Tag: immune response

What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

Mary Pat Campbell
What Makes You More Likely to Get Side Effects From COVID Vaccine?

Excerpt:

Chicago’s top doctor, Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, broke it down Thursday, saying in Facebook Live that younger people are more likely to experience side effects “because younger people have more robust immune system broadly.”

And, according to Loafman, the body’s immune system is what creates the symptoms.

“That’s simply a reflection of the immune response, just the way we have when we get ill,” he said.

Publication Date: 13 April 2021

Publication Site: NBC Chicago

Coronavirus Deranges the Immune System in Complex and Deadly Ways

Mary Pat Campbell
Coronavirus Deranges the Immune System in Complex and Deadly Ways

Excerpt:

Scientists say the coronavirus could undermine the immune system in several ways.

For example, it’s possible that immune cells become confused because some viral proteins resemble proteins found on human cells, Luning Prak said. It’s also possible that the coronavirus lurks in the body at very low levels even after patients recover from their initial infection.

“We’re still at the very beginning stages of this,” said Luning Prak, director of Penn Medicine’s Human Immunology Core Facility.

Author(s): Liz Szabo

Publication Date: 4 March 2021

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

Vaccine Efficacy, Statistical Power and Mental Models

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://zeynep.substack.com/p/vaccine-efficacy-statistical-power

Excerpt:

 If that’s what the vaccine trials were measuring—the height of thewall that is our immune system comparing vaccine effectiveness would make a lot of sense.  Many high-profile, highly-credentialed people have been (misleadingly) describing it exactly in that manner: that if a vaccine is 95% effective, those 5% are left “unprotected.” If Moderna and Pfizer and 95% efficacious, and if Johnson and Johnson is 66%—well, that would mean that 34% of the people are left “unprotected.” right?

Wrong. To get to why that assumption is not right—and why those vaccine efficacy numbers are not the height of the wall that represents the immune system—let me first mention something important The two mRNA vaccines do appear to be spectacular, but they were tested under conditions where those pesky “variants-of-concern”—the B.117 (UK one) and B. 1.351 (South Africa) and P1–were not widespread. If tested now, under equal conditions, those numbers may be closer. Plus, Johnson & Johnson is a single-shot with a trial with a booster underway. So those efficacy numbers may well be much closer in reality than they appear from the trial results. But let’s leave that aside for a moment.

Author(s): Zeynep Tufekci

Publication Date: 2 March 2021

Publication Site: Insight on Substack