is necessary for proper thyroid hormone metabolism.  It’s a plus is that it helps boost the immune system.   The same goes for vitamin D… it’s necessary for proper thyroid hormone metabolism - the plus is that it helps boost the immune system.  

It’s important to remember that if you aren’t deficient in these vitamins/minerals, taking more, won’t help you and as Paxiled said, can be toxic if taken in high doses.  

I have to agree that, at this point, the first lines of defense are the vaccines, along with masking and social distancing.    We all (or most) do the annual flu shot - I read a week or so ago, that this year’s flu shot is only 6% effective.   None of us knew that when we had the shot, but we have to hope it does better than that.  This is not a political forum, so I can’t go there, except to say that had COVID “not” been politicized, I don’t think we’d be in the situation we’re in.  Omicron is rampant in my state and there have been laws passed “against” mitigation.  

[Paxiled]

I kind of answered this stuff before.  Quercetin is a very good antihistamine, but I think you're confusing it with Vitamin C, which it's almost taken with.  It is quite good for you.  But it won't really help against covid.  I already mentioned the downside of taking a lot of zinc above.  If you suffered with shortness of breath, you have no idea whether or not there are blood clots nesting in your lungs that hopefully will never bother you but you don't really know that, do you?   Omicron isn't "very" mild, it's milder than Delta, which is really really deadly.  But since omicron spreads so easily thanks to people not getting vaccinated or masking and distancing and letting it mutate so much, even if it's not that bad for most so many will get it many will still suffer mightily from it.  We're also not sure yet whether in fact it is milder for everyone.  Most of the data is from South Africa where so many already had covid, others were vaccinated, and the population is very young, so it doesn't really apply everywhere.  So we'll see.  It looks like it's milder.  Lets hope so.  And I forgot to mention above, how many times so far have you gotten the tetanus shot?  And the fact is, if you had trouble breathing, you didn't have a mild case.  So again, here's hoping you don't have any long covid symptoms down the road.  Covid is not related to the common cold.  Some forms of the cold are also corona viruses.  Some are not.  Covid is not related to the cold, it just shares in some cases the same type of virus protein formation.  But covid doesn't act the same.  It's possible over many years covid will become very mild.  I'm guessing the cold whenever way back in history it first skipped into humans from animals it was a big killer.  But it's been around for a very long time, and has mutated to be mild.  Our immune systems recognize it.  But do we really have to sacrifice tons of other people so you can be comfortable with your beliefs and mythology?  is that really what you want life to be like?  Peace.

[specialmom]

I think those who had severe cases probably could not have staved it off with zinc and vitamins.  That's really been the problem with covid.  It's very unpredictable. Healthy people were also getting sick.  I hope everyone gets vaccinated to protect themselves. It's always wise to do the known things for the best immune system you can have.  For some people with covid, the immune response worked too well and actually became the problem. For some people, calming their immune response is the treatment they need. I'm glad the new variant seems to be more mild.  Perhaps the herd immunity will be faster as unvaccinated folks get it. It's a hope anyway.  Anything to get over this dang pandemic!  I'm vaxxed and boostered, wear a mask and distance.  Work on overall health.  About all I can do.  

[orphanedhawk]

My suggestion of taking quercitin is that it helps zinc absorption. This is only a suggestion for early partial treatment.  It’s always best to treat early and for some, that may work.

Of course some people can’t take zinc. We all need to know our own bodies.

I have family in Africa and they say that omicron is mild~ which may be relative.

These days I tend to place more belief in people I know than the biases of those I don’t ~ including the media.
☮️

[specialmom]

There is a lot of info out there, orphanedhawk.  For sure.   It does appear that this strain of covid is mild.  I hope they continue to be mild, all the strains to come.  I think there is actually some science to say they likely will be.  

[radar7]

Talking of therapeutics I wonder why existing drugs like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are not being studied more - eg. Dr. Charles Hoffe in Canada mentioned that in his experience Ivermectin given early can prevent serious complications.  
I am in Australia and two of our states NSW and Victoria have reached over 90% double vaxxed.   Despite the high vaccination rate Omicron is spreading quite fast in these two states.   We can only hope and pray it is mild.  Time will tell.

