Mental Health
The pandemic has clearly been a mental health disaster for many people. Interestingly, though, the number of suicides has not increased according to this study.
Vaccines
They have now found some problems with clotting with the J&J vaccine also. The alarm was first raised on Friday (the day this blog was ah impaired by my reaction to the AZ vaccine), but now it’s clear enough that the FDA recommended a pause.
There’s more than one person who has noticed that the J&J clotting problem looks suspiciously like the AZ clotting problem. This paper (from 2007!) found a link between adenoviruses (which is the type of virus that both the AZ and J&J vaccines use) and this exact type of clotting problem.
It should be stated, however, that there have been a very small number of this type of clotting issue with the mRNA vaccines also.
It’s clear that they know what the clotting problem is, how to diagnose it (screen for PF4 antibodies) and how to treat it (blood thinners WITHOUT heptarin). There have been scientists in Germany, Norway, and (now I discover) also the UK who independently found the cause.
There is currently a study going on in the UK to see how well changing the vaccine (AZ or Pfizer) between the first and second dose works; now there is an Italian study to do the same, but with the Pfizer, Moderna and also Sputnik vaccines.
Not to be outdone, the UK mix&match study just added Moderna and Novavax to their study. (I find inclusion of Novavax a bit surprising, since the UK hasn’t even approved it yet.)
I also just found out there is a study in the US for one shot of an adenovirus vector followed by one shot of mRNA.
Novavax is having problems getting an adequate supply of various materials.