You've probably seen or heard quite a few comments about the fact that we don’t yet know the long-term consequences of COVID-19 vaccines. When vaccines have caused long-term consequences in the past, that has invariably started within a month or 2 of that vaccine dose.
1/12 The much more worrying prospect is long-term complications of the infection itself, which we don’t yet know because COVID-19 has only been around for under two years. When you catch a virus, the virus uses your cells to create new virus particles.
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The immunity you get after being vaccinated for COVID-19 looks to be better than the immunity you get after recovering from the infection. On average, the antibody levels are 10 times higher post-vaccines than post-recovery.
1/4 Plus, vaccines lead to you having antibodies only against the virus’ spike protein, the important bit for giving you protection.
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Nobody is denying that lockdowns are hard. But quite often, the negatives aspects of lockdowns are discussed without even a cursory attempt to consider what might have happened without them.
Thread 1/10 Australia has had just over 30,000 cases of COVID-19 diagnosed and tragically 910 deaths. Globally, there have been 180 million cases officially diagnosed (and clearly many more who were not officially diagnosed) and nearly 4 million deaths.
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There has been a lot of focus on deaths related to COVID-19 but recently we have also been learning more about the degree of ongoing health problems in some of the survivors.
Thread on Long COVID 1/9 We are now aware that a proportion of patients have ongoing symptoms for longer than expected and are labelling this ‘long COVID’ when it persists for at least several months.
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Some journalists, economists and politicians have been saying that we just need to let the virus run and only worry about protecting the elderly or vulnerable.
Thread 1/17 Given that would mean a lot more community infections, hopefully limited to those at lower risk of death or severe infection, let’s have a look at what it would take to try to protect those who need protecting.
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Quite a few people have been asking why the restrictions and mandatory masks in Victoria aren’t getting the numbers down more quickly. There are quite a few reasons, which include:
A thread 1/14 1a.A reasonable proportion of cases are still related to the Aged Care Facilities. This can mean positive cases from the residents, the staff, and also the household contacts of the staff.
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If you’re unlucky enough to be in the situation of trying to care for a household member who has COVID-19, here are some suggestions for how best to do it:
• Have the infected person in a separate room with the door closed.
1/10 • If practical, try to keep windows open to improve air flow.
• If possible, they should use a separate bathroom to others in the house.
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