[AnnieBrooke]

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=COVID-19&term=ivermectin&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=&Search=Search

The above lists 82 clinical trials of Ivermectin in treatment of Covid, some studies are completed and some still recruiting. Your statement above that they are "not being studied more" -- are you saying a large number of clinical trials is not enough?

[Paxiled]

Dr. Hoffe is an anti-vaxer.  Don't know if he was always one, but he now hangs with that group.  His claims are unsupported.  He has a small practice in a remote Canadian area and his patients are largely indigenous peoples.  He claims a very high percentage of everyone getting covid vaccines have suffered micro blood clots, which nobody else has found nor could they be legitimately tied to the vaccine as there are tons of reasons people who have other conditions or who are elderly might have these.  Basically you've stepped into the area of covid conspiracy theorists or you are one of them.  As noted above, these medications have been studied, and no benefit was found while harm was found.  As for omicron, that's the problem with it.  The virus was left unchecked in too many places for too long, meaning people didn't mask, didn't distance, and didn't get vaccinated soon enough leaving the virus too many hosts to replicate in and develop defense mechanisms against our defenses.  A booster is now recommended to get higher immunity, but it's very possible omicron will still infect many who are boosted.  What it isn't doing is landing very many of those who are vaccinated in the ICU or killing them or giving them severe cases.  So in the end, it's not a case of not enough study, it's a case of conspiracy theorists not accepting the data because it conflicts with their underlying purpose, which is ideological, not to protect your health.  This isn't to say the vaccines don't harm some people.  All medication harms some people.  Some meds do some measure of harm to everyone, and it's interesting nobody ever mentions these -- antibiotics, steroids, cancer meds, HIV meds, statins, acetaminophen, aspirin -- I could go on, but all of these are far more dangerous to you if not used correctly than any vaccine we have.  Ivermectin can kill you if taken in the wrong dosage, as many are doing by taking animal doses.  Hydroxy is a quinine drug and all of these, originally used to treat malaria, originate from a toxic plant and have to be used with great care.  Be careful about your sources of information.  Don't want to spend your life being used by people with an agenda that isn't intended to help anyone but them.  Peace.

[Paxiled]

Also, did you ever wonder why you mention those two drugs and not the very large number of other drugs that were tried and failed to work early in the pandemic?  I mean, docs were trying anything in Italy when it first hit there until they discovered doing less actually saved more lives.  The answer is, you have only heard of those two drugs because they are the ones the conspiracy theorists are talking about and writing about.  Again, know the folks who are feeding you your info.

[Paxiled]

So, new info on this thread.  There are several different monoclonal antibodies out there, one of those therapeutics Mom was talking about that works very well if you can get it, but it turns out only one of them works against omicron.  The problem is, of course, that all the therapeutics can also be beaten by mutations, which is what has happened.  That's why despite the anecdotal info above Tamiflu has a very low effectiveness -- the flu just has so many mutations.  Same reason the vaccine for it doesn't work very well.  Now, the flu is an old disease so nobody really knew a lot about this kind of thing but covid is new and it just shows, now that we have a pretty good idea of what to try and have so much better chances of quickly developing meds and vaccines that can help if we just do the old fashioned stuff well -- distancing, masking -- and test and then wait for the meds to catch up we can do well.  I hope we learn from this but I am doubtful we will as we are still not doing the basic stuff.  I think Mom now was right, covid is with us forever and most experts are now saying we're all eventually going to get it most likely.  Now the story is surviving it and not getting complications from it, which is still the vaccines preventing severe illness in most people.  Peace, all.

[AnnieBrooke]

An article that was on my feeds today suggested Omicron is milder than Delta, by such a ways that it can usually be treated at home. That would be good, especially if it spreads widely, not only for treatment but because presumably if it does spread widely it will block more virulent forms by providing some temporary immunity to Covid in general. Early in the pandemic there was speculation that as it mutated, Covid might become more like colds or the flu, a seasonal nuisance more than an illness requiring hospitalization and critical care. Maybe this would be seen as a good thing about the Omicron strain, if it spreads and if it's true that it is mild.

[specialmom]

Yes, I can handle mild! I do hope it becomes more like flu where there is some predictability to it and ya, stinks if you get it but there are things they can do (tamiflu) and annual vaccines.  I had heard too that it may be milder but gosh, the panic sure is setting in about it, isn't it? They are talking like if it is not mild, it is like 2020 all over again which ya.  So hoping that is not the case.  I haven't gotten a booster. I know a couple of people who have had reactions. But will get it when/if I need to.  

What you say about more getting mild cases and block further mutations.

This article is hopeful. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7825868/  Possibility of covid eventually being like the common cold.

[Paxiled]

Mom, Tamiflu doesn't actually work most of the time.  It's even less effective than the new Merck covid pill which is only 30% effective.  The Pfizer pill so far in earliest testing was 89% effective, but looking at Tamiflu has done nothing at all to help us with the flu.  Neither has the vaccine, which is 40-60% effective depending on the year.  One reason for that is the flu has been around a lot and has mutated a lot, and every once in awhile a flu variant arises that isn't predictable at all.  From all the info I've read, nobody yet knows whether this new variant is milder or not but it does seem to be the most infectious one yet and that means some number of people will die or get a very complex case even if most don't.  The problem is still the same problem since the very beginning of this mess, which is, folks don't want to do what's needed to beat it for mostly ideological reasons that make no sense as a disease really doesn't care at all about one's politics.  It's the same story humans have always had:  don't choose leaders who have bad intentions.  Choose your leaders, don't let them choose you.  But we never learn it.  But I will not stop hoping that, as with polio and smallpox and other diseases that were once politicized or religiously influenced we will overcome by getting vaccinated, masking, and social distancing until the beast is tamed.  But I also hope this variant turns out to be exaggerated.  I am concerned, as Moderna has already announced it's working on a vaccine for this variant, so somebody thinks it will potentially need special treatment, but again, the info isn't in.  All we know so far is it's highly infectious but don't know how bad it is otherwise or if the current vaccines control it.  We'll see.  Meantime, everyone has to talk everyone else into doing the right thing.  Peace, all.  

[AnnieBrooke]

I just want to say, Tamiflu does work for a lot of people I know. This is a population of elementary-school moms who talk about their kids and their health. More than one has mentioned Tamiflu, and by their reports, it solves the flu almost instantly when their kids get it. (These are the kind of moms who get the kid in to see the doctor and tested first to be sure it is the flu.) Maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but it sounds like you're saying it doesn't work for anyone. These moms swear by it for their kids.

[Paxiled]

Anecdotal info is fun to hear, but studies show the opposite.  It is quite ineffective, and this has been mentioned on the news quite a bit since Merck had their poor results for their covid pill, that as bad as it is it has a higher clinical success rate than tamiflu ever has.  One of the problems with anecdotal evidence is there is no control group and so you have no idea if the drug actually did anything or the person just got better on their own, as we mostly do with the flu.  But no, I didn't say it doesn't work for anyone, but if something only works less than 30% of the time, it isn't a fix for a problem although it might well be a fix for a particular individual.  If our goal is to defuse covid we need Moderna, which is 90% effective.  Get that in everyone soon enough, which we didn't do, and you can actually eliminate a scourge.  With 30% the scourge just gets scourgier.  That was my point, and tamiflu, which has been around for a long time, hasn't done anything to diminish the flu.  Wasn't an all or nothing comment, just a comment about what we need to do if we truly want to get serious about this thing and that means much greater success than anything we've had with flu.  Peace.

[Paxiled]

I might offer a sort of analogy.  Whenever I used to get sick, which I haven't since masking for covid which is interesting, for cold or flu I never went to the doctor in my life but I do immediately start using sublingual zinc, and take an immune system formula based on astragalus, and use elderberry extract and olive leaf capsules.  They help me a lot by shortening the duration and lessening severity, though they are not a cure by any means.  Whenever I notice oncoming symptoms I also start with these and most of the time I don't get sick.  Now, does this prove these are working?  Not scientifically, because there's no control.  It's just me doing these things and noticing how different the results are than they were before I learned about such things.  But it's still quite anecdotal despite knowing from lab studies that olive leaf and elderberry do have some anti-viral properties, that zinc can charge up the immune system (but you can't take a lot of it or for too long as it then become toxic) and that astragalus has been used for centuries to help the immune system.  But that doesn't equal scientific proof that this actually works.  Whereas we do have good studies with tamiflu, and alas, it isn't a very effective med for most people and therefore, again, flu is still all around us.  Peace again.

[specialmom]

I completely agree Anniebrooke.  Tamiflu has actually worked for my own family even with a son who was horribly ill (105 fever that of course started after 10 pm). He got tamiflu the next morning a the doctor as he tested positive for Influenza A and the duration of his illness was much shorter. As well as his symptoms calmed down. My other son got a fever two days later but in anticipation of this, our doctor had tamiflu ready for him.  He took it immediately and never registered another fever after about 4 hours.  It's been a game changer for so many in combating flu which is what we need for covid. It takes the sting out of the fact that some things aren't ever going to be eradicated but that you do not have to fear them as much. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288809 Anyway, yes, I agree.

[Paxiled]

The vaccine is the fix.  Wearing masks and social distancing are the fixes.  Now, if what you're saying is, thanks to right wing politics and conspiracy theories we'll never get enough people to do these things, alas, you have already proven to be sadly right.  We can hope, though.  The problem is, the virus is here now so therapeutics that may be available later don't prevent mutations, nor do we have a therapeutic anyone knows about that will prevent mutations.  Merck came out with a therapeutic and guess what?  Doesn't really work.  30% effective.  Oh, it will be approved, but if you give this to someone who is immune compromised it might just end up with a new variant.  Pfizer has one that in preliminary tests is 89% effective at keeping you alive, but again, could lead to variants.  We started this mess with masks and social distancing to buy time but people didn't comply.  But we got two great vaccines and again people didn't comply but they are still great vaccines.  It's still not too late for us to regroup, realize we're all in this together, and put everything else aside as we should have done in the beginning and get vaccines into the global population.  That will stop the mutations, but again, I think you're right, folks have decided it's a test of their fealty to risk death of themselves and others or risk long covid and even risk their own kids and if we can't stop that then you're right.

[orphanedhawk]

If the vaccine were the fix than vaccinated people wouldn't need boosters but even more so, they wouldn't be getting and spreading covid. I know of people who had both vaccines and the booster, and still got covid. One had a mild case, the other, an elderly man, died. What other vaccine needs boosters and doesn't work well in less than a year ? Call me what you like, I call myself both a survivor and a skeptic. I"m skeptical because I feel we were mislead from the beginning. Once I've been lied to, I have a hard time trusting. So, I trust myself. I had covid in September and recovered by staying home and taking care of myself as if I had a bad flu. Where I live if you test positive they tell you to go to the ER. No thank you !!! By staying home, I could do mild exercises, sit outside in the sun and eat healthy, nutritious food.

[CurfewX]

"What other vaccine needs boosters and doesn't work well in less than a year ?"
1) Whooping cough - even after 5 doses, it's only about 88% effective.  It's one of the least effective vaccines available, yet most parents willingly have their children vaccinated 5x.
2) Polio.  
3) MMR - two doses, 4 years apart
4) Varicella - two doses, about 4 years apart
5) Meningococcal - 3 doses spread across around 18 months.

There are plenty of examples.  

As far as spreading COVID, well - that's like saying, "both Tom Brady and I can throw a football properly."  While accurate, the results will be vastly different, which is borne out by hard data.

I'm glad you recovered fine from COVID.  Many people do not.  Nutritious foods are good for your body, but do not prevent COVID.  If sunshine were the cure, no one in Florida would ever get severe COVID, yet we're struggling right now.

Most ERs around here are saying do NOT go to the ER unless you have severe symptoms.

Best wishes to you with your personal plan, but it isn't driven by evidence and data.

[Barb135]

I couldn't agree more - I've had 3 rounds of the Hep B series and never did develop antibodies.  I was told not to take it again.  

I'm happy for anyone who recovers from COVID without after effects.  I have a sister with compromised immune system (whose family, I believe might not have been careful enough with masking, distancing, etc around her), who first got COVID in October of last year; she was hospitalized twice in 6 weeks with it and still has a variety of after effects.  I just learned that she just went through another bout of pneumonia.   Her immune system has been destroyed by chemo for leukemia/lymphoma and she does monthly immunotherapy...  no amount of sunshine and healthy food is going to help her.

I totally agree that if sunshine were the cure, we (Florida) wouldn't be in the condition we are.  

[CurfewX]

No kidding re: the sunshine!  I live on the Gulf side, north of Tampa, and it has been an exceptionally sunny winter thus far.  Most people in our area have been out and about a whole lot, which kind of explains why sunshine doesn't prevent COVID, and the "out and about" and gathering kind of explains our recent surge.

[Paxiled]

Okay, so here's the thing hawk.  In some ways you're right.  People with very strong immune systems, who eat very healthy foods do in fact do better against all disease, including covid.  Until they don't, that is.  If you're right, then nobody dies.  Everyone does, so obvi0usly you're wrong.  Stuff happens even to the healthiest person, because we were all really healthy once, you know?  The other thing about eating well is, if you haven't done that and you start now, it's too late to help with covid.  It will help eventually, but covid is here now.  As for sunshine, how do you explain the worst places hit are not only Florida, but also California, South Africa, India, Brazil, Mexico, Texas, etc. etc. etc.  Pretty sunny places, right?  So we're all really glad you recovered, if you have in fact recovered -- there are long-term consequences you have that you might not know you have yet.  You might not find out for decades when you get a test of some kind that shows some weird blood clots hanging around.  I hope that didn't happen, but it might have.  So here's the tale as it actually happened:  When the virus first became known, it spread, and in Italy and New York, which both got creamed way back in the beginning -- and friend, Italy is full of sunshine -- docs learned a lot about how to take care of covid.  One of the things was something you figured out for yourself, which was keeping folks off ventilators, taking them outside in the sunshine to breath fresh air, and only using ventilators when everything else failed.  An Italian doc wrote about it and other docs got the word.  We then learned that it was a respiratory virus that spread by breathing in particles in the air, and we learned to wear masks and socially distance.  Except, folks didn't.  Leaders and political movements all over the world told people it was all a hoax.  I'm guessing you might be in that camp.  It turned into a way for people to divide folks so they could take advantage of the situation either to make money or harm a neighboring country or whatever and it became a movement to not try to stay well.  So the old and the obese and the immune compromised dropped like flies, and a lot of otherwise perfectly health people did too.  The point was to buy time for the vaccines, and when they came, we had our second problem:  people like you didn't get them.  That allowed covid to stick around and mutate, and as it wants to survive and only to survive, it kept mutating and now we have variants that are so contagious they are getting around the vaccines, except that severe illness is almost entirely found in the non-vaccinated.  Doesn't mean nobody who was vaccinated isn't getting severely ill, but it's a very low percentage, but the virus still has this large community world-wide of the unvaccinated who are still incubators for the virus and its desire to do whatever it can to stay alive.  If we had done what we were told by the experts, this wouldn't have happened, and if we continue not doing it, we'll be stuck with covid forever, which has probably already become true.  So in case you don't know, we have to get the flu vaccine every year, but because there are so many variants of the flu the vaccine isn't terribly effective.  But in the case of influenza, the disease predated vaccine technology.  Covid didn't.  We got the vaccine, and two of them are really really effective if we had gotten them into everyone's arms the way we finally did with smallpox and most arms with polio and measles.  But we didn't and haven't done that.  We still can.  Covid will probably still be around, but in a much milder way.  As for zinc, you apparently don't know that taking zinc in the amounts needed for immune function when you're sick is a dose that is too high to take regularly without toxicity.  When you're sick, you suck on zinc lozenges so the zinc gets into your system really fast, but you can only take it for a few days and then you have to stop.  Quercitin is largely an antioxidant.  It's vitamin C, another antioxidant, that protects zinc from oxidizing and it's another antioxidant, lipoic acid, that keeps Vitamin C from oxidizing.  Takes a lot to have a strong immune system.  Takes a long time to build one if you don't have one.  We don't have time for that, covid is now.  Or is it your opinion that because you're fine, tough luck for those who aren't?  Seriously, take the time to learn how things happen.  It's fun and it makes you not sound like you've been avoiding the light for too long.  Peace.  

[specialmom]

I also appreciate the fact that while I *may* still get covid being vaccinated, they find that for those that do, they are rarely hospitalized or have a severe case.  It's like flu.  You *might get the flu even though you were vaccinated, but it is very very mild. I know people that have gotten covid after being vaxed and it was mild and I know unvaccinated people who got covid and died.  I believe in free choice for all things health care related for one's self.  I think everyone needs to evaluate and make their own mind up but do think that what they are seeing fully supports vaccination and boosting.